What caused your weight gain?

I've always been curvy, but I was always small. I started college as a size 4 and without the 2 hours of exercise/day that high school provided, I gained weight, but it wasn't very much, very fast. The last year in college was so miserable for my roommate and I, we started drinking a bottle (or 2) of wine almost every day. We drank when we were bored, anxious, getting ready to go out, or at home for more than 20 minutes at a time. Top that with eating very calorie heavy food all day, and I started putting on the lbs pretty consistently.

When I left college, I saw the weight gain, but I kept tricking myself into thinking that you couldn't notice the few extra pounds. No exercise, a serious wine habit, and homecooked meals again (thanks, mom) didn't help matters. Eventually the weight gain started making me miserable. I stopped wanting to shop or buy new clothes, go out with my girlfriends, and my self esteem plummeted. Every time I got around my friends, I couldn't do anything but focus on how skinny they were and how I felt like "that" girl when we were together.

After a few good breakdowns this year, I woke up one morning with the clarity that losing weight would be the first step to taking my life back, both physically and mentally. Good thing I'm a Taurus - determination and stubbornness have kept me on track! A couple of google searches and several hundred dollars in equipment later, I found MFP. I just made 5 weeks on Tuesday, and I believe that in the morning I will make my first big goal of getting my weight back into the 150s. :bigsmile:

I credit the fabulous people on MFP for helping me out. No one around me understands my struggle, but reading everyone's posts make me feel so much less lonely than I would. This is a *great* post BTW. I like reading about everyone's stories.

I have been big all my life, since childhood ... my parents used to tell me to exercise, but I guess I just didn't care about it. I ate watever I wanted, whenever I wanted .... I was a big dessert person ... cheesecakes, ice creams, chocolates, you name it!

In my teens, nothing changed, just eating away happily :P

When I went to Uni, I had lost some because of all the walking and lack of choices in food (in house cafetaria only has so many options).

Then I got married, pregnant, and wham, gained 90lbs!

So, let's see ... to answer this question - no portion control, eating anything I wanted, and no exercises pretty much caused the weight gain.

Always was the chubby child. Lost about 50 pounds in high school only because I had to walk to and from school with a backpack. Kept the 50 off in college. Met now husband, became very comfortable and gained 80 pounds. (he never once said I wasn't beautiful, and I thank him for that) Tried many different times to diet, only to fail.. Finally got serious and 83 pounds later wouldn't have it any other way! I can run up stairs, I can walk to places without being out of breath, its great! Of course it helps to have a husband who is 110% supportive, all the way down to telling me I dont need candy, even if i really want it.

I had anorexia as young as 5 and turned to bulimia in my later teens. When I started gaining weight I don't think I was eating that poorly and I certainly wasn't lacking exercise, but I was going through some serious stress. First I lost my job, then got scammed of the last of my savings by a bankruptcy attorney, then I lost my car, then I saved my unemployment money and tip money from delivering pizzas for my house payment and chistmas presents and someone broke into my house and took everything I had, that same day I found out my boyfriend had started seeing his ex behind my back, then I lost my best friend after she joined some cult/church and had a mental breakdown, then I lost my home to forclosure and wound up living in an 8x10 room with my daughter at my parents house...by then I had gained 50 pounds and started the closest thing to a full-time job I could find and it was the job from He!! and gained another 30 pounds. All this happened while I was eating well and exercising daily, but I do admit that having no money changes the quality of the food. I got alot of food from food banks, and it was far from nutritious.

:sad: All the "starving kids in China" my mother told me about growing up:laugh:
Burger Chef, McDonalds, the Mighty Mo, the Big Boy & Burger KIng when I became a teenager:laugh: got me addicted to fast food:grumble:
:sad: Keggers in college:drinker:
34+ years of happily married life eating my wife's awesome cookies, pies, and cakes
:grumble: Over 40 years of "desk jockey" jobs in IT :ohwell:
:frown: Too little time to ski
:flowerforyou: Being a good husband with sympathy weight gain when she was pregnant with our 2 kids:flowerforyou:

I could go on forever, but the biggest reason is the inability to say "no" to food!

The typically fat kid that got teased a lot. I was a very active child that enjoyed bike rides and swimming, but was never thin. My sister would sit on the couch all day and eat ice cream and stay a stick, but I would run around all day and gain weight. I weighed 200lbs after high school and gained weight my freshmen and sophmore year of college by eating lots of pizza and not exercising.

My weight loss journey started in 2004 when my brother in law was deployed to Iraq and I was weighing 222lbs. I decided I would put a bet in with him that I could lose 30lbs before he came back... I lost 50 instead. I also found out that same year that I had hypothyroidism. With the help of Curves and synthroid I dropped the weight pretty quickly.

I maintained up until six months ago when I moved acrossed country away from everyone I know and started the most sressful job. I have put on 10lbs and decided now I want to lose all the weight I gained and then some. My goal has always been 160 and this time it will happen! I have stayed active, but just need a little more help counting calories and saying no to Pizza and Chipolte I miss them very much

Wow, some great stories here!

I gained 30 pounds on the Depo shot, but lost that with the help of diet pills and kept it off for some time. I never actually learned how to eat properly. From 19-21 or so, I was at my target weight. I drank quite a bit but I also danced quite a bit and was active- and didn't really eat much, either. Not healthy, for sure. Got pregnant with my first at 21 and only gained 25 with him. Actually LOST 10 pounds due to morning sickness the first three months so when I gave birth I was only 15 pounds heavier than when I started. Within a couple of months I was within 7 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight, even though I didn't nurse him. We didn't have much money so we had no cable or internet, and so I kept myself busy doing housework and that sort of thing.

It started to go downhill when I took a desk job doing customer support for a call centre. Went down further when I moved into Human Resources and had more money. Ate out of the vending machine A LOT. At that time I started to feel fat, but I was a good 15 pounds lighter than I am now.... At my highest I was at 155. Then I resolved to get to my current target weight, started eating better and hitting the gym and lost 10 pounds. Wouldn't you know it. I got pregnant again. Because I'd lost that 10 pounds fairly easily I thought, "it's okay to gain weight, I'm eating for two. I'll lose it after." Ate bad food in huge portions. Got up to 199 before giving birth.... after I healed from my c-section I was 184.

I tried off and on to lose the baby weight. Was nursing and everything but still eating too much, bad stuff. I’d have periods of a few days where I did well but then something would trigger stress and I’d fall off the wagon. I ate to punish my husband when I was mad at him, to comfort myself. I remember eating a burrito one day and almost feeling sexually aroused from it, if that makes sense. I was like, “I would rather eat this food right now than have sex.” I realized then I had a problem, but it still took me a while to really decide I wanted to make a change.

Anyway, it’s taken me about a year to lose 22 pounds. Then, in the first three weeks at MFP, I’ve lost more than 6 pounds. And I don’t honestly feel like I’m missing out on anything. It’s great!

My weight started when I was a child. I was actually a fairly thin and active kid although my step dad always told me I was fat and would make fun of me when I ate. As I got closer to puberty probably early middle school I really started to gain weight fast. Alot of it was from eating from depression because of physical and emotional abuse and a lot of it was also my parents eating habits. My step dad would make us kids walk down a mile to the store to get him a box of donuts, or snack cakes, or whatever. The eating habits are really hard to overcome. I started to lose weight and then I met my husband, got pregnant with my daughter and am now pregnant with my son. I am 242 right now (same as my pre pregnancy weight actually) and just trying to control how much I gain throughout this pregnancy so when I have him I can really get healthy. I lost all the weight really fast after I had my daughter but when you start your pregnancy already 80lbs overweight you have a long way to go. After the baby comes I just want to get down to 160 so my BMI is in the healthy range. (Its about as high as you can go for it to be in the healthy range for my weight.)

:indifferent: Freshman year of college -- surgery to remove an abdomenal tumor. Hormones went whacky, I started GAINING instantly.

:indifferent: Marriage. Poor marriage from the start. Depression.

:indifferent: Pregnancy. Docs should have gotten on me to keep my weight down. I gained 60lbs. I was already 185 at only 5'4''.

:indifferent: C-section, poor recovery involving ER stint, high blood pressure.

:indifferent: Unemployment, post-partum depression.

:ohwell: Started to realize I ate my emotions. Too many bad years = too many bad foods shoveled into my mouth.

Started to take control, monitor what I was eating, forced recognition of eating my emotions. Began exercising.

:indifferent: I dissolved a shell of a marriage while losing my job. Gained again.

Regained control of my life. Found another job. Realized my life was good. Realized how worthwhile I am as a person. Realized how many people love me dearly. Began rebuilding me.

Now, roughly 15 lbs from goal weight, roughly 55 lbs lost. Very proud, still motivated, taking baby steps. :bigsmile:

You guys are so great. This is the only place I can go to where I don't feel so alone with my weight issues!