To wonder why people let themselves get fat?

[Judgeywedgiepants]

I am frequently amazed at the number of women at 15/17/20 stone who suddenly realise how fat they are and want to do something about it.
Why do people let themselves get so fat? It's unhealthy, unsightly and very life limiting.
Why not just keep an eye on your weight and keep it nice and steady?

I dropped two dress sizes last year (running up hills with kids on ponies, riding my own horse, stable work etc) However, I'm nearly 50 and my face looks a fair bit older than it did when I was heavier, so I am trying to put a bit back on. At my age I think a bit overweight is more attractive than a bit under (I'd also like my boobs back)

When I was 12 stone, Im ony 5ft 2" tall, I couldn't even wipe my arse properly, I was obese according to my BMI, I seriously looked gross at a size 16. I got fat because I ate too many doughnuts.

I've now lost 2 stone and am a loose size 12.

People get fat because they let themselves go, I don't believe the bullshit of an underactive thyroid I have one and am being treated for it that didn't make me fat, eating too much did.

Fat is not attractive, I couldn't even see my toes, and gone were the days I could shave my bits.

I also had a fat back.

ok i'm going to give you a serious, thought about answer you don't deserve.

i think it's because being pregnant forces you to eat differently in a lot of cases (certainly in my case). Breast feeding also played havoc with my metabolism, and once that had all finished (about 3 years after I got pregnant) I found my shape had changed, not because I had 'let' it, but just because for some bizarre reason my brain had been telling me to eat cheesecake instead of a proper meal for about 9 months, and then i'd been eating like a horse in order not to collapse from exhaustion during bf. Life leaves its scars. Wear 'em with pride is what I say.

I think the OP is very slim and doesn't realise and will get unreasonably depessed when it comes to getting her portion of middle age spread...she could do with a more laidback attitude!

I know people who could eat anything and stay thin in their youth, then in middle age gained two or three dress sizes despite exercising regularly, eating between meals and eating healthy/rabbit food when everyone gorges themselves.
It really is something that creeps up on you.

If you're talking about people who are morbidly obese...people who eat burgers and things three times a day and don't stop snacking and aren't depressed/ill and could very well dredge up some willpower AND who also complain about it...well, I must be a horrible person, but I also wonder a little about them.

Why do people let themselves get fat? I don't know about other people, but I have to watch my weight constantly to stay the size I am. If I'm not vigilant, it creeps on, and then I have to do something more drastic about it than cutting back on calories for 2 or 3 weeks.

Other reasons - lack of exercise. And I don't count walking to the shops as exercise.

Being obese as a child - teaches people bad eating habits and presents them with weight to shift going into adulthood.

I also wonder if there is a bit of self denial going on - some people do not realise how large they are. (I remember cycling past a size 18/20 woman once and her shouting a rude remark about the size of my bottom - I'm a size 8 /10 but I'm an athlete, so muscly...).

Choices - I'd rather go for a run in the countryside than cook a fattening meal. I'd rather deny myself a fattening meal cooked by someone else than put on even a few pounds and see my 5k time get worse. I'd rather restrict my calorie intake to 600 a day for a week and risk the supposed health problems you get from that (I have never have and always have more energy than most people I know) than eat a supposed healthy diet which provides me with slightly more calories than I need ie I would put weight on very slowly on it.

Why doesn't OP desrve a serious answer?? he/she asked a serious (if not very sensitively worded) question.

Hear hear to everything bumblingbovine says. I too am overweight because I eat too much and some of it is crap. I have been worse since I got married because DH is a great cook (but not shy with the butter and cream) and also I tend to match his portions (silly me).

I have yo-yo'ed over the years - fat child, thin (too thin as lost periods) teenager, fat at university, got cancer and lost weight (every cloud....), thin 20s, fat 30s, lost weight at weight watchers, got fat again, pregnancy and a traumatic few weeks after birth made me lose weight and then slowly put it all back on over maternity leave (too much cake).

So back to square one again heading for fat 40s.

Obviously, I have food issues (I like it too much for one thing) but, frankly, apart from taking up a bit too much space on a train (I am an 18/20), I am hurting noone except myself and those who can't bear to look at fat people .

However, I am determined not to let DD suffer the same fate I did when i was young - obsessed for years with dieting, only feeling 100% confident in my "thin years". Given how she can sniff out a cake at a hundred paces already though (18 months) it is going to be quite a challenge...

I would say though that I still manage to be mostly happy particularly as I get older and whether I feel confident or not has gradually less to do with my size even though I would still like to lose weight again. I have a good life, a wonderful DH and DD, reasonable health (which I am very grateful for as I know many on here and in RL can't say the same) and a number of interests. For those who can't imagine being happy unless they are a size 10 or thinner I tell you it can be done. But you do have to stop being completely shallow.

im fat, i lost 4 stone last year and felt good. i thought that if i was thin my life would be better. that my mother would love me. that i would have more friends. that it would erase my childhood and make everything rosy.
nope. i was me. but thinner. i still had all my food issues, all my mental issues, my mother found new ways to critise me. it has taken me 6 months to put 4 stone back on.
why? because whats the fucking point? nothing changes! im not worth putting so much effort and graft into my health and wellbeing. i am not worth it.
i eat to feel full, but i never feel full because i am always empty. but i keep eating.
i have just finished a course of councelling and am being refered to a psychiatrist for my eating disorder. the nhs waiting list is a very long one, it could be a year before i get it.
and yes i agree some people at 18 stone do not have eating disorders. but they are most likely to be struggling with self esteem issues and people like you op are what we think the general public thinks when they look at us.
which reinforces our low self esteem.
you are a fucking moron.

and although im fat you will always have an ugly heart, and what man would stick around with someone with an ugly heart?!

I think it has a lot to do with unhappiness and it can be compounded by other factors in your life - such as cooking meals for dc and then eating with them although perhaps you were not really hungry at all, baking "treats" for the dc and eating along with them, being too tired for anything at all that you used to do like sport, dancing etc, lack of babysitters to make that kind ofthing possible.

Then for a while I think you just don't notice quite how much weight you put on. Yes, I do notice when something doesn't for instance but I never weigh myself or look at myself naked in a full-length mirror so I would notice a weight increase but maybe not realise for a long time quite how big the increase is IYSWIM

I think it's in part because we're lazy, and in part it's become normalised by our friends and family, and partly because we have so much access to rubbish food

I was in the diabetes clinic yesterday (not for me) and it was really quite sad

I haven't read all the posts as I haven't got all day, but for me it is because you put on the weight gradually over years, you don't just wake up fat one day.

Do you wake up each day and think "oh another wrinkle, I'm getting older"? No, because it happens gradually and one day you will look in the mirror and see an old lady looking back at you.

Unless somebody has punched your lights out before then, OP.

What I also don't understand is how having less sleep and interrupted sleep slows down your metabolism. When that happens to me, usually due to stress, I lose quite a lot of weight and don't have to watch what I eat. It burns off more calories than you can get in. So how that is meant to make you gain weight, I do not know. It doesn't make sense.

Another thing that doens't make sense is the "not eating late at night" myth. Go to European countries renowned for their slim people, and they all eat late at night. Eating earlier at night just makes you snack. And if you exercise in the evenings with sports clubs, as most people with jobs do, you have to eat late at night. Wierd.

OP - I have thought the same thing before, (think you are mad posting though) think its a combination of:

a) food tastes very nice and they are too lazy to do anything about it, and they don't mind being fat
b) they have dieted before and body is resistant to dieting making it hard to lose, also they hate feeling hungry
c) poor food choices & education, eg diet high in processed food refined carbs
d) food addiction and comfort type eating
e) other issues in their life which make dieting low priority eg disabled child, depression, abusive partner etc
f) weight gain resulting from pregnancy and other hormonal or medical, eg thyroid/pcos, steriods

You are worth it bubbub, you are.
I hope you can see through all this soon with the help you are getting.
My own opinion is that it's normal to be a bit overweight and that doesn't have to impact on health but when you are so large that it does have a big impact that would worry me if it was someone I cared for, same as if they got too thin.

.

What a depressing ignorant and mean post.

nijinsky:
Why do people let themselves get fat? You only have to look at some of the responses to OP on this thread to see why.

Other reasons - lack of exercise. And I don't count walking to the shops as exercise. agree but if you can't exercise you have to reduce the alories accordingly something not many on here seem willing to do.

Being obese as a child - teaches people bad eating habits and presents them with weight to shift going into adulthood.

I also wonder if there is a bit of self denial going on YES BIG TIME!

always because of something OTHER than the fact they ate more food than they needed!

Choices - I'd rather go for a run in the countryside than cook a fattening meal. me too - every single time!

IME it is the vast minority that actually has a healthy relationship with food. Thevery fact that OP is clearly so distressed about other people's body size suggests that he/she has some issues as well.

Where is the OP by the way

Why doesn't OP desrve a serious answer??

Because it's a stupid question. It's blindingly obvious that people have food problems and that's why they get fat. It's not a question that needs to be asked.

Bubbub

"i eat to feel full, but i never feel full because i am always empty." spot on.

I identify the strange empty sensation in my stomach with stress, so I eat to get rid of it.

But you mustn't feel you don't deserve to be thin/happy/fulfilled in other ways. Its just that being thin wasn't what you needed. You need love and self-esteem and although you know that doesn't come from the fridge, you must work to find out where you can find it.

You don't need to "graft' at being 'thin' you just need more in your life to make you happy so your weight isn't an issue and food becomes your friend, not your enemy.

Wow. OP didn't word it in the best way, but did they really deserve all the names and vitriol expressed on this thread? Really?

How lovely for you Chynah.

A thought for anyone out there feeling bad about their weight... I actually earwigged overheard my DP and my best friend's DP talking at the bar the other day about how they don't understand why we spend so much money on spray tans and findit hilarious that we feel bad when we eat too much because curves are seriously hot and skinny girls are boring... so there, OP.

I have just re-read my post and realise none of it answers the OP's question but the fact is I don't know why I can't keep my weight nice and steady even though I can control most things in my life (don't smoke, don't drink to excess, don't gamble, don't run up huge bills on my credit card binge-shopping). All the posts here and the number of fat people you see walking around suggest there must be many different reasons and you are just lucky if weight is one of the things you do have under control.

OK (deep breath) doing you the courtesy of treating the OP seriously.

To put on 10 stone over 10 years you need to eat about 100 calories a day more than you burn - thats a large slice of bread a day.

As you put weight on, you don't initially notice as elasticated waistbands are a marvellous thing. As you put even more weight on you do notice and decide to "go on a diet". Big disaster and for many the beginning of slippery slope downhill as its fairly well documented that the best way to put on wieght is to "go on a diet". There follows many years of dieting and falling off the wagon while still putting on 1lb a month on average - which is disguised by losing 8-10 lbs (hurrah!) then putting a stone on afterwards (boo!).

Eventually you have put on enough weight that your general activity levels decrease because its much harder to get around and you start to feel hideously self conscious about your weight as people start to comment on it and you read multiple threads on Mumsnet in a slightly sneery tone but not in an openly aggressive way which seem to be pointing directly at you - shrieking "YOU ARE SO DISGUSTING, HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO LET YOURSELF GET IN THIS STATE". Though you are slightly confused about why people with issues with drink or alcohol or smoking don't get the same level of vitriol directed at them but you do accept that that you are a big fat failure.

Then you realise that even if you dieted for the rest of your life (what fun) you would probably never get down to a healthy weight and the thought is just too depressing to contemplate

But thats OK because eating does make you feel better briefly and you can do it in private without people looking at you.

If anyone on here is morbidly obese please go and see a sympathetic GP, the NHS has various services they can offer which can really help.

Or maybe its because the fat cells clog up the brain making fat people thicker.

Do you wake up each day and think "oh another wrinkle, I'm getting older"? No, because it happens gradually and one day you will look in the mirror and see an old lady looking back at you.
.
No but I get on the scales fairly often and if they ever get hear 9.5 stone I put the brakes on for a couple of days or exercise a little more.

Think this was somewhere near where OP was coming from as in why don't some of the larger people hit the brakes before they get there.