If you are overweight, what, in your opinion, made you that way?

[SistemaAddict]

There's been lots of threads recently about weight inspired by the government trying to crack down on obesity yet encouraging us to eat out and posters bemoaning the lockdown lard/pandemic pounds. There has been lots of discussion about the causes of obesity or being overweight due to societal and financial factors but I wanted to ask what posters think made them either overweight or obese because reasons will vary. Certain medications and conditions can cause weight gain and/or make it harder to lose weight and the peri-menopause/menopause doesn't help.

I stopped breastfeeding a year ago and my appetite didn't return to normal after stopping so I gained weight. Then my asthma was bad from October onwards and my ability to go on bike rides was limited. Then lockdown and shielding and my 5 mile school hike up and down big hills went out of the window and I ate too many biscuits and chocolate and would eat in the evening while reading or watching tv. I gained around a stone and that took me into the overweight category.

In June I decided enough was enough and started 16:8 and limited myself to around 1250 calories a day. I bought a fitbit and started using my fitness pal. Both encouraged me to go on walks with the dc and to take more trips up and down the stairs than were necessary to meet my target of 25 flights a day. I stopped eating after dinner, watched my portion sizes and cut out most of the junk I was eating. I'm now a normal weight with a BMI of 24. I'm carrying on with my healthier lifestyle and improved habits but it's hard especially in the evenings when I want chocolate. My aim is to get to a BMI of 23 as that is where I look and feel best.

I don't want this to be a judgemental thread, or for anyone to fat shame posters, I just wanted to share my own reasons for weight gain and ask others' experiences because it's a very individual thing beyond "too many calories in vs calories out" and it can be very complex.

Initially it was the pill injection. I put almost 3 stone on with it although my eating / drinking habits never changed. Managed to get 10lb’s off but that’s as far as it seems to go. I now have ridiculously huge boobs (they weigh 1st and I know this because I applied for a reduction and they do all sorts of checks) and a menopausal belly making me look like I’m walking around with a barrel around me. Can’t shift the weight and can’t get my boobs reduced on the nhs so Fuck it! Pass me the chocolate and wine

In my case middle age, sheer bloody physical laziness and wine.

Pregnancy, Underactive Thyroid, lack of exercise, a love of chocolate 🤷‍♀️

I've had plantar fascitis. It's not great and I feel your pain. I had physio and shock treatment on both my feet and thankfully it's worked. I've been free of the pain for a few years. Sketchers shoes are great as they give you support. Don't wear flip flops as that's the worst.
Check out getting physio. It's bloody painful but the best in the end

Mine was laziness, lack of time to prepare food and exercise, stress eating, no respite from two kids a year apart. The reasons are myriad, but basically I like to eat food that is bad for me and don't move enough.

My mum is by nature really skinny and fed us ginormous portions growing up. Always a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar in the packed lunch box growing up, so it wasn’t a treat to me it was just part of my standard diet.
I’ve always been ever so slightly overweight, never obese or skinny, just always chubby, and it’s because I’ve just been conditioned that that way of eating is normal. It’s difficult to unlearn these behaviours. If I eat what is considered a normal diet in a day I feel as though I’m being “good” or “healthy, when in fact it’s fairly standard.
Also, I’m convinced that past generations weren’t as far because food wasn’t as nice. If my only option was meat veg and potatoes every nice then maybe I wouldn’t be so chubby. But I can have takeaways delivered to my door, burritos, curries, pasta etc which older generations in this country didnt have available. We have so much wonderful food, at such great convenience. It isn’t something that’s ever going to go away imo.

Mixture for me too.

Before marriage I was around a size 10-12. I went on the pill as we were students and tbh I really didn't want kids anyway. My husband being a foodie we practically ate out all the time. Trying this new food place or that food place. I got married in July and by Dec I had put on over a stone. The pill was increasing my appetite. When I spoke with the doctor she just said 'yh, it's a hormone and hormones make u hungrier'. No alternative offered. Meanwhile I carried on eating crap. In hindsight I should have had more control over my eating habits. Another thing I was never good at (and still no good at) is portion control.

I ended up being diagnosed with pcos which made it harder to lose weight.

Fast forward to 2017 I got pregnant on clomid..weight continued to rise. I breastfed with the hopes that it would help me lose weight bit honestly it just made me experience hunger like no man's business so I naturally ate more.

After going back to work I was at my highest weight and have stayed there. I now have diabetes type 2..

I'm desperately trying to stick to slimming world at home but find it really hard. Developed pain in my foot and ankle which makes it hard to exercise and always pull something in my back and pelvic area.😔

I really do struggle to control my portions and it's gotten to the point where I go and secretly eat.

I don't know how I even went from someone who could survive on a sandwich all day to this!

Classic combination of being lazy and greedy. I like to eat; I don’t like to move.

I also think I have a smugness deficiency. Ultimately, I enjoy eating biscuits more than I’d enjoy knowing I was the right weight.

Stress.
Ruined my hormones and threw me into a carb cycle.

CV19 has been dreadful. It’s messed up my children’s education and I’ve lost my job.
But, I went low carb and with no commute and more spare time I’ve lost 8.5 kilos.

Eating too much crap

Anti depressants and pregnancy, healthy diet and reasonable exercise but three sizes bigger since birth and PND

Post natal depression. Then got better but still carried on eating loads.

Now it’s simply that I eat too much of the wrong stuff. I’m not massively big but have slipped back into the overweight BMI since lockdown - purely from eating shit and not moving

It's very, very easy to put on weight. Eat one rather large slice of cake/portion of ice cream/packet of biscuits /burger a week, every week, and you've put on a stone in a year.
Stress.
Being anaemic and eating extra calories for energy.
Fat doesn't equal unhealthy, either. You can be overweight and healthy and slim and ill.

As a child I was forced to finish my food. If I didn't, the food would be reheated to such a temperature that it would scald my mouth if I didn't swallow it straight away. I would also be beaten. It wasn't until more recent years (I'm now 44) that I learnt I didn't have to clear my plate. And I could just have smaller portions to start with.

Moved locations and stopped exercising. Still liked a snack in the evening. Only really gained 7lbs over 2.5 years and was still ok weight wise then CV19 hit and we were basically not allowed out of our homes for 8 weeks (not UK). I came down with Covid 5 days into lock down. Was in my bed for 3 weeks sleeping mostly. I took up baking after I perked up a bit and basically ate lots of nice food. I have Lupus so CV19 basically did a number on me. My asthma is still really severe months 5 months later and I don’t have the energy to exercise because I’m worn out and breathless just by going up and down stairs! I gained another 7-10lbs on top of what I’d already gained 😔. Just ordered myself an exercise bike in the hope I can loose the stone I gained!

I'm not sure I can say but I feel like it's developed too far and is too complicated for me to sort out on my own but I don't know where to get help.
I'm at a stage where I've hated myself for over 20 years.

I feel guilty about eating anything that isn't vegetables and absolutely agonise over what I eat. I will beat myself up for days over 'bad' choices.

I can and will binge eat anything so simply not buying unhealthy foods doesn't help. We have to have food in the house as I'm not a single person therefore I can always binge eat. This is what the dietician I spoke to struggled with and why I stopped going to her.

I have naturally done 16:8 almost daily for over a decade and it hasn't helped my weight one bit. Something many people seem to struggle to believe.

I cook a healthy family meal pretty much every night.

Unfortunately exercise doesn't make me feel good. It makes me feel bad, really bad. Angry and so incredibly tired. My husband goes for a morning run and is exhilarated
and full of energy, I can go for a morning run and crawl back into bed for a nap. However I do walk a lot and do 15-25 thousand steps a day.

I could go on. My weight problem has ruined the vast majority of my life. Even when I was a healthy I felt fat and always covered myself up with baggy clothes. It's a big reason I don't work and stops me doing a lot of things. I turned down two free luxury holidays last year because of my weight.

Comfort food / snacks/ wine / huge portions during lockdown
I was doing lots if exercise but I was eating way too much so I put on 11 lbs
I've sorted this out now and the weight is dropping off . Yes I'm hungry a lot but I'd conditioned myself to eat like a sumo wrestler

In my 20s I was a stable bmi of about 24/25 borderline and very sporty. But became paranoid about being on the border (or over) of overweight I started dieting and have yo-yoed ever since getting a bit fatter each time, sometimes sticking to it for a couple of years but each time pregnancy or a really stressful life event knocks me down again. 20 years later my bmi is 29 and if I gain anymore I’ll be obese

Perimenopause.. period now comes 2 1/2 - 3 weeks instead of being bang on four weeks since I was 12. Have always had bad PMT with tiredness/food craving etc but the other weeks would weight out a bad week fine. Now I hardly get a break from PMT.. I am the most tired I have ever been in my life due to hormones and anaemia so therefore I hardly exercise after being naturally fit and healthy all my life. Food cravings are through the roof and some days I don't recognise myself with the hunger. Hoping it's all over soon as I really don't want hrt. I have put on almost two stone in 14 months.

I’m just a greedy cow who loves to eat crap
Although it wasn’t helped by changing from a very physical, outdoor job to an office job a couple of years back. Lockdown didn’t help either, with me snacking through boredom, but I’ve lost a stone already and I have a stone and a half to go!

Mine started in childhood. Dad wouldn’t let you leave the table without finishing food (it would be served at next meal if you did), mum didn’t want us to be hungry and had no idea of portion control. So I really even now in my 40’s I struggle to leave food and also not pick at kids left overs. On top of that the food served was rubbish, deep fried, pre-made etc. I remember deep frying carrots once as a child.

Also my mum never took control when she could, I wasn’t as big as she was at my age so she didn’t see the problem. She used to say how she was 13 stone at 13... but really someone needed to take that sandwhich off me! I would snack on lemon curd and peanut butter sandwiches but not one at a time even I often had two.

I became bulimic at a teen and while I eventually got the purging under control I’ve struggled with binging.

I’m trying to use my fit bit to calorie count and monitor exercise and keep between 500-1000 under my output. I am over 20st though so its so long to go.

15 years of bulimia on/off, severe mental illness, social anxiety, agoraphobia, grief, not moving enough. I'm really overweight and I hate myself for it to be honest.

Too much food. Not masses but too much. Although I can lose weight., it's by cutting out carbs which I miss. My Dh is underweight and we eat the same amount, but due to medication , he can't drink alcohol. And alcohol often makes me careless with eating.

Three pregnancies and under active thyroid don't help.

Having enough money also helps. When I've had less money I've less to spend on food and drink.

I never lost my baby weight, lockdown meant lack of commute and active job (teacher) led me to go from an average of 20000 steps a day to 1000.
Then got pregnant and miscarried. Cake helped.
2 weeks ago I was obese according to my bmi, my DH has bought me an indoor bike and I've been doing 10km a day minimum. I've lost 4kg so far, but im now trying to get back to pre baby weight so 15 to go! Ill always be overweight according to bmi as I have a lot of muscle mass in my legs, my fat % is currently under 35.

Years of untreated depression which led to a lot of comfort eating and PCOS although I'm nearly 4 stone lighter than at my heaviest 3 years ago 💪