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.

For me it was sleep apnea, which resulted in an uncontrollable drive to find energy from other sources. Now that it's been diagnosed and treated my weight is going down.

Eating too much of the wrong kinds of food.
Drinking too much wine.
Not exercising enough.

Leaving school and starting work at a construction company when I was 17, I was a size 8 when I started but constant bacon butties or full breakfasts, chippy or pub lunches and constant biscuits and brews put paid to that. I went fatter and fatter and went on my first diet at 14.5 stone after I thought I was going to die climbing some steps to a beauty spot in Canada. Sadly it didn't last long and I got as fat as 18.5 stone 3 years ago, then I truly thought I would die just walking.

I now hover between 8 and 8.5 stone, it was bloody hard work but it's made such a difference, I can go into any shop for clothes, I can walk miles and miles and I've even done a couple of half marathons

Lack of exercise mainly. I have a physical job but have been on furlough since March with no end in sight at the moment. I've put on a stone but my weight has stabilised over the last month keeping me at size 14-16. The kids and I have been walking 30-50km a week in various places and I have been eating better. Not snacking in the evening has been the most difficult bit! When the DC are back at school it'll be easier to find time to exercise properly so I should be back down to a 12-14 before Christmas.

Being starved as a child.

I have had a massively unhealthy relationship with food since. Only when I feared my children going down the same road did I bring in treat boxes (we each have a weekly box and once it's gone it's gone) so they didn't constantly see me eating all of the crisps/biscuits etc

I went on a diet then realised I didn't want to ban all those things from the house as I would just be transferring the issue to the kids. So I did the boxes as I would eat all of the stuff if it's in the cupboard for general use, but I don't touch it knowing it's a specific child's. It's also helped them as they don't feel the need to say "Can I have one too?" when a sibling has something as they know they can have their share anytime

I lost 8 stone. I've put around 2 back on during lock down from sheer lack of activity, but I'm working it back off. I don't think i'll ever have a completely healthy relationship with food though.

I’m hypothyroid. It’s hard but not impossible to lose weight, but it is very difficult to keep it off long term, my body seems to have a preset weight that it wants to get back to.

Congrats unfinished. How did you lose the weight?

I was attacked last November, which led to anxiety and panic attacks and I couldn't leave the house. I have up work and started to drink every day.

By February I started to feel better and more confident and less anxious....then lockdown happened and it was a perfect excuse for me to sit around the house all day eating and drinking.

8 weeks ago I decided to turn it around and have lost nearly a stone so far.

For me I've always been slightly overweight but as I reached adulthood I just became more and more greedy. I'm talking giant bags of crisps, followed by family size chocolate bars, sugary cups of tea, full sugar coke and about 3 takeaways a week. Something clicked a month ago and I've started to eat better and am steadily losing weight and most importantly and not craving those disgusting foods anymore. Next thing to tackle is smoking!

Binge eating disorder

Stress/comfort eating have always done it for me. I've been overweight my entire life. I was a chubby child, slightly overweight teenager and now I'm an obese adult.

Some of my weight gain is hormonal as I have PCOS and am now diabetic as well. I'm trying very hard to cut right down on carbs. It's currently easier than ever before, because the latest diabetes medication in taking has some unfortunate side effects if I eat too many carbs, so in avoiding those side effects I'm doing what I'm supposed to in order to lose weight and control the diabetes. I've lost just over a stone since this time last year, but that has stalled over lockdown, and I've still got 3 stone to go before I'm a healthy weight (7lbs til I'm overweight rather than obese). I've literally not been a healthy weight since I was 19, and that's over 20 years ago now. I'm taking it slow in losing weight, because that's going to be the healthiest and most sustainable way to lose it.

My parents insisted we couldn't get down from the table until we had finished every scrap on our plates our whole lives, even if we hated it. Now it's so ingrained in me that I can't leave any food on a plate and eat it even if it's not that nice because I got used go eating things I didn't much like.

I refuse to do that to my daughter. She leaves food with no issue when she's full.

It's something I need to work on and start leaving food but always forget. Portions were also too big too and that's carried on. But at nearly 40 now I'll never be slim and I'm ok with that. I'll try for healthy though.

I like food more than I like exercise. that is all

Chocolate helps the depression. Unfortunate how many calories is in the stuff.

Steroids for various medical conditions and not changing the way I eat to compensate.

I didn't realise I was overweight. Hadn't weighed myself for years, but stepped on the scales at my parents house one day and thought the scales were broken. They weren't. Over 8 months of intermittent fasting I've got down to a BMI of 25. Still got a way to go but it's a great start.

My pregnancies. I'd never known hunger like that. I'd wake in the night and make sausage and mash. I'd always been thin and when I first got pregnant I was a size 10, the biggest I'd ever been. I was older and I'd gone a solid 38 years never needing to diet or watch what I ate, so losing weight after the pregnancies was harder. It did slowly drop off but I stabalised at a solid size 14. I like this and the shape of me but in the early days of the pandemic I gained another stone through boredom and moving less. I have since successfully lost this through dieting, and had planned to continue dieting to get to a size 12, but dieting is so dull I lost my motivation. I'm now a small 14, I can comfortably wear some size 12 tops.

My periods of weight gain were not linked to deeper psychological reasons but I struggled. I truly cannot imagine how someone with a lifelong battle or deeper psychological reasons copes with the prospect of serious weight loss.

Honestly, I think that there are two major factors In why I became as big as i did.
I had a really crap childhood, there was a lot of abuse, and I distinctly remember if I cried being told if I continued they'd give me something to cry about. If I was sad my mum and step dad would get mad at me and I'd often get hit and screamed at, so I found food to be my only comfort.
To a degree this was controlled because I didnt have any money for extra food or anything and I was limited to what I could eat at home.
When I was 17 I was chucked out of my parents home, and it didnt take long to affect my mental health. I was essentially cast out of the family, and they moved to a new area a few months before I was chucked out. I didnt really have friends. I fell into drinking huge amounts, my biological father warned me I was going down a slippery slope (hes a recovering alcoholic) so I tried to stop drinking.
Where most people have a glass of wine infront of the tv of an evening, I decided a bit of chocolate was a healthier choice for me. And I stand by some chocolate being better than the 2 bottles of wine I'd get through to feel better.

My mental health got worse, and food became the only thing that made me happy. It was like that for maybe 10 years. I felt like I was punishing myself, and that the only thing that eased stress and me feeling the way I did was when i was eating. Over time the quantities of food I could eat became huge. It's like I was eating to fill a hole within myself and that hole was getting bigger and bigger.
The bigger I became the more I relied on food and the more i knew i needed to stop eating that way, the stronger the feelings became that I needed it.

For the past 4 years I've been on atleast one diet a month. And during a week or two I'll do really well, I'll lose some weight, then I get overcome with anxiety, then I'll think fuck it. Food will help. I eat that food I want right there and then. Then i have what i fancied the day before. Or the hour before. I'll eat everything i wanted in that week. Then i decide I'll go back on a diet, but I put it off for just one more meal, then the days ruined, so ill start tomorrow, then something gets in the way, and I'm just having a great few days piling on the weight I lost and then some.

I do think that I have a food addiction.

Funnily enough, I had a gastric sleeve privately just over two weeks ago, and when they remove most of the stomach, people often lose the hunger hormone Gherlin, and that stops people feeling hungry. I woke up feeling like a switch had been flipped. I havent felt hunger since. I've also read that this hormone can really increase when people are depressed and anxious. I don't think the depression and anxiety that I live with will ever be controlled properly, but I'm feeling better than I was. Maybe its linked or maybe I'm just connecting dots that arent there, but before I was like a bear who couldnt be satiated.

A mixture of trauma, genetics, perimenopause, not enjoying exercise (I've never had endorphin rushes like some people) and enjoying food and booze.

That being said I've been watching what I've been eating more over the last few weeks and am looking at cross trainers for heavier people.

Chocolate - I love it far too much!

Boredom and overeating.
Having a sweet tooth
Maybe not drinking enough so muddling hunger and thirst.
Eating too quickly
Hating exercise
Menopause

Started a new medication last summer which increased my appetite. It's been a life saver but the extra weight has been difficult to come to terms with. I have physical disabilities as well which make exercise harder. Really need to get a grip of it because it's getting me down now.

Undiagnosed depression and anxiety as a young adult, so self medicated with food. Plus, it's really easy to eat 50-100 calories a day too many and put weight on very slowly. You don't feel like you are overeating compared to other people but it's enough to make a difference over time. Plus worrying about weighing and calorie counting as being bad for you.

ME/CFS. I've been my current weight previously (due to portion size and treat creep), and lost 5 1/2 stone over a year by reducing to 1200 Cals a day plus exercising. Kept it off for a few years then got ME. Now I can't exercise the weight off as it makes the ME worse, and I can't reduce portions much more as I need the nutrients. Add in that I'm often too exhausted to make the best food choices and I think I'm doing my best maintaining my current (too high) weight.
Slimming will have to wait until my energy levels are under far better control.

Crisps, bread, cheese, and a massive denial about the actual portion sizes that I was serving myself!

I'm now 4 stone overweight and (having recently lost 1.5 stone so I'm doing something about it finally!)

I'm a 'boredom eater' and snack late at night, never in the day, which is probably the worst time. I don't eat between meals, but will get a late night boredom rush and start with crisps or cheese on toast around 10 o'clock. I've stopped that now! It's made a huge difference.

Onwards and downwards. Hopefully!