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.

Mainly sugar, take aways and cake 🧁

To protect myself from unwanted attention. To swallow down my feelings and what I really wanted to say. To become addicted to what made me feel better for a small amount of time. To be disassociated from what I really looked like. To use food as a way to self-harm and to suffocate what my real issues were.

Huge bout of depression a few years ago. Ate far too much and drank like a fish. A good day was when I started drinking at 10:30am. Bad day was 8:30am.

I've lost over 2 stone since then but have put some back on over lockdown. I am now back at the gym regularly though and being more careful with what I eat.

When I cut out crisps, cakes, full fat coffees and rich food I dropped a stone. Therefor it figures that eating that, unabridged, put it on.
To get the next layer off, I need to exercise. When I stopped exercising I put on weight.

If I exercise about 5 times a week, cut out sugar and other junk, my weight equalises to about 1.5 stone lighter.

I was slim until I married as I didn’t eat much and then matched DP who is much taller/broader than me and likes his food, meal for meal. I put on weight over a period of time by eating slightly too much. I found it difficult to lose weight after having my first child e.g. I would not lose an ounce on Slim fast for a week.

I saw an NHS dietician who was useless. I finally figured myself that my baseline calories is somewhere between 1000 - 1200 per day.

The only way I was able to lose weight was by intermittent fasting. Diets simply didn’t work at all. My normal eating was often less than the recommended amount of calories.

Typically I now eat two meals a day with some fruit in between. If I drink more than a glass or wine or have some crisps or chocolate for example I will do a 24 hour fast for a couple of days (ie have one meal a day). It is the only way I can keep the weight off. I can put on half a stone out of nowhere. I rarely eat bread or pasta (whole meal if I do) and small amounts of rice (say 1-2 tablespoons).

By the way, I have never binged on junk food and takeaways and would normally cook from scratch and was vegetarian (now vegan). I just think overall we eat far too much and our ‘normal’ meal sizes are in excess of what we need.

If I buy crisps or chocolate or wine, I just want to finish them up, so I don’t buy them. I don’t like sweet things or cakes, biscuits, desserts much so DH buys them for himself. I occasionally get them for visitors.

For me it was gaining a huge appetite in pregnancy and not loosing it, as well as my metabolism slowing down with age. Plus an I jury making intense excersise not possible.

Before babies I ate like a sparrow and burnt stuff off fast. Now I eat bigger portions, am less able to keep active and temptation is always there from feeding the kids.

Once I twigged my big issue was from eating the kids left overs or sharing their snacks, I've been able to drop the weight quite well. Calorie counting few a week or two to get my head around how far 1600cals goes has got me into good habits again. It's been more sustainable that dieting. I love food, but I don't want to be overweight, so I'm learning to enjoy in moderation again.

Saxineno

I don't even have a long story! My weight gain is a short story plain and simple

I think this thread shows though you are right - the majority of us eat too much and exercise to little, though the reasons are different.

Im only just overweight, and i put it down to perimenopause and HRT because it barely changed in the few months where i was eating 1400 calories and going to the gym 3x a week.
I used to find it really easy to lose weight as and when i needed to, but these days, it doesnt seem to budge. I walk loads and I dont think i overeat or eat junk particularly. Im starting to wonder if i need my thyroid checked

The reason I carry too much weight from time to time is that I dislike most veg, find fruit unsatisfying and love carbs and other unhealthy food. I lose weight if I cut out carbs. I also hate exercise. That I put down the the dreadful experiences of PE in school, destroyed any pleasure I once had in being active, although I realise that, as an adult, I have to take responsibility for myself. I have to force myself to exercise and hate every second of it. There is no sport I enjoy at all.

Being CONSTANTLY told from the age of 8 onwards I was fat, when photographs from all the years I was told this, clearly contradict that statement.

Self fulfilling prophecy, believed I was fat, became fat

I like food and drinks. Healthy, unhealthy, I love it all. Plus I don't particularly like exercise. I know where I'm going wrong and I know how to change it. I just need to stop being so lazy!

Well, eating too much.

Why?

As a child i was never given breakfast. I have always hated toast and cereal...so bland. So my parents never bothered. So I've never been in the three meal a day habit. So I've always ate at random times and am more a grazer.

I'm a foodie...I don't like crap, processed junk. I don't eat takeaways. I don't drink alcohol or fizzy drinks. I love good quality well cooked food. I love expensive chocolates. I'm a good cook.

Biscuits, Butter and Whole Milk I think.

I'd lost 2.5 stone and was a healthy size 10-12. Got a different job and was working 4am-10am. Had a 15 min break and would drink tea and eat 2-3 biscuits. Bar of chocolate about 9am as used to find my self absolutely starving. Home by 10.30am would eat breakfast.
1pm lunchtime then 6pm tea time. The job was making me sooooo tired. I found I was eating more because I was tired. When I'm tired and grumpy I eat.

Well it is obviously because I eat too much and hate exercise however there are a miriad of other factors that contribute to this.

1. Childhood trauma caused me to emotionally overeat
2. DM took me to Slimming World aged 16 and it started my life of yoyo dieting. She thought she was doing this for the best as she had always struggled with her weight.
3. I had a slipped disc aged 30 and went from being overweight to morbidly obese as I couldn't walk or cook properly for nearly 6 months so lived on takeaway.
4. Insulin levels are completely shot
5. Hypothyroidism diagnosed aged 32 which has only just got under control after consultant for my pregnancy got the right level of meds.

I had a bit of luck in that I lost 15kg due to pregnancy and have kept that off. I have also started 5:2 as a lifestyle choice which is helping me curb emotional overeating slightly. I plan to get therapy for childhood trauma at some point soon.

I just love food. I enjoy it. It's an interest for me. I feel like there are so many great things to try and so little time. If I cut back, I feel resentful and fed up (no pun intended). The only way I can consistently eat less of the things that are probably the cause of the problem is to eat none of them at all - I go on the Whole30 a couple of times a year and I don't really miss my usual favourite foods for more than a day or two, but I don't want to live like that for ever. Cakes are probably my biggest weakness and I can sometimes go a few months with a system where I can only have one cake a week, at the weekend, in a café that does good coffee, and with a sense of ceremony/celebration. But I've always slipped from that in the end. I see food I like and I want it!

I am quite active though! Earlier in the year I was running 10K while probably weighing about 13½ stone. I couldn't keep that up, not because I wasn't fit enough, but because I've gone back to work and am walking a 10km round trip (I don't really like using buses right now) and it leaves me with less time and feeling like I get quite a lot of exercise as it is. Still running 5K once or twice a week though and probably weighing slightly less (scales at home are hopeless).

I’ve been 9 stone for years, I’ve put on 12lb since lockdown which doesn’t make me overweight on the bmi chart but I’m chunky enough to feel uncomfortable at this weight. I comfort ate and didn’t get any exercise, it’s as simple as that. I’ve lost 5lb over the last couple of weeks simply by getting out more and not eating a whole pack of biscuits in an hour.

I am overweight, more than that actually, i am morbidly obese.

Why? Bottom line is i ate more than i needed to consistently for many years

I have a very bad relationship with food.... coming from a very poor background my mum always used to cook loads and "fill us up on potatoes and bread". We worked on the land, even as kids, and as a result it never affected us. I was in an extremely abusive relationship in my early 20's and i turned to food for comfort, figured if i got fat no one would want me. I got fat, and fatter and then just didnt care.

Was just pulling myself together when i fell pregnant and after having bubba i went on a concerted effort to lose weight, but it wouldnt shift, at all, five years later they finally diagnosed hypothyroidism and three years after that they had finally got some sort of control of my levels. I had ballooned to 28st by this point, this time in my life i seemed to gain weight no matter what i ate until my levels were better controlled.

i lost 5 st but then my marriage broke down so i turned to food again but i joined Slimming world just over a year ago and i have been losing weight consistently, until the lonliness of lockdown sent me back to my first comfort again.... currently 21.5st and decending again thank goodness.

Bottom line is i ate too much for my output
Why i ate too much is down to conditioning and mental health... but i still chose to eat too much.

Good place right now and losing it happily

Giving up smoking lots of times. Being short and lazy. Genetics. Wine (although when I give it up periodically I never lose an ounce). Menopause.

What I don't do is eat a lot!

Self-loathing, fear and cortisol.

Eat enough carbs in one go and you can literally put yourself to sleep.

Rape.
My self harm is over eating. After all who would want to rape a fat woman.

Even after all these years, inside I am that 17 year old.

For example, unlike a pp who has lost 5lb by giving up biscuits and getting out more, I have never eaten a whole packet, half a packet, or probably even 3 biscuits at a time.

I've had 3 biscuits since the beginning of July.

If only giving up biscuits would result in 5lb weight loss for me!

I was a slightly chubby child who was bullied relentlessly about it, Coupled with low self esteem and other family issues I developed anorexia at 12 and then bulimia by 15. I was thin for a few years and then binge eating disorder kicked in and I gained a lot in a few years. I then got treatment for my ED, Since then I’ve always been a bit over weight but I was happy with my weight/shape. becoming disabled with a prolapsed spine means I’ve lost a lot of my mobility and that’s meant an increase in weight as well some ED behaviours creeping back in.
So tl;dr version..it’s mental illness innit?

I'm greedy and emotional eating.

I don't crave cake and chocolate, but when I'm tired I find it hard to summon the willpower not to have them. I suffer from chronic migraine and am often woken in the early hours by a pounding migraine. I usually go back to sleep after taking my meds, but my sleep is disturbed. Lack of sleep causes migraines for me so it's a vicious circle.

I started the year with the aim to get fit and healthy and vowed not to put on weight in lockdown. Instead I did a gym weight loss programme and lost a stone and a half. The one thing I'm struggling with now is getting out and about for walks on top of going to gym classes.

But really, I put on weight because I was eating too much and not being active enough. That's the long and short of it.

Clinical depression