If you are 100kgs or over, how did you get there?

[JustCiri]

It's a very genuine question I am curious about looking at all the various posts about weight loss and MJ.
I am genuinely curious to know about how do people get to that sort of weight and any piece of advice from their own experience. I used to be very lean but I am 2 stones heavier now but still in 60-70kgs range and trying to lose weight. I am from an ethnicity which doesn't gains much weight so even this weight is lots for me.

Pcos adhd and too much shit food. I was 110kg pre mounjaro. Now around 77ish. Stopped last week and need to learn how to not overeat again lol.

Three babies in three years, 6 weeks maternity leave for each, the weight came off after the first two but not the third. Then 20 years of stress raising three DC practically alone, self-employed working full time, unreliable XH, child with cancer, divorce, dying parents, you name it! I’ve never prioritised my health and I’ve eaten too much. (I also used my ‘fat suit’ to keep my XH away from me, I never wanted sex with him after the third DC as he was such a loser.)

anyway, I’m 62 now, still 100kg, healthy and happy with three amazing grown up DC and a lovely DP who I really love having sex with, and still working because I enjoy it. Being fat is not ideal I guess but it’s not the worst thing in the world.

Eating too much. It doesn’t mean pigging out on a dozen donuts all day. Just eating a couple extra slices bread or one slice with butter a day to gain 20lbs (9kg) a year. Many new mums put on weight as they finish off their kids meals - a bit here a chicken nugget there, less time to exercise - over time it all adds up!

That is a massive and deliberate over simplification and you know it.

My various endocrine anomalies simultaneously cause metabolic disorder and poor sleep and fatigue and poor recovery from exercise.

So, in theory i could have just stopped eating, but intermittent fasting is worse for cortisol levels (i tried it and made my symptoms worse).

I was getting a massive slump in energy at 3pm, in theory i could have just had a lie down then, but life doesn't work that way, schools will report you do SS if you repeatedly don't pick your kids up and i couldn't just walk away from work mid way through a 12 hour shift when my eyes started straining whilst driving, so i self medicated with sugar as i didn't know what else to do to keep my life ticking over.

I couldn't exercise more (i would have loved to as all my hobbies and socialising since being a teenager have centered around outdoors sports) because i had DOMS for 5-7 days after an exercise session. I tried to do C25K and followed it religiously, having previously been a good runner, all that happened was i broke myself and ended up ill, i never actually got any faster.

All this changed with the first dose of mounjaro!

There is a reason that metabolic health is now a dedicated subspecialty of medicine and that's because it's just a teeny bit more complicated than you seem to think!!

55kg at 5ft 9 is 17.9 BMI - underweight, not just ‘slim ish’ perhaps you should speak to a medical professional about your body image instead of projecting it on people on the internet?

Exacerbated by post natal depression, then life being a bit shit for a while.

Underactive thyroid was the first problem found when I was 26 stone. I did calculations - to put on that amount of weight I was eating just 100 calories more than I burned every day. I lost 100lb through diet and exercise once I was properly medicated. It's still a struggle. If I get my hormones right then I naturally lose weight through good habits, but then I am over medicated and my "intuitive eating" is demanding more food than I burned, problably to take my weight back up again until I am correctly medicated.

Lipoedema was the next diagnosis. I had taken up calorie counting and resistance training and was extremely active. Yet two years after baby the scales would NOT shift. I was training like an athlete and sooooo unreasonably hungry but no dice. Turns out I have a fat disorder, the fat won't diet off. I was 280lb at that point and would match my personal trainer friends in workouts. Scaled appropriately of course.

Then came lymphoedema. That's when lymph fluid backs up. I only have it mildly but that one swollen leg is extremely heavy sometimes.

Lastly, post surgery recovery. Having surgery on my legs to remove the weight that won't diet away so that the lymphoedema doesn't take over and send me into a mobility scooter/wheelchair before I'm 60 means that I am in need of recovery. I recover just enough to do the next surgery. I don't get to get thinner. It's not even on my wish list right now. I just want to be able to function.

I forgot to mention: food related compulsion and trauma. I addressed those with the help a colleague of mine. I had a lovely loop when I would mentally check if I was full, my brain would say "No, you have space" and later I would feel I had over eaten. Turns out that was based in childhood, being told I shouldn't have something when I was taking food. It was replaying, so I was reacting to things in the past not my actual status in the moment. I also had to address a fear of being hungry after being denied food as a fat child when it was given to another child.

So you can say that I was eating more calories than I was burning in the first part, but it wasn't a huge amount. I was eating reasonably just being slow to burn calories. I was probably more restrictive than people around me. However in the case of lipoedema and lymphoedema it's not obesity, it's not eating too much.

At the end of it all, I don't owe the world thinness. Thinness isn't a price I have to pay for existing as a woman. I'm super healthy in my lifestyle and work to be healthy. Coming on Mumsnet and reading posts from ignorant people who obviously want someone to look down upon is always fun.

The question on this post is ‘how did you get there’ not ‘what are the reasons behind your weight gain’. The fact is that the vast majority of people who are overweight ‘got there’ by eating too much, although of course there are a myriad of complex reasons why they might overeat in the first place including trauma and stress. It is the same reason how underweight people became underweight - because they eat too little and the reasons behind that are often complex and psychological.

I know that mumsnet hates this, but overeating is usually how people become overweight. I absolutely acknowledge that there are a lot of valid reasons behind the overeating

I’m a big frame and always have been. I’m 5’9” with big shoulders and an apple shape. At my very fittest when training 2-4 hours a day in a power sport and mostly muscle, I was 67 kg - at that time I actually got a bit too thin as it was so hard to eat enough calories. But in fact I had PCOS, so as soon as I stopped training, my body just expanded. I got sedentary jobs, bought a car, had a baby, had an unwell husband and food was something we shared as a pleasure. At my heaviest I got to 105kg. I looked pretty rough at that weight but even then I carried it relatively well. I’m aiming to get down to 77kg which is a healthy BMI, but I will never look anything other than pretty substantial and that’s fine.

I ate more than I burned off
That's the only way to gain weight

To lose weight, I managed to (slowly) reduce my calorie intake to below my calorie expenditure
That's the only one of two ways to lose weight - reduce input or increase output

Eating too much healthy food will gain weight

The clue is the 'too much' not the type of food

I gained weight because I naively believed that 2000 calories was the 'right amount' for a woman. Without realising that for a 48 year old sedentary small framed woman, it was nearer 1600.
For a while I believed the falsehood that weight gain in middle age is 'inevitable'. Before realising its only inevitable if i ate more calories than i burned.
As the child of an obese mother, I also believed the falsehood that genes 'make you fat'. Before realising that while a disposition to store fat more easily may be genetic, I would only store fat if i consumed more calories than i burned.
I went through stages of believing that if the food I ate wasn't processed or carb heavy, if it was protein based, or high fibre or I ate it before 6pm, or left 14 hours between eating it, if i upped my water intake, then I wouldn't gain weight. I realised this is also false if the calories I was consuming added up to more than I burned.
I believed that I was still a certain clothes size, the same as I had been 20 years earlier, so when I looked fatter, I was just imagining it. I believed people when they told me I wasn't overweight, just 'curvy'. I believed that life was too short to 'deprive myself'. I believed BMI was 'outdated'. All, as it turned out, also false.

Menopause, underactive thyroid, fibromyalgia as well as medication that doesn't help with weight gain!

Wine. Lots and lots of wine.

I just want to make sure I understand you correctly.

(a) You think that when OP asks the question "how did you get to 100kg", she just doesn't understand that eating more calories than you burn will cause weight gain.

And/or

(b) When posters who are obese respond explaining the life events that caused them to gain weight, they also just don't understand that eating more calories than they burn causes weight gain.

Is that what you're saying?

This was in response to the OP who I feel is being particularly offensive with her post. So I was responding in kind with a ‘how did you let this happen’, to demonstrate people are different, and being overweight has nothing to do with what you ‘let’ happen. Saworry if the intended sarcasm of my post didn’t translate clearly enough, I’m 4 months postpartum and am absolutely not in control of anything 🤣

@ehb102 and @PermanentTemporary

I find it interesting reading posts from others with endocrine disorders and how much we have all internalised the comments from parents and society about our 'fatness'.

I bet you are no more "big framed" than i am. I'm 5"8 with narrow hips but due to metabolic syndrome have central adiposity. I have a metabolic disorder not a frame problem!!

The negative beliefs we have about ourselves are actually responses to metabolic signals repeatedly labelled as unacceptable behaviours and undesirable traits.

I'm on mounjaro now and I've found that 90% of my behaviours around food that I've gone through life believing are my own failings are actually metabolic signals (not stopping when full, craving carbs/sugar, emotional eating). 10% is ice-cream/cake FOMO (but mounjaro has given me a really strong sugar aversion, so one bite and i listen to my body not my head and stop).

Did you read the op? This is the question she’s asking. I mean, I expect if she knows how people gain weight then she knows the emotional reasons behind it too.

thing is that most people gain weight through overeating, that’s a fact. You will see other posts - not just mine - that broadly say this. the jabs help people because they support them in eating less - which is what you need to do to lose weight.

sorry if it offends mumsnet users but this is how I view things and I do know that there are lots of reasons for over eating.

When I first saw this thread title I was going to facetiously reply “by eating a bit more when I was 99kg”. But thought it would be helpful for me to write it down.

always a fat child. With an obese mother and an overweight father. We were middle class but poor, but it was the 80s so chocolate and crisps were the answer.

when I was about 8/9/10, my mum and some friends set up a “slimming group” to which I and my sister went, with exercises to a Rosemary Conley tape. Weekly weigh ins, scales kept in the kitchen, weight written down for us on our own cards. But no (as far as I can remember) change to our diet - indeed, feeling up with big bowls of cheap ice cream as pudding was a family joke. And finishing everything on our plate was a given. It has given me a life long fear of scales.

Hit puberty, and I can tell eg by year 7 photo that I was pretty normal (thought not skinny) at that point. I had boobs and hips (and a bigger bra size than my mum had ever taken, but our bras were bought from the market and I was in my 20s before I was properly measured, but I remember my mum saying “but she can’t be a D cup, that’s enormous”) so I thought I was fat but I wasn’t particularly - was wearing size 10/12 clothes at that point and was 5’3”. I know size 12 is seen as practically enormous by some here, but compared to my family history and personal history since rhen, it would have been fine if I’d been encouraged to think of that as a good place to be.

then disordered eating as I grew more - skipped breakfast, gave away lunch, threw up Christmas meals a couple of times. Always lots of home talk about gaining/putting on weight.

when I got to about 16 I realised that skipping meals might have kept me below 9 stone but wasn’t ideal. But I knew nothing useful about nutrition or healthy eating. And sixth form was bread buns and chocolate bars. University was catered halls, takeaway pizzas, and a lot of alcohol. By the time I weighed myself again I was 22 and 93kg. I genuinely thought I was about 11 stone, so to find out I was 14 and a half was a shock.

I started exercising a bit, but by then I think the disordered eating had hit in.

went on weight watchers in my 20s, got down to about 80kg. But by the time I had my babies my weight always hovered around that 93-95kg mark.

and then I had 10 years of pregnancy, breastfeeding and very little sleep. I kept myself awake through multiple night wakings and a demanding job with sugar. My biggest thing is that I cannot resist food if it’s in front of me.

I cook well. I do a lot of (nearly all)scratch cooking - the only sauce I might use would be pesto or a base curry paste (and even then I’m as likely to make my own). Takeaways are a once or twice a year treat. Never eaten McDonald’s or similar (in fact, it’s just about the only type of food I can quite happily pass by). Eat 5+ a day. I bake a lot. I don’t go to the doctor as I’m convinced thst being fat, female and over 40 the answer will (rightly) be “lose 5 stone”. I have a grumbly gallbladder and I’m concerned about that if I started using MJ.

I do walk - aim for 10000, average around 8.5k a day. Swim for a mile or so once a week. Stretch/do small weights at home.

now it’s the lure of the (home made) treats - I have teenage boys and they need filling and I can’t resist it if it’s there. And the carbs at every meal - if I cooked just for myself, i wouldn't have them, but they are there as part of a balanced meal for the kids and my husband (who has never had to worry abput his weight) just cant contemplate having a lunch without bread. and once its in front of me - i have no control.

I’ve given up on myself ever having a healthy relationship with food. I berate myself on a daily basis for eating so much. But.. I'm determined to break the cycle. and it’s still early days - I’m raising three children who have never heard home discussions about diets, who are encouraged to move and exercise for fun (and enjoy it!), who are normal weights for their ages, are allowed treats without guilt but also make healthy choices.

my mum must be 20 stone + now and in her mid 70s. She can barely move - laziness, mental and physical health means she can’t do things like go up and down the stairs without it being a drama, chooses the smaller supermarkets with easier parking so she doesn’t have to go far. Literally the only time she walks a distance would be to go to a hospital visit. When my dad was in hospital for 3 weeks, her daily walking from the car to the ward was actually making her healthier. But shes never walked the 5 minutes to the local beach where they’ve retired.

I can use her example to make me move more. But I can’t seem to get it to deal with the eating.

(that has been weirdly cathartic…)

I read the OP. I'm wondering what you think you're reading. What do you think she's doing to try to lose weight if it's not eating less? Lopping off an arm?

Very similar story, except that I don't think I've got PCOS. My absolute slimmest as an adult, I was 64kg: I'm 5'6", was a size 10-12, and my DH now says that I looked a bit bobble-headed then. I have broad shoulders, large hips and a bigger frame. I think I'm probably most healthy at a size 14. I could keep a steady weight around 68-72kg, pre-kids doing high impact exercise 2-3 times a week. But then 2 kids (1st during the pandemic) a stressful job, bereavement, moving house all within four years and I just started to stress eat and drink a bit more than I should. The weight just crept on with large portions and too many snacks out of stress and boredom.

I was 100kg when I started mounjaro in May and I'm now at 87kg. My plan is to get down to 80kg and then stop and see if I can maintain that with diet and exercise. I also think that I'm never going to be slender - I'm just not made that way - but 100kg was a real wake up call I had to do something about it.

There are many valid reasons someone might end up this way.

Depression
Poverty
Binge eating disorder
Long working hours for low pay
physical illnesses

It's best not to judge unless you are 100% certain of someone's circumstances. Very, very few people end up morbidly obese through greed or laziness. There is almost always a reason that is outside of the sufferer's control.

That's not to say people do not have the ability to change it, of course, they do, but it is not always simple, and it is never easy.

Four months?!

Are you saying your baby isn't toilet trained and sleeping through the night yet?😮

Not myself, though my weight was on an upward trajectory from my 20s and then settled at around 65kg, give or take a couple of kg, for around the last 10 years.

However I met a tradesman recently who told me that he was feeling lightheaded because he was on Mounjaro and hadn't eaten that morning. He went on to tell me that he and his wife had each put on a stone a year in the 10 years that they had been married and had ended up at 23 and 19 stone respectively. He put it down to eating takeaways on which they were spending £700 a month. The weight loss drug helped each of them lose about 5 stone in a year.

Portions too large, UPFs, but the tipping point was perimenopause

I worked out a fair bit, was limiting my intake but was still gaining. I was in despair.

Now I work out a huge amount and love it, have dropped 35kg and am in best shape of my life at 57