Why are you overweight?

[Fantina]

I was slim and fit and active all through childhood and adolescence and went from 10 stones to 17 stones in about four years after the birth of my third child who didn’t sleep. I packed on the lbs through inhaling sugar and convenience food as I was exhausted and taking short cuts to save time and for an instant hit.

My third DC is now 8 so I can’t claim to still be in the new child fug of exhaustion. I now eat for emotional comfort but I’m interested in where others feel their weight gain came from.

Greed and lack of self control. Feeling I deserve a special treat day whenever things go badly. or well.

Got much more senior at work with more travel and a lot more meetings / longer days plus young children mean I have much less time to exercise than I used to.

Eating for reasons other than hunger.

Chocolate, biscuits, crisps and bread and butter

@sharptoothlemonshark Yes I still feel I deserve a treat for just getting through the day. But that treat of a massive bag of crisps is what’s ultimately making me unhappy.

Hunger

I love eating sweet or fried foods, bread, big portions and enjoy wine at the weekends.
If I don't have the above, I can lose weight.

I eat more than I used to, used to keep slim on cigarettes and black coffee.
Since having DC ( now grown up) I started eating 3 meals a day and DH keeps bringing biscuits into the house and I have no willpower. Working somewhere with set breaks doesn't help, either - if I could grab eg a tuna bap at 11, I could manage without breakfast and then not eat again till dinner, that's what I used to do. But mainly, it's greed. And giving up smoking.

Combination of pregnancies and then ill-health and no longer able to exercise. The stress of everything was just too much and I just didn't keep an eye on it. Till I got to the point where I needed to buy a size 16 (I refused to buy the size 16) and lost weight going back to a size 8 (my pre pregnancy weight).

I can’t stop eating. Can’t get enough salt and sugar

I ate my way through an abusive marriage, building on top of using food to cope with emotions as a teen. Gradually unwinding it all now.

Ptsd led to binge eating

I eat too much and don't move enough. And don't have the willpower to reverse the two.

Going a bit deeper, I grew up in a house where we were always encouraged to finish what was on our plates rather than listen to our actual feelings of satiety. Food was also equated to love. I eat when I'm unhappy and also when I'm bored, when I'm happy ("I deserve a treat"), when I'm feeling lonely. Food is related to emotions.
I don't eat very mindfully - I eat when doing other things like watching TV or reading or on my phone.

Greed and menopause. Difficult to ascribe it to anything else.

Also, perhaps, habit now. I've got in the habit of eating shit all evening, however good I am in the daytime.

Wine and menopause.

As a child I was never allowed chocolate, crisps, cake or biscuits. As soon as I left home I wanted to eat ALL of them!

I really enjoy wine and food and have a healthy appetite and love eating out. I don't snack but my portion size matches a 25 stone lorry driver. I should be about ten stone overweight really rather than the stone I am.

Wine.

This was me. I associated every emotion with eating. Happy? Celebrate by eating! Sad? Commiserate with eating! Bored? Eat!

I ate preemptively, so was never hungry. So basically had lost all connection with hunger and appetite being sated.

Ate loads of sugary foods and was on constant rolling sugar highs and lows. Had intense sugar cravings I felt I couldn’t control.

I was a mess.

Antipsychotics

Stopped smoking when I became pregnant with first child. Ate rubbish to keep my mind off the cigarettes. Piled on 3 stone. Never completely lost pregnancy weight. Now perimenopausal and unable to stop cravings

from Eating too much cereal, Snacking after eight, having a slice of bread because I’m in a hurry (then more, then more;), fizzy drinks and not enough water. Fixed all for about a year (drank water constantly, had fruit or veg every time I felt like eating bread, gave up fizzy drinks), small portions of carbs, and tummy shrunk considerably, and I lost over a stone, but then I was so tired it all started again!! I’ll admit I’m very torn, I think I might be happier eating the way I do now than being able to say I’m happy with my size and I’m 43, so could just call it middle age spread
(have 4 kids by the way)

When I was overweight it was because I ate too much food, drank too much booze and didn’t take enough exercise. I absolutely love my food & wine, and DP is a fantastic cook which is a dangerous combination. Giving up his venison bourguignon with gratin dauphinois followed by chocolate fondant & salted caramel ice cream & eating a bit of grilled fish with steamed veggies instead wasn’t easy, but it had to be done.

PCOS. Too much alcohol. Too many carbs and too much sugar.

In the main, I eat healthily and exercise. But sometimes life events throw me off course and then I gain weight and then it's hard to lose.

So, as one example, I went from doing 10-15000 steps daily in the office to WFH in the pandemic and I didn't adjust fast enough.