How do people become obese?

[Truetoself]

Before someone is obese, they are overweight. Their clothes sizes also change. Why do they wait until they are obese to try and lose weight? Do the majority of obese people have mental health issues?weigh

Because it’s a slow process for most people and easier to buy bigger clothes than lose weight? Because they don’t care. Because it’s pretty normal these days.

Really? Nope. Not biting.

It’s not really a mental health issue to eat a couple of biscuits more than you need every day for a few years which is all it takes. Not all fat people are eating pizza for breakfast.

No, they don't wait until they're obese to try and lose weight. They try and lose weight when they're overweight, lose a bit, put it back on and enter into a depressing cycle of yo-yo dieting.

I’m not obese but am overweight. For me it’s a combo of HRT, age and anti depressant medication which is known to cause massive weight gain.

For someone who is 5ft 2 or under, the difference between bmi 25 and 30 is less than 2 stone. That goes on incredibly easily, especially as we age or experience pregnancy, young children or other life challenges.

I think for me, I just wanted to be ostracised and have people take the piss out of me, you know, so I would feel worse about myself. It was the first goal I had and then I just really wanted to be sweaty and uncomfortable and unhealthy. I didn't realise these were my goals, of course, because I had MH issues and thought my jeans didn't zip up anymore because they shrunk in the washer or were swapped by aliens. Hope this helps. 😐

I am obese.
I joined slimming world with a friend for support. I could lost a stone and was comfortably wearing a size 10.
Became obsessed with food, restricted diet to suit sw rules.
Suffered a bereavement and stopped sw.
Began to eat more normally.
Started with perimenapause/ menopause.

It took 10 yrs but now I need to lose 5 stone.
I feel like I eat healthily, I go to the gym 3 times a week. I enjoy puddings, chocolate and sweet things but will have a pudding once a week or like today for a special dinner. I like alcohol, so will share a single small bottle of beer twice a week. Will enjoy a takeaway as a special occasion, maybe once a month and due to costs, I will eat a bit of everyone else's to make a meal. I don't buy crisps, biscuits don't last in my household and I rarely get a look in.

Currently diet looks like this:
Oats with milk and banana for breakfast
Slice of toast with half avocado and poached egg or omelette or mushrooms with beans for lunch.
Curry with naan or roast chicken with veg or pasta with chicken with veg or sausage and mas or beef stew for tea
Snack greek yogurt with frozen fruit and 2 tablespoons of granola.

Don't really understand why I am obese tbh

You work to pay the bills in a sedentary 8-10 hour job which either requires you to travel 90 minutes a day in a seated position or which doesn’t allow you to leave the house, while food corporations pump highly sophisticated mental slurry about the importance of ‘snacking’ to mental and moral health into your environment, and you are socially required to enter a relationship in which commitment is measured by the number, scale and expense of the meals and drinks you consume together?

Yes, in my case this intensified, almost unconsciously, during menopause. Snacking on the sofa is the devil for your health but so comforting.

Ok- I’ll bite.

I am considered clinically obese (probably about 2 stone overweight). I have an underactive thyroid, which affects my metabolism.

I also have arthritis, and an autoimmune disease.

At the moment, I’m managing to stay active. There are times when I have more difficulty with this though, and I’m guessing that as I age (I’m 60 now), movement will become steadily more difficult. So I’ll get fatter.

Think I’m happy about that? I’m not.

My friend is a lot more overweight than I am. She’s had huge trauma in her life. Trauma often leads to addictive behaviours. She doesn’t drink, self harm, or take drugs like some people do. She eats. To cope.

Yes, that too is a form of self harm.

Its not just people being greedy.

Our supermarkets are full of UPFs. People are growing up eating foods that are designed to make you want to eat more.

This is a health crisis on lots of different levels.

Most of my life I have been a normal weight. In my early 40s I broke my foot and discovered I had major arthritis in my big toe joint and in my foot generally. The pain was intense and stopped me exercising for years. I was scared to undergo the major surgery necessary to try and sort it out because the recovery is difficult. I finally did and yes it was awful — took nearly a year. Over this time period I put on 2 stone. After recovery and so on, I tried to lose weight and nothing shifted. Covid hit, a friend of mine took his own life, and I became very depressed. I was prescribed antidepressants and put on another stone. I admit I got into some very bad habits, mostly eating to feel better. I also knew nothing about perimenopause and the hormonal changes that make it difficult to lose. I DID try but it was so slow I didn’t understand why it was so hard and would think things like ‘I guess I’m just fat now’. My health deteriorated as well, suddenly I had high blood pressure, I also developed blood clots that required surgery. Things shifted when I really learned about perimenopause and started HRT. I felt so much better and like I could lose the weight — at this point my BMI was in obese range. My GP was supportive and prescribed a GLP on the condition I went to a dietitian. I did and lost 4 stone. Now off the WLI and maintaining. Technically I am still a bit overweight (literally a few pounds) but I don’t care. I feel like myself again. After about a decade of being overweight and then obese. I definitely wasn’t eating ginormous amounts of food ALL the time, but it sneaks up in you and as I learned, your body starts to reset to a higherweight, plus you become more insulin resistant. It’s a vicious cycle and difficult to break without help. My dietician is an angel and I really feel like she changed my life. I still see her for support. I don’t think of my diet now as a diet, it’s just the way I eat and MUST eat to stay heathy.

I developed gestational diabetes as a result I now have type 2 as the risk increased, 20 years ago I lost 6 stone quite quickly as a result by cutting out sugar and a lot of carb but it was hard going.
Now in remission - you never cure diabetes - I'm 9st 7lb at my heaviest and I will never let my weight creep up again, I know that the diabetes could start up again quite easily and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

If you overeat relative to your energy expenditure, you put on weight - even if that’s down to two biscuits a day or a bit more driving v walking. If you do that every day, your weight goes up.

Too many calories
Not enough physical movement.

I think you’re missing how the clothes thing works.

Many people buy sone new clothes every year. Most clothes have quite a wide tolerance of size thst they can be worn at. Especially as the fabric ages. Sizing between shops and styles within same shop is hugely inconsistent.

So it’s not that suddenly nothing fits and you have to buy a full new set of clothes one weekend.

it’s that where you used to buy 10/12/14 depending on item and shop that drifts to 12/14, to being mainly 14. Etc.

I'll bite. In my case it was a chronic illness, then a back injury , then menopause, over the course of 7 years. Clothes stretch / I didnt have the energy to care much anyway. Bought the next size up, rinse and repeat. I was knackered just getting through every day. Plus a good healthy dose of denial.

I’m obese by BMI standards. I wear a size 16, sometimes 14. I go to the gym 3 times a week, I do exercise classes, spin and lift heavy weights. I also walk my dog daily.
I work with some thin women who do no exercise whatsoever and help themselves to the biscuits/chocolate in the office.
The one woman in the office who has lost weight in recent years did it by eating only microwaved veg for lunch and drinking nothing but black coffee. That’s not for me, I’d rather be my size and have some protein with the occasional biscuit.

Ooh I’ve got an underactive thyroid too, on 150mg of levothyroxine at the moment. Yes it definitely doesn’t help with weight gain.

But it’s never down to just two more biscuits. It’s cumulative.

so when your weight goes up, you need to eat more to maintain that, so you need to keep eating two more biscuits than you ate the day before.

so if you eat 3500 cals more than you burn you gain a pound. You keep doing that, yoh gain half a stone, you tnem need to keep eating that extra to maintain at that weight. You tnem need to over eat above thay new base line, to gain again.

people always trot out its two extra biscuits, but it’s not thay simple. It’s cumulative, so yes it can be a couple of hundred cals a day to gain over whay you burn, but then to maintain that new weight, you need to continue to eat thay 200 cals as your base line, then increase again to gain even more weight.

It's easy to become overweight in today's world. But if you're talking larger scale (no pun intended) obesity, then there is usually a significant psychological element to it. And i say that as someone previously in the "super morbidly obese" category.

We eat too much. HTH.

Thaks for everyone’s input. I understand the struggle all too well having being overweight but fit most of my life. For me , it definitely started with being overfed as a child. However, I went on to the obese range post pregnancy and had to follow a strict diet to get to a healthy weight. Over the last few years my steady weighr has shifted to being 10kg heavier. However, I make a point of not changing my clothes size. If I can no longer fit in to my size, i need to lose the extra weight (which is not easy). I was genuinely interested in the answer as my friend circle comes in all shapes and sizes and the obese friend had a disordered relationship with food which she recognised.

I was obese aged 4... its plagued my life....

I am on highest dose ozempic 5 ft and cant get under 11 stone in my 40s

Whats your solve?
I'd fucking love to know....

Exhaustion. Life-puzzles which rule out 'would be better if' choices, not because one is stupid but because of lack of workable options.

Too many calories isn't the starting point, but the destination when life narrows down the choices.

This is such a weird thread, showing complete lack of imagination or empathy on OP's part.

I've only ever put on weight during periods of stress and fewer opportunities to make positive choices.