Why did you get fat?

[Judy1234]

I was just looking at photos of two women in today's Sunday Telegraph magazine both about 14 stone and around my height, 5 foot 5 ish and wondering what causes people to put on 4 or 5 stone.

It's amazing how it's a moral issue. I've been overweight most of my life but spent a year living in Prague during which time I smoked about 30 cigarettes a day, drank pints and pints of beer but barely ate anything other than 1 fried cheese in a bun every other day. When I got home people kept telling me 'well done' and how great I looked/ what a good girl i was, but realistically I would've had some kind of physical breakdown if I'd carried on like that!

Now I'm pregnant and have been diagnosed with GD so am eating a low carb low fat diet with loads of veg and stuff. I realised I have never really learned how to eat healthily before now - it's a question of putting good things in rather than (or as well as) just avoiding bad ones. Bizarrely this never really occurred to me before. I feel so much better and full of energy. I think having to test blood sugar and see the results of your eating immediately really helps as it stops being a moral issue and just a practical cause and effect one, if you see what I mean.

Putting good things in makes you feel good, makes your skin looks good and stopc you catching so many colds too.

One of the best diet tips is to sleep a lot (impossible with babies) and I bet that's one reason new mothers often pile on weight- stress and lack of sleep.Cortisol which we have when stressed doesn't help either.

Going to bed earlier is good. I have never had a TV in a bed room. I have nothing distracting in the bed room. That helps, I'm sure.

I certainly think some people are sugar addicted. I was amazed in Dubai on my way back from Iran in November how many bad sugared foods people were eating which presumably wasn't the natural desert diet of the nomads but they're certainly making up for lost time in the sugar stakes and obesity stakes from some of the people I saw. Mind you the average Briton isn't much better.

Yes food companies added more sugar when they took out fat.

I think if people can eat as natural unrefined products as they can and acquire a taste for them that's a pretty good principle to go for in terms of eating.

I second (third? fourth?) lack of sleep.

I lost 2 of the 3 stone I put on when pg with DS no bother at all, but the third has been with me ever since.

And I haven't had even 10 nights in the last 3 years when I have 'slept through', because DS has never slept through.

I think sleep deprivation buggers up my appetite control.

Also, social eating.

As a (skinny) child, teen and 20-something I used to stop eating when I felt full. I never felt the urge to clear my plate, or to eat to please someone else. Result - 5'5'' and just under 8 stone.

Now (well, actually now this minute I'm 7 months pg so not right now) I'm around 10 stone, and a size 14. And I hate it. And it is totally bound up with feeling that I need to have a dinner on the table and eat it, even if I'm not at all hungry.

Steroids

I was on prednisolone for 18 months when pg with dd and afterwards
Makes me ravenous!

In fact when I was first diagnosed with Crohn's I was 6.5 stone and I came out of hospital 3 weeks later at 11.5 stone despite having eaten nothing!

(not that I am 14 stone or anything)

The sugar and the sleep are tied together. Because you are tired your need a sugar rush to get your through the day. It does become an addiction. I don't drink much tea and no coffee. I need to get a kickstart from some where!

So what do you do first? Tackle the sleeping or the sugar? Its all a bit chicken and egg really.

I agree with you too Captain Karvol about the social eating. Meals have to be cooked because children need to eat more regularly than adults and they need the nutrition so even if, pre-children I might have had a small bowl of soup and a slice of toast for dinner, I can't do that now as I have to feed the children a proper meal. As a family we try and sit down and eat together because it is more sociable but the downside is that I have to eat whether I really want to or not.

I would start with a cooked breakfast with protein and may be some brown rice or oat cakes and also just physically get yourself into bed earlier than usual if that's possbile given what you have to do. I haven't watched TV for 15 years which does save a bit of time too in the day. It's obviously much harder if you have a baby. I wasn't well at the weekend (just a cold) and when I napped for 20 mins after lunch which seemed to cure it I remember thinking for 24 years I've not been able to do this as some child or other has needed me and now I can. So for most people except those with children with disabilities who will never sleep you do move to a stage when you have to rouse them. I had to shake a 10 year old awake at 10.40am today to get him up to go to the dentist.

Why does a cooked breakfast require a cook/nanny/butler?! It's one of the easiest things to do, and it's hardly time consuming.

Now I could do a cooked breakfast - I quite often have porrige (that's not how you spell it, is it?). And I love breakfast, and DS is up at 5.45-6.00 usually, so I have time. Hmmm....

That said, I've just eaten an avocado and spelt-bread sandwich (v.g) for lunch and ... a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes

School run is something I don't even want to think about - how on earth anyone finds enough hours in the day? And I wish I could go to bed earlier, I already go up at about 10pm, any earlier and I'll be taking my dinner with me (or at least the washing up).

I don't have babies any more although DS2 still likes to go walkabout in the night on occasion. I don't have that excuse.

I have always been a night owl but I got into a bad bedtime routine when feeding DS2 who liked to wake up at 11.30pm -1am for a feed so I used to stay up until he woke just so I didn't get that horrible thing of being woken 30mins after going to sleep which is the pits. Makes me feel really rough.

And then I got used having the time to myself which I didn't get all day. I could do what I liked - surf the net, read, study, watch some telly (don't watch anything the rest of the day). I was loathed to give up. I now have the days to myself as the boys have both been at school since September but I am in a rut, in so many ways.

But I will stop whinging now as this isn't what the thread is all about and it isn't about me.

I really couldn't face a cook breakfast though - never have liked them. I can see the point but I don't like eating first thing in the morning anyway. If I were going to have more than a slice of toast the protein would have to come from nuts or something.

Because I have a disgusting sweet tooth (carb addict parm excellence ) and I have no willpower. After all 3 babies was the worst time. I just ate and ate.

This is how I do my cooked breakfast. 2 slices of bacon under the grill. boiling water on the cooker, put in eggs to poach, put brown rice, always have somein the oven ready to heat, on for 1 minute, about 5 mins later eat. I don't see it's too much more trouble than pouring out a bowl of sugar laden cereal.

I think you find times in the day for the things you have to do although certainly for us having babies was the hardest phase of all and we both worked full time.

Simple: Breastfeeding!

It slows your metabolism and makes you permentantly starving and crave sugar.

BUT I sleep LOADS and always have and have always had trouble with my weight.

I have poached eggs with slices of ham when I am in a hurry in the morning - which I always am with three children at three different schools!

Its quicker than porridge which I do on the hob as you have to watch and stir. Eggs just do their thang

Riven - you can either break the egg into a cup or small bowl and put it into a pan of boiling water or you can break the egg straight into the water. If you do that, stir the water first so that the egg doesn't spread out - stirring keeps the egg in a nice and neat ball.

Or of course you could get a poaching pan which makes it easy.

Putting on 4 - 5 stones (and the rest) was quite easy. Initially it came on gradually. Worked long hours and easy to order a takeaway than to cook (and shop). Four children, (who all eat healthily and are normal weight.)

A preference for foods that should be taken in moderation - cheese and bread are my downfall (and Pate and home baking) - but I hate sweets and chocolate and fizzy drinks.

Sometimes it does feel like an addiction - I crave cheese and biscuits and a glass of wine when I am stressed.

After the first five stones - I started to give up - what was the point in denying myself the things I loved. There is no way I would ever lose the weight so why bother. The idea of being on a diet for 2 years is too depressing - so you reach for another of whatever.

But - at some point you realise you have to stop. It happened to me 6 months ago when I had some health scares and I realised I had to do something for my children. I'm never going to be skinny - but I've moved out of the morbidly obese category and whilst their have been 'wobbles' - I'm still on track and down 4 dress sizes.

I think people need not to do diets but change eating habits for life so they learn to love the foods that are good for them that they used to hate.

(As far as I know you can heat up brown rice in the microwave - I do it several times a day and am stil alive! it take 1 minute so is arguiably easier (and certainly massively cheaper than pot noodles)

Interesting thread. I think lots of people who don't get fat have a number in their head and just refuse to go over it. In my case it's 9 and half stone, my best friend's is 10 stone, (Mine may not sound too bad but I'm very small boned /framed at 5ft 5 and start to develop wobbly bits on top of my wobbly bits at that weight.) So, if I'm approaching it I cut back to get back under nine.

It must be harder though when you have a lot of weight to lose, like Smiley says,(congrats on your weight loss btw)people probably feel it's insurmountable at that stage and just comfort eat so it becomes a vicious circle.

Weighing yourself fairly regularly is the key though, you won't be saying 'I just don't know how this extra 6 stone crept up on me' if you weigh yourself regularly and rein it in.