what contributed to your obesity?

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  • If its not too personal?

    For me it was a combination of pregnancies/bad back/stress&& flat out disrespect for myself... once I realized this && started changing, My back stopped hurting as much.
  • Mine is convoluted and it makes me mad!

    IGNORANCE...pure and simple.

    Calories in vs. calories out was my problem. But no one could have told me that. I had to try everything else first. In college I was walking absolutely everywhere but didn't realize it because it was out of necessity, not like I was stepping out to take a walk. And of course I ate like crap. I got married shortly after college, continued to eta like crap and never walked anywhere. I even tried eating a little less crap and moving a little bit more, but since it couldn't compare to what I was doing in my college days, I never made the connection, threw up my hands and said "I can't lose weight! What's wrong with me?"

    Then in 2006 I got the diagnosis of PCOS, and therefore insulin resistance with it. Now I had an excuse. I fought it and read a lot about it. I didn't let it stop me, but I thought I was broken.

    More important for me is how I finally found success. I had to stop giving up. I had to give it time and let whatever changes I made work and on whatever timeline my body needed. I wasn't going to lose this weight as fast as I wanted to and that's ok.
  • Hmm, once upon a time, I was a gym-addict... I used it to relieve stress. I also loved to go biking, out dancing, etc. My friends loved to roller blade, but due to my horrible balance, I would just jog along with them... I ate what I wanted then, but only when I was hungry. I also smoked.

    Then I got married... stopped bike riding... stopped going out dancing... quit the gym... quit smoking... started cooking yummy meals for my husband, and then to top it off, I ended up really sick, but my main symptoms were that I had no energy and I felt weak/shaky a lot (leading me to believe I needed to eat more). Anyways, I gained at least 100 lbs. within 3-4 months of getting married. At that point I was around 280-290, and then I inched my way up... I would lose 30 lbs, and then gain twice as much back. I thought I was trying, but I now know that I wasn't thinking about it the right way. I've been doing this for almost 3 weeks and I feel great. I don't crave the way I ever did in the passed. On occasion, I will want some kind of sweet, but its not overwhelming, and I have managed not to overdue it!
  • Quit daily exercising, got older, kept eating the same. HUGE mistake.
  • I think mine is all using food to comfort myself. My Mom died from Breast Cancer when I was 4. I wasn't terribly obese in my teens. Got married, had a rocky few first years, which led to me over eating to comfort myself. Also dealing with infertility, all of it was eating to comfort myself....sad.
  • Eating anything and everything I wanted.
  • Mine was stress and depression . . . my mother was mentally ill and a violent alcoholic. My father was weak and wouldn't stand up to her. All of the kids in my family were physically and verbally abused. Food was the only thing that made me happy.

    As a young adult, I had some life-threatening stresses - a cancer scare and a friend was murdered. I had no support from family. Again, food was the only thing that made me happy.

    Into adulthood - more of the usual stresses that we all have - jobs, money, MIL . . .

    I simply gave up on trying - but now I feel really ready to face this. I'm trying to change my habits and find comfort and happiness in other ways.
  • Mine was restaurant food. I took a job the year I turned 30 that required I leave home Monday morning and not return home until late Friday night. Every weekday meal except Monday morning breakfast was fast food or restaurant. One year later I was 100 lbs. heavier. And it took me 19 years to get motivated enough to tackle the project of taking it off.
  • I tore a ligament at age 13. It took 18 months to fix, during which time, I had to stop both dancing and soccer; the surgery helped stabilize the ankle but I couldn't ever return to either activity.

    In addition, the injury and the surgery just put a lot of strain on me emotionally; I started baking more, cooking more and eating more. Add in a PCOS diagnosis at age 14 and a broken wrist two months before the ankle surgery, I was one big physical mess.

    By 16, I was clinically depressed and actively seeking ways to dislike myself. So I ate more, since that helped me cope, which lead to me not liking myself even more, so I ate more to cope, etc. And I just never stopped eating too much, even after I got most of my mobility back and dealt with the mental stuff. I wish I hadn't taken me five years to get back to a headspace that I could tackle my weight, but frankly, I had a lot of other things to deal with.
  • These numbers are estimates, but they seem about right to me.

    Starting weight 157

    I gained the first 25 from following some crazy book about what to eat when you were pregnant...it encouraged way to many calories a dayand I was always full, but I wanted to make sure my growing baby got all he needed. Looking back it was really dumb.
    157 + 25 = 182

    The next 15 came from eating to much to comfort myself when I had a herniated disk and then later when I was dealing with infertility.
    182 + 15 = 197

    I ate less when I was pregnant with my twins, and a few weeks after their birth I was down to my prepregnancy weight. Carrying twins burns alot of calories.
    197

    The next 6 months I was severly sleep deprived...the longest I could sleep at one time was 3 hours. I figured if I had to be up all the time I may as well eat.
    197 + 20 = 217

    For the next 3 1/2 years I just ate what I wanted, when I wanted.
    217 = 20 = 237

    This is all kind of just lame huh? It was pointless.

    About 1 year ago I decided to eat healthier
    237 - 31 = 206

    July 11, 2010 I decided to kick it up a notch and started calorie counting and exercising on a regular basis.

    Sorry for the essay. It feels kind of theraputic to analyze it all.
  • A combination of things:
    1. Emotional eating/almost deliberately making myself unattractive (long story, another time maybe).
    2. Former athlete, able to eat what I wanted--got older, didn't stop eating whatever I wanted. Knew better, didn't care.
    3. Thyroid really, really out of whack. Still out of whack, but even with that, with a combination of calorie counting and exercise, I'm losing weight. My doctor told me I wouldn't be able to, but I am. Now, when I get that thyroid working right, things should go easier--yay.

    What's different now? My head. It's funny (not really) how I've used this fat as both a shield and an excuse. I used to think being fat sort of made me invisible--hello, I'm 6'2". Can't be invisible if I try. :-) I'm not scared to face the world without my fat shield any more. I'm confident I can handle whatever comes along and everything will work out; it won't be perfect, but it will be real, and I'll be healthier and feel better.
  • I grew up in a largely obese very southern family who gave me plenty of comfort food. We had lots of high fat foods, fried foods, even the vegetables were polluted with fatback, ham hocks, bacon, salt and butter. When I was a teenager I tried to lose weight by eating salads but I didn't know the 1000 island I smothered it with was worse than eating the fried foods and other bad for me stuff. I thought I was eating healthy. Sadly I gained and gained from ignorance. I thought I was fat because I came from a fat family, I thought I was fat because of genetics. I didn't know it was from the foods I ate. I learned about what calories are when I was about 18, but I still managed to eat and pack on pounds.

    When I got to be a young adult I started going on diets only to stop the diet and gain more weight. One of the things I did was I'd plan to go on a diet and prior to it I would hurry up and eat all my favorites making sure to eat as much of it as possible. Consuming tens of 1000's of calories caused me to really gain some weight prior to the diet. Then I'd go on the diet that would last for a month at most and then I'd crash and go on a binge that caused me to gain every lb I lost back plus 5, 10, or 15 lbs. I dieted my way all the way up to 266lbs over the years.

    I hit my bottom about a month ago and that has made all the difference in the world to me. I'm no longer dieting. What a huge relief! I've decided to create good habits that can last a lifetime. I believe for the first time ever that I can accomplish getting healthy and making it last.
  • I love food, I have a huge appetite, and I like sitting on my *** better than I like exercising.

    It's not rocket science. There's no drug or disease I can point my finger at, no injury that ruined any once-active lifestyle, no pregnancy bloat I couldn't get rid of, no prolonged period of stress or eating disorder that messed up my metabolism.

    There's just me, my laziness, and my love for rich tasty foods in enormous quantity.
  • Hmm. Where to start?

    I date my weight problem to a moment in the department store, around age six or seven when my mom seemed suprised and perturbed that I wore a size 6X. Something about that X seemed shameful and embarassing.

    Next, I was an avid horse show rider, a sport that puts an excessive emphasis on thinness. I was average weight but I matured early and so I thought I was fat.

    At age 12, I joined weight watchers and dropped from 138 to 120, which was a ridiculous weight for a 5'8" girl with an athletic build to try to maintain. I was unable to maintain it.

    Very athletic in high school and college-- but started secret eating and binge eating. Maintained my weight more or less with a rigorous sports regimen.

    After college got very thin and maintained it for several years, but then started creeping up again, still binge eating and maintaining my weight with exercise. Horrible self- image. Thought I was morbidly obese. I wasn't.

    Managed to get pregnant at the exact moment that I had reached my highest weight ever. Gained another 40 pounds.

    Gave up, continued binge eating and eating whatever I wanted. Stopped exercising. Three more pregnancies and about ten pounds a year. Ended up weighing 295 lbs.
  • Emotional eating due to many issues in my childhood. It doesn't matter if I just ate ten minutes ago, if the food was there I would eat it. Depression contributed to the weight gain and the lack of motivation to do anything about it.