well this week it has been filled with many things especially thinking about how I allowed myself to gain so much weight, I went from 153 to 189 and it feels like it happened over night well it dint, I allowed the cakes and fast food to take over the sweet taste of bad food now leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and mind, its time for a change yes no more fat excuses for me its time to allow that fit person inside to come out and tell everyone that it can be done,
I ask myself this same question everyday. Why didn't I do something about it when I was only 5 or 10 lbs overweight? What was I thinking? It is so frustrating!! At least we are doing something about it now.
This question drives me nuts! I totally understand.. one day a few years ago I was 176 after giving birth. I didn't weigh myself for 6 months, and when I did, I was 207 pounds. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN? You would think once the pants started getting tight I would be been like "Ok, diet time until these are comfy again!"..
Isn't it amazing how fast it can happen? I always hear "You didn't put it on overnight so it won't come off overnight either".. but sometimes I swear it DOES come on overnight!
I agree you can gain weight overnight. You can put it on much faster than you can take it off.
I thought so much about why I've gained weight. For me, I know now that I ate rather than deal with some emotional issues in my life. I don't mean anything dramatic. But when life gets tough (stress of having a new baby, for example), I turn to food for support. It really does make you feel better for a while. But only for a while, and then you feel much worse. It's a downward spiral really.
I think a turning point for me was when I could admit that I had some difficult times and maybe I didn't deal with them in the best way possible. But now I see the error of my ways. I had to stop beating myself up for my mistakes. Now that I know better, I am trying to do better. A little every day!
I know what you mean. Part of the reason I didn't stop when I was only 10-15 pounds overweight was because I thought, "well, it's only 10-15 pounds. I can eat this huge amount of food while sitting at the computer all day. So I'll be 16 pounds overweight, that's still totally manageable."
Other times, I'll look at myself in the mirror in a certain pose, and think "hey, sure, I'm a bit chunky, but I've got a good figure and I actually look pretty good. Time for a binge."
That's been one of my main problems. When I want to binge (even when I'm not hungry and I certainly don't want to eat 6 chocolate bars in one sitting), I'll think I still look pretty good and start eating. Other times, I look at myself and feel like there's just so much weight to be lost, that I could never do it, so I get depressed, hole up in my room and, yep, you guessed it, binge. Plus, if I'm alone, it doesn't feel like I'm *really* eating 2000 calories in one sitting, and there's no horrified or shaming looks from other people.
I've stopped thinking "oh, I can buy this pack of chocolatey things and I can control myself and not eat all of it." Then within 2 days, it's gone. Even if I can control myself, all that chocolatey stuff is really bad for me, and I'd rather have a delicious, healthy meal for 300 calories instead of some sugar-y processed chocolate bar.
hsmomof6, I agree with you about turning to food for comfort. I remember that when I was in high school (when I weighed around 180-190 pounds), I would always get through the day, completely distracted, and spacey, not really there because I was thinking about going home and picking up a couple of snacks, and just eating until I could barely breathe.
And going out with friends was such a stressful ordeal. I'm sure all of you have experienced one of your thin friends order something, and then saying something along the lines of "ugh, I totally have to go the gym after eating this." or "I sooo shouldn't eat this." And I'm standing there, wondering, well, if you're 120 pounds and you're saying this, what am I supposed to do? Or a friend of a friend would look at my standing there with my frozen chocolate drink, and then quickly glance at my thighs. And they ddidn't say anything about my weight, and maybe they genuinely were concerned with their weight and it had nothing to do with me. But when you're overweight, every single topic involving weight makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. So I'd fix it the only way I knew, by going home and eating, where the food wouldn't judge me and I wouldn't have to pretend to eat small portions or pretend I wasn't hungry or do ANYTHING but focus on what's going in my mouth.
Sorry this is the length of a novel, but writing this stuff out is so therapeutic.
Last edited by Fatter Fitter; 03-22-2010 at 09:22 AM.
That's been one of my main problems. When I want to binge (even when I'm not hungry and I certainly don't want to eat 6 chocolate bars in one sitting), I'll think I still look pretty good and start eating. Other times, I look at myself and feel like there's just so much weight to be lost, that I could never do it, so I get depressed, hole up in my room and, yep, you guessed it, binge. Plus, if I'm alone, it doesn't feel like I'm *really* eating 2000 calories in one sitting, and there's no horrified or shaming looks from other people.
I could have written this! This is exactly how I feel/felt. Although now that I'm working on my weight and eating healthily, I tend to swing more to the "there's so much weight to be lost" side of the spectrum. Ugh.
The eating alone is the key. I know I have eaten 2000 calories in a sitting and it's always when I'm alone. I can just imagine the look on my husband's face if he had been there. "Excuse me honey, I need to throw away this party size bag of chips I just ate and get a gallon of ice cream." LOL
Fatter Fitter - I know what you mean about going out with friends. I felt so self conscience I would eat nothing at the restaurant/party and then binge when I got home.
Most of us gained weight a little bit at a time. It is soooooo easy to do in our society with giant portions from restaurants and so much fatty and sugary food.
i ask myself that SAME question every time i see a reflection of myself in the mirror, how did my arms get so huge...how did i let myself get to the point where i look like the michelin tire man from behind??? even in the car...that fat face staring back at me in the side mirrors...whose jowls are those?!?!? i know how i did it...when it started happening i got so mad at myself i started to eat more...i was spiraling anyway...what the heck keep eating those comfort foods! now i'm miserable. i would eat those 100 calorie snacks packs all the time and tell myself, "hey, they are only 100 calories!", but i'd eat FIVE. *ugh* WHY did i let myself go?!?!?
I never remember letting myself go. I never remember being a normal size. I never had any control over my weight, since I was a baby I was fat. It's a combination of denial, inattention, procrastination, a little more denial, a spoonful of laziness, and a whole lot of I don't care.
The why and/or how may not really matter.
What matters now is that it IS in my control to do something proactive about my health. And every little tiny detail of what I do all day long is done with one goal in mind, my health.
I never ever paid any attention to my weight. I was an athlete from junior high through college (track and basketball). Then I enlisted in the Army. I was able to eat Waffle House after the club, go to McD's, and knock back a 12 pack w/the guys on a daily basis. But I was doing so much physical training that it canceled out my disgusting habits.
Now that I'm older and no longer being forced to work out, I kept my eating habits and it got me all the way to 207lbs. I'm just glad that at the age of 30 that I realized it now and not 10 years from now when I'd be staring down at the scale looking at 250.
How did I get fat?
