Anyone here that was a fat child or teen that is now a thin adult

sistercate · 08-06-2011, 03:34 PM

Hmm. I came here after a search about this topic because I have an overweight daughter and am concerned. I do think she may naturally slim down as she gets older, though, because I did...

I was a very chunky kid and pre-teen. In my early teens I shot up and slimmed down but then at about 16 I started getting chunky again, was overweight in college, and then something very odd happened.

You always hear that in your late 20's and into 30's the metabolism goes down and it's all downhill from there. But that didn't happen to me. It seems like it was the OPPOSITE. Around the time I turned 25 I naturally started to slim down. It was slow but I can see it in pictures. My body has slimmed and my facial features have become more angular. They were always very round and soft, making me look years younger than I was. (One time, when I was in college, I was in the mall during the day and a security guard asked me which school I went to. I told him Michigan State University...he didn't believe me until I showed him BOTH my DL and student ID...)

So anyway, now my face looks older my features are not round, and my whole body is slender. I am not overweight at all. My BMI is 23. Perfect.

I don't think my lifestyle has changed much, either. I am not super active now, although I rarely sit down. I walk a lot and am always up cleaning house (I am an at-home mom). I think the only difference is that when I started slimming down was at the time that I finished school. It could be that going from sitting in a classroom all day to cleaning my house and playing with my kids has resulted in a couple hundred calories a day, which translates into 2 dozen pounds over 8 years? I don't know...but even my pregnancies didn't trip me up. My second pregnancy, in fact, I LOST weight. I couldn't seem to eat enough to gain anything, and when she came out I had lost 2 pounds. I was healthy as a horse, though, so it was fine. I think it was just the 2 pounds I would have lost over the 9 months if I hadn't been preggo.

Hmmm...in the last year I have lost another 4 pounds, according to my doc. I don't think I will waste away, though. I look really healthy. I eat about 2,000 calories a day (my guess--I don't count). I walk my kids to and from school. I clean house all day and do yoga. I guess that is better than riding a school bus or bike on campus and sitting all day in class? It is the only logical reason this has happened to me. (BTW--I was tested for thyroid when I had my 2nd baby because of the weight loss, and my thyroid is totally normal...)

Anyway, I am hoping against hope my daughter will slim down as she gets older. She doesn't overeat (I never did, either...) and is active but none of it seems to matter...we may pursue this medically to make sure she is ok, but I also wonder if she is just going to end up with the same deal as I had...

RedPanda · 08-06-2011, 03:55 PM

I've had a weight problem all my life. I was a "sturdy" toddler, a fat five-year old, and continued to gain weight. I stopped growing and started puberty at 11 (probably sparked by the additional female hormones produced by being so overweight) and continued to gain weight. I weighed 170-180 pounds in senior high school.

Apart from a brief period of starving/purging in my early 20s, I continued to gain until I got serious about losing weight in my mid-40s. By then I was 220 pounds, which at my height, put me on the borderline of "morbidly obese".

I'm now 55, going through menopause and have been maintaining a 90-pound weight loss since 2003. I'm not finding menopause to be too difficult, but I think my uber-healthy lifestyle is really helping.

Quote:

Originally Posted by neurodoc

It is virtually impossible to be a heavy child/teenager and maintain a normal weight in adulthood without paying a lot of attention. You will never be "effortlessly" thin like some folks, but that doesn't mean you can't keep the weight off. It's a lifetime commitment, one day at a time. I wish I'd managed to make that decision at your age, rather than in my mid-40s.

Totally agree, and I could have written the bolded part.

k8yk · 08-06-2011, 04:27 PM

I was a skinny child until about third grade. I got mono and never really recovered- I lost all my energy & it didn't come back. I was size 18 when I graduated high school in 1996. I starved the weight off when I was 20 eating one meal a day. It came back gradually over the following ten years.

I started changing my lifestyle when I was 30. I lost my goal of 107 pounds in a year and a half by regular exercise & eating very healthy, home cooked, clean diet- but not too little like the first time. My energy finally came back about a year into it. I don't remember ever being this full of energy before in my life.

I've maintained that loss and lost an additional 15 lb in the last year. I know the only way I will keep the weight off is if I keep up this lifestyle. Luckily, I love it so I don't see a problem there. Having lost it and gained it back, I'm wary but hopeful. I trust myself but I know it won't keep itself off.

If I could give my mom advice for past kid/teenage me, it would be to get me doing something active, whether it was a sport or whatever. And not to talk to me about my weight like it made me a horrible person or something. That never helped anything.

RedPanda · 08-07-2011, 01:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by k8yk

If I could give my mom advice for past kid/teenage me, it would be to get me doing something active, whether it was a sport or whatever. And not to talk to me about my weight like it made me a horrible person or something. That never helped anything.

That too.