[Trazey34]

Is this a weird question to ask??? But I’m curous – by a show of hands…er…emails… would you consider yourself someone thin but have gotten fat (ie. a normal size most of your life but gained weight after children or because of stress etc.) or have you been fat your whole life?

If a fairy waved a magic wand, and ***poof*** you were slim and trim and fit, do you think you would keep that body for long or would you gain weight?

For myself, I’ve always been bigger than average but the last 15 years (hmmmm since DH came along! Hahah) I’ve REALLY packed it on, probably 100 pounds in 15 years holy s**t is that right???? Yes it is! Omg!! If I had to say WHY???

1) laziness
2) happiness
3) eating the hubby’s “Italian” way ie a pasta course before the main course!! Of course, eating the Italian way (as above AND only 3 meals a day/ NO junk whatsoever, no processed foods etc.) didn’t stop me eating the north American way too!! So tons of pasta before a meal AND lots of junk food & fast food too!!! Nice!!!
4) Feeling entitled – ie. I’m so awesome I DESERVE to eat what I like without consequence!!! Counting calories & exercise is for suckers!!!
5) Laziness…oh I said that…but it warrants two entries!! I cannot stress HOW lazy I can be!!! It would NEVER occur to me to walk 1 block to do something, take the car….never park far away, drive around for minutes to find a spot up front……
6) Being ‘entertainment central’ for our group of friends – people over almost every weekend, make big meals and desserts for everyone, drinks, etc.
7) Did I mention lazy???????? I wish I’d inherited my dad’s fanatical desire to hike and walk miles and miles every day…. Sigh…..
8) I’ve felt ok…thought everything was fine…. Til 40 ugh then it hit the fan LOL the old knees can’t take it anymore

Wow could this post BE more self-indulgent or long??? Sorry guys!! But I AM interested in what you think – are you thin and just fat for now, or have you always been fat and are making a change? Which do you think is the harder journey or are they the same???

[Eves]

I´ve been fat since 7th grade, so I´ve been fat for almost 2 thirds of my life.

I think if a "weight fairy" came and °POOFED° me thin before this JAnuary I would be back to fat in no time.

Right now, I think I would be too freaked out by the new body to put anything in it. I would be paranoid thin. I think going slowly is helping me get in the right frame of mind to be and to remain at a healthy weight. If tomorrow I was suddenly thin I would have no clue what to do!

PS. For me it´s far easier to stay fat. But I´m young and don´t suffer any medical problems. In ten years though...yikes!

[Jen415]

I've always been fat. Always. Don't know what thin is...

[ChristyDM]

I've been heavy as long as I can remember. I know in high school I was in the marching band and I always was one of the first to pick up my uniform to be sure I'd get one that fit. I see pictures of myself as a kid and while I wasn't an obese child, I was kind of chubby. As a kid, I was always the "brainy one" or "teacher's pet". I started having to wear glasses in second grade, and I was pretty shy. All those factors usually led to me doing my own thing at recess and not really being actively involved with other kids. So that started the downward trend. Chubby kid = not a lot of friends = turn to food = get chubbier = even less active, etc. Thinking about it now has tears in my eyes. I want to lose this weight. I'm tired of having it, tired of dealing with it, tired of feeling tired, etc. I'm 30 years old, I'm too young to start having the health problems that come with obesity. I want to be a mommy someday and if I don't get this weight off, I might be able to conceive, if I am lucky. But I want to be a fun active, involved mommy. Not one whose weight gets my kid made fun of. But to honest, in a lot of ways I am also scared to death to lose down to a "normal" weight. I'm afraid I won't know how to act. I am scared people will no longer see me for who I am really am inside. I'm nervous that if I meet someone after I reach my goal, they might no longer like me when they find out that I was once 304 pounds. I know, that days a long way off, but still....I worry about it. If a magic fairy could wave her wand and <poof> I'd be thin, I honestly don't think I'd take her up on it. I feel like I need this transition time to retrain myself and learn as I go.

Sorry....my answer isn't 100% what you asked...but once I started typing I just couldn't stop and had to get it all out. Short answer is...I've never been thin and then gotten fat. But someday I'll be a "I was fat and then I got thin" person.

[Robin41]

I'm actually not really sure. I was 5'10" in the 6th grade so I always felt huge regardless of my actual weight. Looking back at pictures, I was very athletic and really, had somebody told me I looked fine then, I would have believed them. What I had, though, was a Mom who wanted a petite little blond daughter and got a tall athletic brunette.

I didn't pack on the pounds until I got out of high school and the athletics stopped. Throw in a lot of social awkwardness and I was a mess.

I think I can keep the thin, athletic body so long as I keep up the exercise. It's the real key for me; I need the structure.

I definitely think it would be easier to get back to a body you once had than to try and create an entirely new one. People who put on weight for pregnancy have a lifetime of healty eating habits to fall back on. That's not true if you've got 40+ years of poor eating experiences.

[rockinrobin]

I struggled with my weight from 5th grade on. Managed to stay in the high 130's throughout high school (remember I'm only 5 feet no inches), through horrible dieting. My weight really took off when I met my husband, some 22 years ago. I just gained and gained and then gained some more.

I don't know which journey is harder, this one is the only one that I've lived through, well duh. I've lived so many years being morbidly obese and having awful, awful eating habits. Habits and behaviors that are so ingrained in me, that it will always be a struggle. I will always be fighting these demons. But at least now I know that it's a fight worth fighting and one that I can come out on top of.

[Lainey2]

I was a skinny child and a skinny teenager. In my mid 20's I would also say thin, however, I didn't think I was thin, as I had a terrible eating disorder. Looking back at pictures though, I can see that I was thin. I had alot of muscle tone too from all the working out. I actually looked very healthy on the outside, but in fact, was not healthy at all, due to what I was doing to my body daily. Then, I decided to get on the road to recovery, which took a long time, and during that time my mother died suddenly. So, I was faced with depression as well as a bad metabolism from years of abuse. As a result, I gained my weight. If I had never abused my body, I do wonder if I would've remained naturally thin, or just gained weight as a result of age. And in answer to your question about which is the harder journey, I think definitely being large to start with is more difficult. It is tough I think to fight genetics, and having been that way a person's whole life. Hope this answer helps!

[MsKitty12345]

I was thin until I got into college, and then all of a sudden, I started gaining weight like crazy. Gained 40 pounds in a year. Doctors couldn't figure it out. I buckled down and lost it all and felt great. When I became thin again, I felt like I was entitled to cookies, dessert, whatever. So, I didn't stablize with my diet and gained it all back, plus some.

It's all my fault and I know it. I consider it a lesson learned. It makes me sick to think about, especially as I start back on the diet today. This time, however, I will stick to my lesson and not repeat my mistake.

[NightengaleShane]

Interesting thread!

Ok, I'm not part of the 100 lb club - just the 50 lb club - but I saw this topic on the main page and decided to answer anyway.

It's actually hard to say what I am. I don't even know if I can give a straight answer! I was a very thin child, though puberty hit me with a bang and I became slightly overweight. This caused me to receive an undescribable amount of torment, so I practiced eating disordered behavior for a long time. Then, I stopped practicing that behavior and just lived a very busy life with a hectic schedule that often made me eat less or conveniently "forget" to eat, which kept me thin. After that, I started eating more, but because I was reasonably active AND constantly hyper/made of nervous energy, I stayed thin despite eating a lot. Then, live slowed down, things like stress and depression came back (I was pretty depressed in middle school through 9th grade but then my depression went dormit), and I packed on the pounds quite rapidly.

Normally, to save myself the trouble of explanation, I just consider myself to be a thin person who got fat, since I was thin for 5 years before the weight piled on, but I was mostly thin by unnatural means.

I think I'm meant to be medium/average - you know, the kind of person who is not thin but isn't fat either. By the three body types standard, I'm mostly a mesamorph with some endomorph tendencies (the way I store fat is absolutely brutal and my bone structure is a little above average size but not by much).

[kappy]

I have always felt bigger than everybody around me. The phrase most often used was "built like a brick" -- in other words, about as wide as I was thick, and no fluff. I still don't really "jiggle". There's nothing soft or squishy about me. Isn't that weird?

As for the magic wand, I'd have to say thanks but can we alter the wish please? I would love to be thinner sooner, but I'd also love to have a recognition, a vision, that keeps up with the current appearance. Because not recognizing that fat person as yourself is horrible. Not recognizing that thin person as yourself is devastating.

[dixied]

I was very thin until I was 21 and spent several years working odd shifts and partying. Even when I was thin I had weight issues. I used to think I was fat, because my Dad would tease me about my butt being big. When I graduated high school I weighed 103, so I wasn't really fat, but in my mind I was, becuase that's what I heard. I have some pictures from when I was in my early 20s (about 135lbs) and even though I felt fat then, I think that's the size I want to be at goal weight. My ultimate goal now is to just be healthy. Ironically, my Dad died at age 53, at a healthy weight, but of a heart attack because his lifestyle (high fat diet, no exercise) caught up with him.

[SuchAPrettyFace]

I was 4 pounds, 15 ounces when I was born & very skinny as a young child. The doctor told my mom to let me eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it, just to get weight on me. Well, that worked fine until I got to be about 8. Being a latchkey kid for a few years did not help either as there was no one to tell me not to polish off a whole package of graham crackers with a mug of milk.

So I've been heavy for quite awhile now. I lost weight with Phentermine, but gained it all back & then some when it was pulled off the market.

I'm interested to see what I look like under all this fat. So interested that I'm walking & eating better.

[Lifeguard]

I was always thin growing up (except for that couple months of chubbiness before the puberty growth - lol!) My grandma used to call me boney-bones. But I put on 60lbs in a year thanks to what we now know was PCOS & depression in my early 20's - been fighting back against that ever since.

I honestly feel that when I'm at a healthy weight again I will not have huge difficulties maintaining that weight, even it happened tomorrow (but alas, I doubt it will - lol!)

[hellokitty81668]

I really don't know if I could answer that, I think about what was I and it brings tears to my eyes. Looking back I think I was a normal child, I was over 5 feet at 10 yrs old and maybe 120-130 lbs, and my mother put me on a
diet of soft boiled eggs and cottage cheese( threw it up at school most days), When I would visit an aunt she would say what a shame,she has such a pretty face, if only she wold lose weight. When I was about 13 , my apt. was broken into, and it affected me alot emotionally and I turned to food, I balloned up to 179 lbs at 5' 6". At 16 , I started exercising and went down to 150 lbs at 5'8", and was happy with that. Then in college when I met my husband , I began gaining, because he can just eat and eat, and wanted me to eat too. Also having the children and being a SAHM, helped alot. Going through alot of personal problems just increased my emotional eating.
So you see I don't know if I was born thin or not.
cheryl

[zoritsa]

I was thin when I was real little,but by the 7th or 8th grade started gaining weight.By freshman and sophmore years of high school,I was in a size 16(not sure on weight).By junior year I went down to a size 11/12 and 150 lbs....and kept it off for 5 years,until I got pregnant.If I were to be *poofed* thin would I be able to keep it off? Probably not,but I think I would be able to prevent some of it coming back.I'd be able to move ALOT better and would make an effort to not gain it all back.I'm thinking my stomach would have to be *poofed* smaller as well in order to not gain the weight back.