In the same order of idea of my other thread, I think it could be great for us to do some work on ourselves and explain why we have gain the weight that we want to loose right now.
I gained weight using food as a comfort and a way to sort of numb my emotions during my divorce two years ago. Then, it turned into a vicious cycle between weight gain, depression, and lethargy. All of it sort of fed into a huge pit of despair that was starting to feel really hopeless until I found IP.
1) Moving to the US and a somewhat isolated college life meaning no way for me to cook myself. Campus cafeteria options stunk, so I overate junk food not because I loved it but because it was better tasting than the caf. Back then the campus was a bit remote and I lived in dorms. When I could catch a ride or bus I would, but most walking distance stuff was nil. So when I did get to stores it was more along the lines of canned soups since I could store under my dorm bed. Not a lot of fresh food going on.
2) No PE requirement in college like in HS. I was getting more sedentary.
3) It took me a while to realize, but food in the US is geared for high sugar and high fat unless you guard against it! Portion sizes are crazy. I was naive in thinking that "serving" on a food label ALWAYS corresponded to diatetic/diabetic exchanges and servings at restaurants also corresponded. They don't always.
4) Undiagnosed PCOS/IR and hypothyroid. The process of getting the DX and then learning to manage PCOS/IR was long for me. I knew SOMETHING was wrong since I was 13, then REALLY wrong at 19, but did not get the dx til I was 27! Meanwhile my weight kept creeping up. Way more online info now -- thank heavens! Even resources aimed at teens/kids!
5) Lack of knowledge about nutrition and fitness. I could cook, sure. But I didn't know what nutrition needs I needed to be meeting. I didn't know what fitness needs I needed to be meeting.
6) Collegiate social life revolves around crazy hours and I didn't connect the need for good sleep habits and overweight til much later.
7) Anger/stress eating. I didn't realize it til later that I was abusing food as a way to cope with my unexpressed anger/stress stuff. Probably some lonely too. And those comfort foods of cookies, cakes, ice-cream... ok not great choices. But for an IR person? Hello, blood sugar roller coaster!
For a short while I thought I was going crazy because I didn't know what it was or how to stop it and I didn't connect the dots between my poor diet and my undiagnosed IR.
I have never been a small person...I'm taller than most of my friends, at 5'7" and carry my weight, 220, very well. I kept gaining weight after being on bedrest for 4 months while I was pregnant with my second child. That was almost 7 years ago. Within the past 2 years, I've lost both of my parents. My dad, to brain cancer, and my mom just last december right before christmas to a heart attack. While my dad was sick, i just kept eating all of the food that came to my parents' house. At Christmas, I figured that I was so devastated about my mom that I would stop eating...I did for about 3 or 4 days, but it didn't last.
I decided to see a cardiologist to see where my heart health was. I am in excellent cardiac health, but wanted to make sure it would stay that way. I then decided that a change was needed. I'm on Day 3 and feeling great! I love that this forum is here and I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to be able to see that I'm not alone in this adventure!
I have hypothyroidism and PCOS. I actually eat very well, i have maintained this weight for about 8 years, just never been able to lose. Now that I'm on the right meds and doing IP, It's like I'm seeing life in an entirely different way! I am just having to learn that certain foods just don't process in my body the same way that it does in others. Insulin Resistance is awful and I'm going to kick it to the curb! :-)
My mom died about a year after I moved from CA to the US (and she didn't tell me she was sick again when I was planning my move) so I went into a big depression. We were really close but she wanted me to get on with my life. I beat myself up a lot that year later. Then I lost quite a lot of it, but I was starting to have a hard time maintaining, which was weird for me.
Then I moved back to STL (2nd time, the moves were Toronto, Oakland, St. Louis, Bay Area, St. Louis.... back to Bay Area soonish) and my random new doctor (who happened to be the Chief of Staff for Endocrinologic Surgery, hey, he was an Internist years ago! hah) could see my enlarged thyroid from across the room thanks to just getting down to a good weight. Got that taken out because all cancer tests were "inconclusive" but didn't have cancer thank goodness, however it messed with my whole body for about 2 years. I gained 30 lbs so quickly that my doctor was super shocked. I just couldn't drop it easily (as in strict eating well, as I generally do and exercise), and it made me kind of depressed since I had gotten to a good point.
I go up so easily I'm tired at living on the red line of heathy bmi and weight. I want to be a bit lower so I can be more healthy and active day to day. I have a horrendous history of cancer and heart attack in my family that I want to be as healthy as possible. I do admit, I want to fit in a smaller size too. Doesn't everyone? Hehe!
I've always been a big person. When I was a kid both of my parents worked and food was always hamburger helper or some pasta dish. It was quick and easy to make and there was always plenty for seconds. I always had them. As an adult I have an office job and sit all day. So I rarely got any exercise that amounted to anything. When I did it was just in the summer doing some yard work or something but I always manage to cool off after a beer or 12. So that didn't help.
Regardless of any of the reasons I've listed or could continue to the list the weight gain lies solely on my shoulders. I didn't like myself very much and didn't take very good care of myself. Had the theory that I'm going to die one day anyway so why not do whatever I want and enjoy myself. The problem was I really wasn't enjoying myself I was just masking my unhappiness with food and alcohol. I had somehow became a very bitter and angry person and had a fair amount of self loathing mixed in there. Last October I took a vacation for some "me" time, I'm a single father of a 10 year old and have been that way since he was about 2 year old. I need to take some time to get some perspective. So I took off on a vacation to Arizona to visit a buddy and take a motorcycle trip through the red rocks and deserts. Somewhere on a 3 day 1500 mile bike trip this all became very clear to me. I needed to get in better shape and start enjoying a whole new healthy life. One that can be very long and enjoyable. So I came home got a gym membership for me and my son. Completely remade myself and changed my mindset. Somehow during all of this I became addicted to working out and to go along with that I needed to lose weight so here I am.
1- moving to a different city: Seattle is less walkable than Vancouver BC; that really decreased my activity level.
2- growing older: slower metabolic rate.
3- drinking more alchohol: I started to discover great wines and vodkas out there.
4- eating my dinner later and later at night.
I've always been a big person. When I was a kid both of my parents worked and food was always hamburger helper or some pasta dish. It was quick and easy to make and there was always plenty for seconds. I always had them. As an adult I have an office job and sit all day. So I rarely got any exercise that amounted to anything. When I did it was just in the summer doing some yard work or something but I always manage to cool off after a beer or 12. So that didn't help.
Regardless of any of the reasons I've listed or could continue to the list the weight gain lies solely on my shoulders. I didn't like myself very much and didn't take very good care of myself. Had the theory that I'm going to die one day anyway so why not do whatever I want and enjoy myself. The problem was I really wasn't enjoying myself I was just masking my unhappiness with food and alcohol. I had somehow became a very bitter and angry person and had a fair amount of self loathing mixed in there. Last October I took a vacation for some "me" time, I'm a single father of a 10 year old and have been that way since he was about 2 year old. I need to take some time to get some perspective. So I took off on a vacation to Arizona to visit a buddy and take a motorcycle trip through the red rocks and deserts. Somewhere on a 3 day 1500 mile bike trip this all became very clear to me. I needed to get in better shape and start enjoying a whole new healthy life. One that can be very long and enjoyable. So I came home got a gym membership for me and my son. Completely remade myself and changed my mindset. Somehow during all of this I became addicted to working out and to go along with that I needed to lose weight so here I am.
You sound like an amazing guy and a great role model for your son
My gosh - at first I thought this was easy to answer but the more I thought about it the more I realized it was a hard question, I've thought and thought about this and here is my answer:
the easy answers:
♥ I was never taught proper eating habits when I was young
♥ I come from a heavy set family
♥ My parents didn't have a lot of money when we were little so we ate a lot of carbs and cheap meats
♥ I was very very underweight until I was about 8 and I think my parents were used to over feeding me to try to fatten me up, and then it all caught up to me but the eating habits never changed
the hard answers:
♥ My brother was molested when he was little and it was a big family secret that my parents didn't want to talk about or deal with
♥ I felt unloved & unnoticed a lot of the time while my parents dealt with my brother & his troubled youth & outrageous behaviour
♥ I had thin friends with lots of boyfriends and I never had either.
♥ In adulthood I watched friends get married and have kids and thought I would always be alone
♥ After I met my husband and got married we tried desperately to have kids for 5 years to no avail which was hard emotionally and physically because I ended up on tons of fertility drugs and hormone therapies which made me gain weight like crazy, and every month that I wasn't pregnant was another month of depression and eating.
In the end, we adopted our beautiful baby boy Hudson and I am now becoming a stronger, healthier person for not only him, but so I can be a better me.
1.) My family is Italian and everything we have ever done always revolves around food and constantly eating. Family gatherings, vacations, general meals...all amazing food...all terrible for you
2.)For the past year the boy and I have been on an eating out kick....we would eat out probably at least 5-6 days a week and maybe even multiple meals...hence me gaining about 50lbs in less than 12 months
3.) I used to eat when I was bored and not even hungry, it was just something to do.
4.) Oh and I never, ever, ever even considered eating veggies...I was living on carbs and dairy products...literally
5.) eating late at night with my crappy retail schedule that i had, it made it really hard to cook....so therefore we didnt...hated working in the mall *blah*
It's all my mother's fault!!! Well actually it started out as my mother's fault. I was the youngest of 4 kids and my mother was always taking them to track practice, piano lessons, girl scounts, you name it and I always had to go along and sit around and wait with her. She would usually take me on her errands which were equally as boring for a 4 or 5 year old,... the fruit store, the fabric store, the grocery store, etc. To appease me she would often buy me a treat, only the treat was an entire 1 pound bag of candy and let me eat as much as I wanted. I wanted a lot! I never learned proper portions or portion control and I never felt like I ate normally. My mom was skinny but also exercised a lot and never ate "normally" - she would eat a lot of carrots and apples and not a very balanced diet. It was a completely foreign concept to me to know what a proper breakfast was and what amount was proper. I spent most of my life either eating whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted or restricting (and then binging because I couldn't take all the restrictions).
So that is what got me fat, but what kept me fat,... hmmmm, that I am not 100% sure of. I think to some extent food served a very strong purpose for me (it was everything I didn't have - love, companionship, happiness, etc.) and the weight also served a good barrier for things that probably scared me - relationships, change, attention.
I feel like I am finally getting to a better place. I know it will be a challenge to move through the other phases and onto maintenance and not fall back into old habits, but I am confident I can do it!
As far as I remember, I was always the "chubby one''. I can't remember being skinny. I was a chubby kid, a chubby teenager, a chubby adult, before being fat. My mother, my father and my brother are all skinny sp I don't know when it happens, and I surely don't know how, but I became chubby really young. I know that at my age, my mom was also struggling with her weight.
I was doing many sports when I was young, artistic skating, cross-country skiing, alpine skiing, judo, swimming, so I guess my family was thinking that I'll be able to lose weight by doing sports, so they didn't really said or try anything about my increasing weight..
At maybe 14, I was bullied a lot at school, mean kids were saying that I was big and ugly so I started being self-conscious about my weight. Instead of trying to lose weight, I stopped the sports. I was NOW self-conscious about the fact that I was doing swimming in a bathing suit showing my body, skating in a tight costume showing my body, and moreover I started going crazy about the fact that in Judo, they weigh you and yell your weight in front of 200 persons that are there to see you in competition.. I stopped being active, and started eating more to do like everybody, you know like drinking beer to be cool and have friend, or chips, or mcdonald.. Whatever..
When I was eating, I was feeling good (or so I thought?) So I went from 150 (that was already a lot when you're 16 and 5'5 and that mean kids are searching something to laught at you about..) to 180..
After that, long story short, I gained another 10 pounds by going out with my current BF, who eat a lot at night. I also eat 2-3 times a week in his family, and they're eating a lot of potatoes, fast food..
I think many people will recognize themselves in this : When I was at my heaviest, loosing weight was seeming to be so hard.. I was like, oh, who cares if I eat another cookie, I'm already fat anyway. Who care if I go to Mcdonald, anyway I'm fat so it's not like it really matters.. Once you've gain a lot of weight, it's really hard to give up all those conforting foods, because you don't think this 200 cal will really make a difference on the 60 pounds that you need to loose..
I don't have an healthy relationship with food. I was not able to eat one cookie.. I'll eat 10 cookies in 5 minutes, and after I'm like were did they go ? I eat but I don't taste what I eat.. It's just eating, and eating and then.. woops ?
I came from a great family of thin people. I was skinny... really... growing up and athletic. My mom made nearly everything by scratch (mayo, syrup, sweets, breads, ice cream, jelly, butter. (YEP!), everything). We didn't have tv, didn't drink soda, eat sugary cereals or snacks. She insisted we eat breakfast, packed good lunches for school and always made a nice dinner. We always had healthy/fun afternoon snacks. I thought we ate a fair amount of carbs but it wasn't a lot when I look back and compare it to the proteins she fed us.
I grew up being shoved outside to play (skate, swim, bike ride, walk, hike, camp, etc.) I say that because I am a total book worm and would prefer being curled up under a tree over climbing one! HOWEVER, I took Phys Ed every one of my 13 years of k-12 schooling. I took theater dance and competed in track and field events. I played tennis, golf, and did resistance training through highschool too.. I must not have totally hated activity!
I think back and my weight issues were something that started as a body image issue when I was younger (around 11). I started puberty early.. 11, was fully developed (5'5 115 pounds size 32dd/19/34 measurements at age 12). I was WEIRD.. I felt weird. Felt BIG.. maybe I wasn't fat but to me the only thing big was fat and other girls didn't look like me. I remember I must have been really worried. My parents took me to a Dr when I hit 122 pounds and I went on a diet to lose it. I remember a day when I went to eat a bagel and my dad said " if you eat that you will only get fatter." I took it soooo wrong. Now days, I don't think he meant I was fat, I think he thought he was speaking my language. He knew I was worried about being fat and thought he was pointing out what can contribute. UNFORTUNATELY, I went the wrong way with his words and figured, if I can't be thin at 115 pounds, I WILL NEVER be thin.
The other things that fed into the problem...
work, stress, less activity, depression, sexual assault which, was followed by avoidance, denial, and trying to make my "body" stronger, bigger, and less attractive, and general hormone disruptions.
I think if I have to say why...
I got fat because, I let my life events defeat me. I didn't stand up for myself or realize that I can't cheat or lie to my body. I didn't try to take care of it. I tried to take care of me (the emotional me.) I let other people's words be excuses for me to stop (if no one thinks I can, why should I??) I got fat because I quit caring.
I always turned it around a little. I never gave up 100% but, I never gave it 100% either.
Why did you gain weight?
were did they go ? I eat but I don't taste what I eat.. It's just eating, and eating and then.. woops ? 
