about how you let yourself get so big and unhealthy. I sure do and all I can come up with is I love food and hate exercise, but how did I let myself get this way?

I always have had depression issues, and poor eating habits and just gave up and didnt care for years. I used food emotionally to make me feel better knowing it would make things worse later on. Well today is later on and its time to let it go! I treat it like an addiction, one day at a time one minute sometimes.

I've had a weight problem almost my entire life... so I guess that's my excuse. I learned at an early age to eat whatever I wanted, sat in front of the TV, etc...

As an adult its a mix of emotional eating and just not eating the foods that taste so good.

I too always said that. Loved food, hated to exercise. But I realized that it was just an excuse....

I try not to dwell on it too much - why I allowed myself to become super morbidly obese. It came to be the point where figuring out the hows and whys were not important. I wasted enough time thinking and wondering and delving. It was time to just take some ACTION. You don't have to have everything all figured out to make a change. You do discover things as you go along.

It is one thing to love food, which I did (& still do, even more so acutally). But to ABUSE food and over eat it, is another story. Because make no mistake about it, OVEReating IS a form of abuse. You have to love yourself more then you love the food. You and your well being has to come first. And second. And third. And FIRST. Nothing has to matter more then getting the weight off and keeping if off. Being healthy has to be a number one priority. Not food.

And the funny thing is, now that I've lost the weight and through my journey, I've REALLY learned to love and enjoy food. I appreciate every single precious high quality morsel that goes into my mouth. Before when I was eating everything and anything and shoveling it in my mouth, it never made me HAPPY. Never. It may have tasted good (looking back, not ALL that good), but then what???

As for the hating of exercise. I hate to pay my bills. But it's necessary. And to not do it would set me up for a big hassle of unmeasurable proportions. BUT, here's the thing you develop a taste for it as you decide to do it. You get into it and learn to LOVE what it does for you. It just becomes one of those things that you do. It becomes part of your life, your schedule.

I still haven't quite figured out why I thought it was okay to let myself get so heavy. Why did I not care enough about myself? What didn't it and I matter enough to do what was required? Yes, I experienced some childhood trauma, some depression, some, some, some... But I look back and they were all excuses. Luckily, I don't look back all that often. It's a waste of time. And I'm too busy enjoying my life. I've got a lot of catching up to do!

I think for me, there were many contributing factors, some I had control over and some I didn't - some I DO have control over and some I don't.

I do think there's a common misconception that a person has to be some kind of really messed-up crazy to get fat, or at least to get very, very fat.

I don't think that's the case at all. I spent too many years trying to find and fix my "crazy." I was told in so many ways, by so many people that I wouldn't and couldn't fix my binge eating until I had identified and dealt with my "issues." At one point I was convinced I must have "repressed memories" of something terrible, because it was the "only" explanation for my severe morbid obesity. And yet, how could I be so sane, and even well-adjusted if this were the case?

I do suspect that there are genetic predispositions that can get the ball rolling. If I were raised in a part of the world where food is scarce, I probably would not have gotten fat (or at least this fat). So, I'm not dismissing the role of environment - as they say "Genetics loads the gun, but environment pulls the trigger."

I don't know what combination of events and choices in my life pulled the trigger (over and over again - this wasn't a "one shot" deal), but I did find that I don't need to identify the bullets or the shooters.

For me, I found that what I eat completely changes the tendency to overeat. If I eat certain foods, I can lose weight fairly comfortably. There are also some foods that will trigger intense hunger and cravings (and they're foods that are everywhere and are constantly being pushed either as healthy (whole grains and high-sugar friuts) or as emotionally rewarding celebration foods (refined carbs - can't have a party without cake).

I also think that for many people, finding the Source, isn't necessary. I don't have to find and identify every factor in my life that was behind each "gunshot." I don't have to ask "how did I get here," to answer "how will I get THERE."

For me, it was simply slipping into bad habits. Eating too much of all of the wrong things. Over-reliance on fast food and take out as a busy working mom shortcut. And not moving enough - I had become pretty much a couch potato with a sedentary office job. It wasn't anything sudden, it was a slow, steady creep up and up, that I intentionally ignored. Wouldn't get on the scale .... just reached for the larger sizes in my closet. I lived in the Land of Denial. At least until I got to a point where I just couldn't ignore it any more, and decided to do something about it.

I just overate and didn't exercise. In high school, I was on sports teams which forced me to get my exercise in for the day. In college, my first year I exercised on my own and watched my diet (I hated most of the food) so I was able to lose weight. My second year onward the courses got tougher and I made more friends so I had more of a social life and when I wasn't hanging out with people, I was studying. Grad school was incredibly stressful. I remember my Spring semester of my first year just eating Chinese food for 2 weeks straight. EVERY NIGHT because it comforted me and I was majorly depressed about my life at the time. I go through phases of exercising and eating right, mostly when my pants got a little too snug. Then when I lost 5 lbs I would give up and go right back to eating the way I used to until the next bout of binging came along.

Hoping to break the cycle now. I've been eating in moderation since early August, so it's still too early to tell.

For me, it wasn't about overeating or hating exercise (which I don't hate I just get bored with lol). It is far more rooted within myself as to why I ballooned up to 340+ pounds. After years of abuse, in fact since I was 6 years old, and then my Mother taking her own life when I was a teenager which left me with my abusers alone...I basically went into what I call "darkness" and almost didn't come out of that. I did, obviously, and the result of that was to hide myself, the real me, behind a wall of fat. At the time of eating and eating I didn't realize that is what I was doing, but when I became self aware that is when things really started changing for me and that was in 2002 when I FINALLY said NO to my abusive step mother and father. They STILL were trying everything in their power to hurt me even though I was in another state, in fact I had moved to put some distance between them and me. So, saying no and standing up for myself, I could start to work on me, however I didn't really start the weight loss part until 2008. I wasn't able to separate my emotional side from the weight loss so I would start and stop and not get anywhere.

The more I work on my core issues, the more I shed my weight and then I come out of hiding, that inner me, the one I thought I was protecting. See if I was big no one would want me, no one would want to touch me, no one would find me...truthfully it was probably just another way of killing myself. Now that I'm working on my issues I can look at my weight loss journey with practical eyes. You know, eat healthy, exercise, etc. I also can look at my issues and really work on them. I struggle, sometimes a lot, but at the end of the day I have chosen to LIVE and I have chosen HAPPINESS over dying. I don't want to be in pain anymore and now I feel a lot more free than I ever have! I feel physically free and emotionally as well. Still not there and I may never be "there," but I'll be somewhere far more positive and inviting.

As a kid I was a thin kid and as a teen I had slight weight issues, emotional eating started around then, but never was I that big until I had just had enough. I grew up in a world where I was called worthless, stupid, and treated like I wasn't anything good. I wasn't pretty, I was to be used and terrorized. Humiliated in public for being "selfish" and "ugly." That was my step mother and father. My Mother, on the other hand, was a troubled woman. She had issues ,but NEVER abused me. She did neglect me as she was cruel to herself and that would spill over, but she loved me and taught me a valuable lesson. You can LOVE yourself and LOVE the world without strings attached. It isn't "if I lose weight I'll love myself" or "if I'm pretty I'm worthy of love." Love is love, and I'm learning how to love myself. I'm not there, but I'm getting it now that I can separate things a bit.

That is how things are for me and what my journey, life journey really, is about. That is where I was versus where I am now.

Yep. I thought about it for years and years. Funny though, it ultimately took me about 5 minutes to know why I was stuffing down my feelings, but it took 20 years to stop doing it. I have a friend who has been going to therapy for about 5 years now to understand why she is overweight. She has a long list of garbage that I'm am sure got her to where she is at. Well, so she knows, NOW WHAT?, she still isn't doing anything about it and is still blaming everything/body that she and her shrink identified as her trigger/s. Knowing the reasons hasn't help her one iota, she is still morbidly obese and miserable.

I got so big because I ate whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it. I ate HUGE amounts and did not ever get off the couch. I would say I was "active" because I stood all day at my job or I took an aerobics class twice a month. Or I would say I was eating healthy since I eating broccoli with my 2000 calorie dinner.

When I made the decision to lose weight In Feb. I was all prepared to get to the root of all my issues and finally be able to lose weight. I thought solving some deep lingering issue would magically make it easy to lose weight.

Then I joined this board for added support and time and time again I read posts similar to the one above and it hit me: It doesn't really matter so much why I got so fat, what really matters is that I have can change it. I have the power to change my eating habits I have the power to make better food choices and become more active, and lose weight. Putting that philosophy in practice has made all the difference for me :-)

I think everyone has a story. What I have tried to do in my life since I began my journey is weed out things and people that were/are not working for me. Overeating food was AND is one of those things. I came to a point where I realized and believed the food just wasn't THAT good. The food wasn't working for me. It was a dead end. It was a brick wall. I could only get so far on the food. To continue I had to do something different.

It took me a long time to fully understand and realize things/people that did or didn't "work" for me. I am still learning how to handle those things/people. I wasn't taught to question those things/people growing up and I married very early. I'm a slow learner but once I get it, I GET IT.

I had a baby and gained pregnancy weight. My son was born premature, so I spent time in the hospital, couldn't breast feed (a big calorie burner), and ate on the run. When he finally did come home, I spent more time focusing on him than me. If I could go back now, I'd have jumped on the treadmill the second the doctor cleared me. My son is doing just fine and is happy and healthy, and I want to be a happy and healthy too.

I know what happened. I'd gain 5 lbs then lose it but I never got this big before.
I know it was due to depression. I just got married and we were going through the adjustment process and to top it off I had my first miscarriage 2 months after we got married. Those two things combined, I had an attitude of "I don't care what happens to me." I ate a lot of fattening food with the thought "I can lose this later."
2 yrs later, I had gained 50 lbs, wondering why I did this to myself. All the 8 yrs I looked back at what triggered me to do this and I blame myself. I might have been angry at my circumstances and people around me. And my bad eating habits was a form of rebellion or "Sticking it" to everyone who admired my looks (family and husband). In all reality I damaged myself, everyone went on with their lives while I got stuck with struggling to lose the weight. I have no one else to blame but myself. Its my job to lose this weight because its my body and my health I have to think about. I'm doing this for me and no one else.

I think I was basically in a fog of depression. I was slim before I had babies, but gained a ton of weight with each (70 pounds with the first baby, 60 with the next). So after my second baby was about a year old, I had lost everything but about 20 pounds. My marriage was stressfull and I just slowly started putting on weight. It didn't help that, when I did go back to work, I had a sit-down job instead of the active jobs I'd had before.

So it was a combination of things....an unhappy marriage, the stress of working and raising 2 little kids, and an inactive job. After I got divorced, I'd been at my high weight for so long that it just kind of seemed inevitable that I would stay there. I don't think I had a bunch of deep-seated issues, I think I just got lazy and ate too much and didn't move my body.

It's been interesting reading everyone's stories!

I got pregnant when I was 17 and totally ignored nutrition. I went by the "I'm pregnant, I can eat whatever I want!" mentality. When I got sick around my 5th month, I stopped exercising and turned into a complete slug. In 9 months, I went from 175/180 pounds in my first month (overweight, but it was comfortable for me) to 280 pounds right before I delivered. I was 265 pounds after I delivered.

Right before my second pregnancy, I got down to 216 pounds. I was up to 235 in my 9th month and 220 after delivery. My gallbladder went bad, and I dropped back down to 215 very quickly. Once that was solved (and I could eat like a horse again) I ballooned up to 235. With my third pregnancy, I stayed right around there, but after she was born I crept back up to 255.

I never really fixed my "food issues" before. While my relationship with food isn't perfect now, it's much better than it was before. Like today, I had an extremely difficult fight with my husband and still managed to avoid the carbs and sweets. I'm more confident I'll succeed this time.