I was a chubby teen. Everyone else in my family was 300+ lbs (and still are). I never thought I was fat until I saw a picture of myself at sixteen. They all called me the skinny one (I was about a size 12.)

I joined the army. I lost lots of weight. I was thin!!! I was a size 6!! I ate whatever I wanted!! I was so happy! ... I ran six miles a day...lifted weights... so i never watched what I ate. I ate whatever.

Then I got out of the army 4 years later... and continued eating whatever I wanted... but without exercise (i got lazy quickly). 3 months after leaving I had already gained 30 lbs.

Then I got married and got pregnant. There was another 15 lbs. Then lost that, and more, because I was only eating one meal a day because I mostly was tired from being up at night with the baby. So, since baby napped lots, so did I. I was getting smaller, down to size 8, and then.... I got pregnant again. And ate, and ate, and ate. And I got up to 210 lbs when I was 9 months pregnant. I was 180lbs 6 weeks after he was born.

I convinced myself I didn't need to watch what I ate b/c breastfeeding would make me lose weight. Ha.

Anyhow, last year I found myself pushing 200 lbs (not pregnant or bfing anymore.. baby #2 is now almost 3 years old). I'm in a panic at this point.... I don't want to blow up to 300+lbs like my entire family - they all have heart disease, diabetes, joint pain and back problems, etc etc. I have to beat this. I have to be healthy for my kids. I want to be healthy and sexy for my husband. I don't want to have diabetes when I am 30 years old like everyone else in my family :(

Eating to console myself.
Eating because I didn't care what happened to me.

Anyone see a contradiction there?

All the "reasons" I had to eat badly are still here. That doesn't mean I have to chose to eat badly.

Good luck everyone!

I am new here today, so hello all!

I have struggled with my weight all my life, even in my teens when I wasn't fat, I always thought I was... and after a while I really was fat.

I carry my weight pretty well and look and feel great as long as I stay under 180 pounds, but it has been about 16 years since I actually weighted less than 200 pounds.

Why am I fat?

1. I love to eat.

2. I never learned portion control. My parent let us eat what ever we wanted but made sure we were physically active and exercised. I have rheumatoid arthritis so I am not very active due to pain.

3. I am great at dieting but not so good at keeping weight off. After a year or so of maintaining my weight I slowly regain it.

It's kind of all I ever knew? I mean, my family is (for the most part) a healthy bunch. I've just always been fat. It's probably a combination of loving food and not being able to deal with my emotions in the right way. I've suffered from depression and anxiety, so whenever I was upset, food was my vice. I tried other methods besides food that were equally self destructive but I always went back to ice-cream and pasta.

Not having a good relationship with food can ruin a person.

I love food. I turned to food to comfort me. I kept allowing myself to spiral out of control after every emotional loss the past 5 years.
I do not think it is important to focus on why we are fat... I focus more on how am I preventing these old habits and working on becoming healthy!
For me personally it really has been working on my relationship with food and how I deal with stress. Now I do not eat when I am emotional I wait until I am sure I am hungry. And when I am stressed I exercise first and then wait until I am really hungry to eat. I try to make food for nourishment only not as a reward.
I have been goin slow and steady 8 lbs a month lost

I gained it around 3rd grade. I don't know why, I was just always SO hungry!

I'm fat because sometimes (often) I don't exercise enough control.

For me it's much easier to look at my weight problem is these very simple terms because it puts me in control. We all have problems, we all have hard times but many people manage not to look for the solution to those problems in the middle of a cake. I'm hoping to become one of those people.

College + ignorance = 100 lbs gained.
I was 150 when I graduated from high school. At that time, I thought in order to lose weight or in order to be thin, I had to be hungry all the time and basically starve myself. Then I went away to college where there were buffets for every meal. I gained 20 lbs my freshman year, lost 10 over the summer, gained 20 my sophmore year, lost 10 over the summer. Rinse. Repeat. (mom and dad weren't there with me at college telling me what/when to eat) Then at some point I discovered booze and the fourth meal at 2 am. Even as I gaine weight, boys were still easy. I think if boys had gotten hard to catch, I may have done something sooner?

Then I graduated and moved in with my hubby (fiance at the time). He loved me. I gained and just about hit 250 lbs. (he gained, too) That first year we lived together, I don't think I ever ate a single veggie (how nasty is that?)

I honestly didn't really know any better. I knew I was eating "too much" and I knew what I was eating was "bad". But it was fun to be an adult and do what ever I wanted. I REALLY enjoyed my 20's. Lot's of drinking. Lots of eating.

Now, I am learning. I am learning that eating "whatever I want" doesn't actually make me feel good... it makes me sluggish and gives me heartburn. Eating HEALTHY makes me feel good. Both physically and emotionally.

I lost over 90 pounds, years ago, and lost my mind a little in the process. Seeing the numbers on the scale going lower & lower was just so gratifying. As was my favorite hobby, which was going into the dressing room at Marshall's or Filene's Basement & trying on like 30 different outfits, one after the other, staring & staring at myself in the mirror. My closet was packed with clothes. I hid them in the trunk of my car so no one could see how much I'd bought.

When I was a size 10, I wanted to be an eight. Then, at an eight, I wanted to be a six or a four. (Keep in mind this was back in the early 1990s, and those sizes are generally bigger now.) When I got to 115, I wanted to be 110 and then 107 & then under 105.

I can't say I maintained the weight loss, really -- but I did stay thin for three years, though in the process, I was always getting thinner, or battling the same couple pounds from the binge eating disorder that I developed. I'd eat fast & mindlessly, till I felt sick, and then, after my stomach settled, I'd go off & exercise for three hours consecutively.

I tried to vomit in the office bathroom one afternoon & decided I needed therapy.

The therapist helped stop the overexercising, and ended the binges, but didn't help me overcome plain old overeating. In trying to get better, I went the other way. In trying not to obsess about food or weight, I stopped weighing, and ate intuitively, to fix my broken attitude toward food.

I ate myself intuitively up to 247 pounds. My doctor began talking about things like Syndrome X and cholesterol, and was really unhappy with my blood sugar ratings. He sent me for a full-day-long glucose tolerance test, in which I drank something sugary & they drew my blood something like seven times. My inner arms were bruised & bandaged like a drug addict's by the time they were done.

So I was frightened then. Very frightened. I knew I had to lose weight. Problem was, when I'd taken off that much weight before, I'd gone crazy. I am only good at extremes, it seems, not at moderation.

So this time around, I looked for a therapist. I started reading avidly about nutrition & about various diets, particularly diets that took blood sugar issues into consideration.

I became an advocate of slow & steady & moderation. Anything that sounded remotely immoderate scared me. (Fasting, for one thing, scares me. Low-calorie diets scare me.)

And I started walking, which was easy in my old, hilly neighborhood, with its endless wide sidewalks with many shade trees planted around them. I live in a place where many people walk or take trains & where many actually don't own cars.

This time, I've done it sanely.

Ignorance. About portions and calories. My lifestyle in high school didn't involve paying any attention to that stuff, but between school prepared lunches (and portions), having no options to snack during the day, mom made dinners, and being so freaking busy most of the time, I never gained weight. I wasn't skinny, never had been, but I actually started to slowly lose weight.

Well. College. Whole new game. Didn't realize that how much I was eating, how many calories I was getting, was going up. I knew what "bad" food was, but my experiences so far had told me it wasn't a big deal. I hadn't changed my "diet"- just my circumstances. By the time I figured all this out, I was really reluctant to admit that this was the problem. Because I want to be able to eat whatever, whenever, like I did in high school. So it took a good 25 pounds after my freshman year initial gain before I got serious about doing something about it. I still don't like how conscience of my choices I'm going to have to be for the rest of my life, but it beats being super fat and unhealthy.

So that's it. Pure ignorance. No emotional eating, no comfort from food, no control issues or medication. Just ignorance. If I had known from the beginning more about portion control and how many calories are in what, I probably would have prevented a lot of damage, because now my ideas of how much food I need/want are all messed up. Fixing them is a lot harder than practicing from the beginning. Not that I will make my children feel fat, but they WILL know something about portion control, calories, and healthy food choices.

Oh, my story is much like any other, maybe some differences here or there.

Chubby childhood. one of those "cute, fat" babies... that's fine, until Kindergarten. Got poked fun at thru 6th grade... Dropped the "baby fat" in 7th grade, was way too thin as a teen thru hi-school. Eating disorder left me at 92 lbs after graduation.

Went to college. Learned weight lifting as a sport. Gained 13 pounds of muscle weight in one year. Swam a lot, I was a lifeguard. Ate ANY thing and EVERY thing. Keeping weight off was no problem. I was in the best shape of my life from 19-22 years old.

At age 23.... out of college... got married.... got lazy. Gained 25 pounds. Started walking & eating a lot of salads. Lost 25 pounds in four months.

Stopped walking when winter arrived... gained 15 pounds.

Got divorced... lost weight.

Got engaged, gained weight.

Got DISengaged, lost weight.

Weight stayed mostly steady at around 120-125 pounds for about 4-5 years.

Met another... was at 126 when I married my 2nd husband.

See, sad... lost weight. Happy .... gained weight. (see the pattern?)

Then began my yo-yo dieting. Lost & gained 25-30-40 pounds about 7 times since I was 30 years old. At 35, I was 128. At 38, I was 152. At 40 I was 146. Up, down, up, down. :rolleyes:

Flip, flop... flip, flop.... lose/gain, lose/gain, lose/gain. My last "low weight" I was 42 and 138 pounds. I'm 47 now. 175 lbs. (180 showed on the scale this morning. :( )

While I know what it takes for my body to drop the weight, I have not yet learned maintenance (obviously). And I know that for me, exercise is key. BUT NOW... I'm in perimenopause, and all the things I've tried in the past to lose weight just don't seem to be working anymore. And I still enjoy exercise, but I'm so TIRED. And I really have to push myself to actually DO IT.

SO WHY AM *I* FAT??? Bottom line?

Gluttony.

Holy moly rock'n'rolly! - I. LOVE. FOOD.

Huge portions, extra helpings, more-more-more. Binge eating from time to time. And yet... I eat healthy MOST of the time. Go figger. :dizzy:

Laziness and over-indulgence.

I was always, always a chubby kid. I just lloovveeedd junk food - and so did my family. Top that off with me being an extremely picky eater - it was a disaster. For example, I didn't like pre-school, so my parents bargained that I went, I would get a happy meal after. So, 3-4 days a week, I got a happy meal. Then I also got fast food anytime we went shopping. I didn't like the meals my parents cooked, so instead of having a fight about it - they would open a can of spaghetti o's for me. I was also homeschooled - so when my mom wanted a "treat" (daily) we would go to 7-11 and get a bag of chips, a candy bar and a soda each. I remember my family members giving me "tips" on how I should sit for family pictures, being coached by my aunts to "pick up your chin, you look fat." I remember my uncle poking me the belly when I was quite small (eye level with the ice dispenser on the fridge) and telling me "no one likes fat girls!!! put down those gumdrops!" and when I was 7, my grandmother bought me my first tape measure and set of hand weights to "guide myself better." (In hindsight, I was a child! Why weren't my meals being better guided FOR me?)

Then, when I was 11 - my mom had a gastric bypass surgery and life really turned upside down. While she started to lose weight, there became a focus on ME losing weight. But it was not healthy. My mom could only eat half a taco - so I also would only eat half a taco. My mom's caloric intake was 800 calories a day - so that became the goal I was given. And then my mom started to go to the gym. Being an 11 and 12 year old, I also went with her to the gym and worked out. I began watching the scale drop and became obsessed with it. I would go on walks with the dog for 7-10 miles a day by the time I was 13. But I was *so**so**so* HUNGRY! On my walks, I started to bring my babysitting money and would walk to 7-11, Mcdonalds, the ice cream shop - and I would sit in an alley way and BINGE. 12 years old, alone - binging on food like there was no tomorrow. I started to feel guilty about doing that because the scale wasn't going down anymore and I learned from friends about vomiting. So I began to purge my meals - eventually going to laxative abuse from the medicine cabinet because I was having trouble hiding my swollen face from purging by vomiting and I *knew* it wasn't right.

Eventually, I got fairly thin and was on a very regular - starve, exercise, binge, purge cycle when a close adult family friend sat down and told me she thought I shouldn't lose anymore weight. Looking back, I wonder if I was looking as unhealthy as I was. I remember very clearly her telling me that "girls who work out a lot and get thin and muscular are not attractive to boys and no boy will ever like you like that." That was the day I stopped working out. Made a choice - not to work out. Quit the soccer team, quit the swim team, never went back the gym and never went on those long walks again.

My mom ended up eating her way through her gastric bypass and sustained on a diet of lays potato chips and snicker bars for a very long time. There was ALWAYS junk in the house - and I never stopped binging and purging. BUT, I stopped working out, so the binges were not balanced with extreme exercise, and I was purging by using laxatives and by then - your body has already absorbed most of the calories! - So I gained and gained, got more and more depressed. When I got my drivers license and could drive to food - thats when it really got bad because I learned I could go to LOTS of places, eat all the food in the car, parking hidden somewhere, dump the packages and no one would be the wiser...

As I stand now, I have been a bulimic for 16 years. Although now I can control my binges and purges when I could not have before, I look back on my life - and there isn't a time that I can remember that I wasn't weight conscious, ridiculed and singled out for my weight - and NOW I am changing that, in a controlled, safe manner - on my terms.

When i was a child I was called fat (plus short) my family and friends called me fat. I look at pictures of myself now and cringe, I was not fat by any sense of the word. In HS puberty hit and I gained weight and I was fat.

Into adulthood I never went on any diet per se but I would starve myself and exercise..then the baby came along

In 1996 I starved myself down to 119, ended up on psych meds for about 6 years, ballooned up to close to 200lb I am sure

Got sick in 2004, couldn't eat anything for about 6 mos, so lost a gooble amount of weight (I think I got down to 150)

Since then well I have been enjoying my new life, be grateful and not thinking about what I was eating, McDonalds $1 menu got the best of me

So here I am realizing at 43 that i cannot eat like I did when I was 24 and so I am watching what I eat and exercising, allowing myself 1 day a month of indulgence

WHOA, I just summed up 40 years of life into 1 post. scarey

Let me clarify, lol. I started gaining around 3rd grade. Ever since then my appetite has always been ridiculous. The only difference between now and then is that now, I know how to lose weight and I ALWAYS weigh myself so that I don't forget my goals.