I've seen a lot of people here who have ballooned up over the years....Just curious if anyone here has been overweight their whole life?

I have been overweight since I was around 10. I have been over 200 pounds since I was around 16 and my highest was 279.

Just want to see if it's truly possible to lose the weight since I have had it so long. I managed to get to 200 for like a week once, but that was short lived. Would love to hear some stories of hope. I can't imagine ever being thin or even a healthy weight.

I have also been overweight what seems like my entire life (my parents say that I wasn't overweight when I was younger but I'm pretty sure that I started needing custom made school uniforms in 6th or 7th grade)

I can't imagine what it will be like to be thin or even what I will look like. I think it's one of the advantages that people who remember being thin have, they know what to look forward to. It's both exciting and scary to think about how things will be when I'm down to my goal weight

Yes it is possible. I have been overweight since I was about 14. I struggled the same way you have. Have not been under 200 since Junior High school. Since being banded I have lost about 70 lbs. I am continuing to lose. I have gone from a XXXL shirt to a large and waist 46 to a 36. It is possible.

I have been overweight my entire life I joke and say the only time i havent been overweight was when I was born seeing as I was a premie loll. I am just starting on my banded life so we shall see.

i was over 10 pounds when i was born, so yes, i have been overweight my entire life

i am only 6 months into my journey, but already i'm am at a weight that i haven't been in over a decade. i hope that by the time i've been at this for a year i will be the close to the size i was in college...still fat, but not morbidly obese . haha....

I have been obese all of my life. I have 35 lbs to go to be within normal BMI range. after being banded i am currently down 130 lbs since august 2010.

Yes, it is possible and it opens up a whole new world to be in a position of going from 318 down to 191 currently. I am currently working on learning how to eat and maintain my weight while slowly losing the rest of my poundage.

keep going folks! I wish everyone great health and joy!

I remember my first weight loss "class" when I was in fourth grade!! UGH! I have heard "You have such a pretty face" my whole life. I started my journey at 371lbs only 8 months ago and I have already lost 110lbs. I haven't been this weight in forever and I feel awesome! Sometimes I forget I'm still fat because I feel so good!!!

Oh wow thats awesome your doing great I hope I have the kind of sucess you've had!

I remember my first weight loss "class" when I was in fourth grade!! UGH! I have heard "You have such a pretty face" my whole life. I started my journey at 371lbs only 8 months ago and I have already lost 110lbs. I haven't been this weight in forever and I feel awesome! Sometimes I forget I'm still fat because I feel so good!!!

I've wondered this same thing too. I have been overweight my entire life. I can remember being called ugly and fat in kindergarten and I was only 5 years old then. My mom had to sew my clothes because stores did not sell age appropriate attire in my size. I remember getting on a Slim-Fast diet when I was 11 years old. I could go on and on. I have tried to lose weight all my life very unsuccessfully. I always thought that I was destined to be big. I was content with it. The smallest I got down to was about 215 my freshman year in college. BTW I thought I was hot stuff. LOL! I don't know if I'll make it to goal, but I sure am going to keep trying! I cannot imagine myself wearing a single digit size and walking into ANY store and buying clothes. I didn't think that I would ever get up to 348 lbs., so I guess it's possible that I can get well under 200 (I've seen too many success stories). In the mean time I am doing my part and the band is doing its part.

I've been overweight since I've been able to be named "overweight." I was a 32 pound 1 year old. I weighed over 80 in kindergarten. I think I've done pretty well for myself with this whole band thing, though.

I've seen pictures of myself at 2 years old and I was normal sized. By the time I was 3 I was chubby and just kept getting fatter. I was 220 when I got married, 280 with the birth of my first child and over 300 by the time they hit high school. The day my youngest graduated I was 324. My surgery was a week later and I hit Onderland 14 months later. I'm currently 173 and still losing. You can do it too!

Raising my hand!!! I was a 9lb baby and weighed 101lbs in the first grade, Since highschool I have lived in the 200's.My highest weight was 283. I am 22lbs from onederland since being banded.

Yes and no. I've never been morbidly obese, my BMI "only" got to 35 before I acted and that was a bit of a ballooning over a few years after having babies.

but, even though looking back in photos and stuff now, I wasnt huge, I was never a normal sized child and I got teased for being fat my entire childhood. I was tall, that was the problem, and I wasnt one of those stick thin kids, I was always what my mother called 'solid'. I had a tummy, as does my daughter. By the time I was 14 I was my full 5ft 10, and about 80kg (170lb), which in the 1980's was pretty freaking large for an early teen. It was certainly in the days before plus size clothing. I spent my teen years unable to wear jeans or buy clothes in any of the 'cool' stores. My mother had to sew for me, humiliating and soul destroying. I had a skinny small sister too, my youngest sister is more like me but she was 4 years younger and excelled at starving herself during her teen years, I was so envious of her willpower.

At 16 I was a very good softballer, earning nicknames like "tank" and "shithouse". We have a saying in Australia that if you're big your built like a brick shithouse - outdoor dunny (toilet). I broke a hip at 16 and was put on tenuate tablets by a dietician recommended by the sports medicine doctor, got down to about 160lb for like 5 minutes.

I got a little slimmer in my 20's, sitting around 170, 180lb but to me that is still pretty fat, I was never happy, couldnt wear what I wanted because I felt too fat in anything revealing. I remained sporty, did gym regularly and was in pretty good shape and not really that fat, slimmed down to a respectable size 12 for my wedding, but again, at 5ft 10, I was always just "big". I'm fairly fine boned, meant to be tall and pretty slender and even though 150 to 180lb might seem ok for a 5ft 10 woman, on me it was fat. I had rolls, lumps, bumps. I'm lightly muscled and just not meant to carry weight, 140lb suits me much better, even though I have a bony skeleton chest and my shoulder bones stick out.

Of course between my late 20's and mid 30's I had a couple of babies, stopped working, stayed at home, did coffee and lunch and stopped exercising and it was all over. I descended into obesity very quickly. I never put on much weight during actual pregnancy, it was the swanning around living the stay at home mother lifestyle that did me in. I'm still utterly hopeless when I'm at home alone for long periods, I just eat and eat and eat.

So despite having spent most of my time in the "overweight" category and not having suffered the woes of true obesity, I have never in my entire life been slender, fit and happy with my body until I got the band. I am amazed at the body I had, that it was hiding there all along and that it is actually not the big boned, unfemine tank of a body I thought genetics had blessed me with.

I wasn't a large baby or toddler, but I think by about the 2nd grade, I started to balloon up and it just kept getting worse. By middle school, I was officially the "fat kid". I haven't been under 200 since high school. In 2004, I started Curves and dieting. After about a year, I went from 261 to 235. It was the lowest I had been in my adult life. Then, I met my husband and with all the dating and going out to eat, I slowly gained every bit back and then some. I weighed 280 when we got married and 318 when I gave birth to my first child. When I started my journey in April of this year, I weighed 326. That is the highest I've every been. My surgeon made me lose 35 pounds before he would do the surgery (he only has clearance for a BMI of 50 or below). So, I was able to get down to 280 by the day of surgery and am currently at 272. I hope to never see these numbers again as I continue to go down.

I'm still in the beginning though and it's all on me to make right choices and not overeat. I have no fills yet (first one next Monday!!!). My mini goal right now is to get to 235. That is my weight when I met my husband. I'm so excited!!!

I was born premature (in the incubator a month) the maid put sugar on my scrabbled eggs to 'fatten me up' (I remember my mother called me 'butterball' (charming). I was also molested sexually as a child so I turned to food to 'hide'. I was always a bit of a loner/outsider. I remember when my belly went from 'flat' to sticking out past my chest in high school. (I also remember being put on antidepressants in high school). Then I got TALL/big (I am 6'5"). I did a 30 day treatment center for my weight, I did Protein tablets 2 meals a day in the 80s. I remember going to weight watcters and being the only male, or under 30 (it was like a hen party...ugh). I am now 400 lbs and trying to look at starting the path (consultation is Dec 1).

Every time I got down to the 'magic' 300 I would freak out and gain the weight back (I thought, when I hit under 300 I will be "happy" and people will flock to me and I will be "hot"..never happened.)

my belly is my armor. it has done such a great job I am now a loner, jaded, and afraid to make friends for fear of being hurt.

Hi Kellysue,

I've been told my Grandparents used to ask my parents "Aren't you feeding this kid?". I was apparently skinny little bag of bones when I was very young. Since I had my tonsils removed all hell broke loose. I am 44 and have been overweight since I was about 10 years old. I can remember being weighed in phys ed class in 5th or 6th grade and got teased because I weighed in at 150lbs. I have very vivid memories of this because I was also teased because of my man boobs or back then boy boobs.

I would definitely say yes to being over weight my whole life. In 2003 I tried Atkins diet. I weighed in at 394 and I went on to lose 174 pounds in 19 months. With all diets though I got to comfortable in my new skin and started enjoying food again and all the weight and then some went back on. I weighed in yesterday at 463. I still sometimes get angry with myself for not being stronger and more disciplined for allowing myself to pack it all back on.

I have not been banded yet but I am hoping to some day and hope that the restriction from the band will help keep my weight in check for the rest of my life. I am utilizing support groups as well and plan to do that long term.

Losing for me is not so much the battle its keeping it off.