Am I lucky that I'm able to trace when my addiction to food began and how my bizzare eating habits started? Does everyone know when being fat happened to them?

Looking back at an ugly childhood, I recall hiding with food because we weren't supposed to have any. That's where my current nighttime binge-eating habit began. I raised myself by hoarding whatever I could get my hands on then hiding in a safe corner, alone. Now I'm not alone, but it's hell trying to change the habit of eating a huge amount of food when I get home at night.

Another bizzare memory is that we weren't allowed any type of junk food except during my sick mother's PMS (I figured out the PMS part when I was older.) She had to have Rocky Road ice cream during PMS, but with 3 children that weren't allowed goodies any other time, it was like 3 vultures fighting over the container. Somewhere along the line we'd gather around the cutting board and she'd slice the carton in 4 pieces, cardboard and all. To me, 1/4 of the container was a normal child's serving. Now a whole pint is a small serving. I need a good 1 1/2 pints to satisfy an ice cream urge these days.

Thanks, Mom!

i dont remember the eating becoming a problem as much as i recall my weight paranoya (spelling? i am an idiot).

i was at the doctors office, with mom and brothers. one of my little brother's was sick. i stepped on the scales, and was proud that i weighed 100 lbs. i felt like i was growing, and wow i even made it to 100 lbs. mommy, look how big i am now!!

OMIGOD VERONICA!! (she called me that when i was in trouble) I cannot believe you weigh 100 lbs already. She said, "I was a good 13 or 14 years old before i hit a hundred pounds." For the first time ever, i was ashamed of my weight. I was 10 years old.

From then on, I hid each pound that i gained from my mother, and my friends, and my teachers, and my doctors, yes my doctors. I would do things like fast, thinking i could make my self weigh less by the time of the medical appointment.

I was a cheerleader, and gained 10 lbs my senior year in highschool. i was a whopping 123lbs after the massive gain. My size 5 cheerleading uniform was getting so tight that i could not pull it over my hips to put it on, i had to put it on over my head and shoulders. I still had a 25 inch waist, all of my weight was in my hips/thighs. Mom reminded me with each bite that one more pound, and i would not have a uniform to wear.

Dear MOM, i love her, and if she could change it, i amsure she would, but i really think this behavior from my mom is the reason i have not been able to maintain my weight. Cant blame her entirely, but that was a huge incident in my life. i wish i was a fat girl who thought she was skinny. Now i am not even making sense.

well, that was my story.

Mini me......I have a similar story.

When I was 12yrs my mother took me to the doctor who happened to weigh me and I was 51 kilos (112lb). I'll never forget my mother rolling her eyes and saying to the doctor "she can't be 51kilos I'm only 50kilos!".

That night at the dinner table it was this HUGE topic of conversation.

"She takes after your family they're all fat," my mother kept saying.

When I woke up the next morning my mother insisted I hop on the scales and get weighed. Again she rolled her eyes, clicked her tongue and told me it was disgusting that a child weighed 51kilos.

So my mother decided the best way to help me loose weight was to put me on the scales every morning before school so she could make sure I didn't put on any more weight, this humiliating task took place every morning for 2 years.

I think this is why I have a morbid fear of the dreaded scales!

Mind you I'm not the only one who is now fat, my mother is also well over 200lbs.

Anyway that's all in the past and I don't blame her, she did the best she knew how. She'd never had a weight problem at the time and back in 1977 there wasn't as much info as there is now.

Only just over 2 weeks before my first apoointments with Nurse & Dietician......I m starting to look forward to it.:clap2:

1st Memory of my Problem Foods

when I was 13, my first crush broke up with me. I ran right to the fridge and took out the left over christmas cakes. I started eating, and eating, and eating.

I have come to realize that (for me) food feels good when nothing else does. Its the one positive thing I can have at the moment - when everything else is so negative. Its still the same as when I was 13.

My first memory was when I would sit down at the kitchen table on Sunday after church and my grandmother would FILL every inch of the table, countertop, stove top, with all kinds of food. Then you were expected to get a little of everything and eat everything on your plate. God love that woman but she was killing me with love. She poured her love into her cooking for the family. So I associated food with LOVE.

Then later in life I associated it with "better eat all you can now because you don't know if there will be any food later." Sad but true. That is when the gorging started.

Food = LOVE = not enough = one fat lady later in life struggling to gain back her youthful body. LOL!!!!

I'm the youngest of 7 kids.....Mom and Dad both worked like animals. Can you say neglect? The only time I was paid attention was at the dinner table.

I was fat since I was 6 years old. food was my friend, it was there for me through my lonely childhood. Its hard to give up your first love.

I used to be a serious athlete. Played state & national championships, had 7 full-ride scholarship offers, I led a clinic for younger players, and had been invited to join & actively playing on an Olympic scouting league team for about 8 months. Two weeks before my highschool graduation I completely blew the meniscus ligament in my right knee, shredded the cartilege, and dislocated my kneecap.

I begged for an operation so I could keep playing. They scoped me, but all the doctors and surgeons said no, you're too young, and this isn't your career, operating on you at your age is going to cause you too much long-term pain, plus the operation doesn't guarantee anything with this type of injury - it could heal itself and you'd never have a problem, or you could have surgery and 3 days later you take a step and *rip* everything falls apart again. Come see us again when you're in your 30s, or when it starts to hurt you so much on a day-to-day basis that you can't stand it.

It's hard to go from the metabolism of an athlete, to the metabolism of someone stuck on a couch in an immobilizer, and not make the dietary changes that need to come hand in hand.

So I started gaining some weight in college. Not a lot, but enough. I was far from MO though. Then I got married. DH had a good job and didn't want me to work, and I wasn't particularly attached to my job so I quit, and found that I had nothing to do all day. I'd clean & clean, and it would still be early morning. So I'd go shop & shop. It got to where I was spending more than I'd be making if I was working. And I found myself spending WAY too much time on the couch in front of the TV eating whatever, because that's what you do when you watch TV. And when dinner rolled around, you eat dinner whether you're hungry or not because that's what you do at 7. And on, and on... There's no joy in behavioral eating. You do it because it's what you do at this time, or during this event, or when you're in this setting.

Jojo, my story is so much like yours.

Now, I don't have the ages entirely right, because I actually remember very well "when" things happened before my parents split up, but my mom moved out when I was about 10, and I know everything after that. When I was probably 8 (7,8, whatever), my parents put me on a diet. It was mostly "Here's some healthy food, and healthy Snacks, no seconds". Good enough, I still rebelled (I ate my sugar free candy in bed at night), but it wasn't too terrible. Mom gave me a time frame instead of a weight goal "If you are good with your diet, you can stop in 3 weeks" (I was happy at the time, but it may have been her way of getting my dad off her back or something, I'll never know). Well, I know I was on my diets after that, but I don't remember. Then mom moved out to go get a job so she could have a place to live when she got custody of us. In the meantime we lived with dad. From 10 through the end of Jr. High, I was on the scale, every morning. Bouncing between 165 and 175, mostly at 165. At least, that's the number I remember the most. There were plenty of times I weighed myself and wrote the number down and lied about it because it had gone up a pound. I was also on Slimfast. It's very cool to go to school and have slimfast for lunch, let me tell you. SO, I went to school, drank my slimfast, and then bought all of the snacks my money would pay for, and ate them throughout the day, or throughout the next few days.

When I moved in with mom, the daily weighing stopped, and I don't remember her getting on me about foods choices all that much, but she was very strong about exersize when she could be (single mother, 3 kids, full time job, etc). I don't remember this (I don't remember lots of things I guess), but after there was a while of us exersizing every day on her schedule, she says I came downstairs one day and said "I have a waist!" I don't think it lasted long.

Anyway... I think I went a bit farther than the first 'cause', but oh well.

This thread makes me cry.

Not in chronological order:

I remember sneaking plain sugar out of the sugar bowl because I was craving sweets and there weren't any around. That was grammer school.

In kindergarden, we were supposed to write a short blurb about our moms for Mother's Day and the blurbs from the whole class were printed up for posterity. Mine was "My mom buys me blueberries and they're not fattening."

My mom's mantra to me, again in grammer school: "Pull it in and tuck it under." She said it to me over and over. Pull it in = stomach, tuck it under = rear end.

I remember eating out with my family and hearing my parents whisper to my two older brothers (both skinny as rails to this day): "Don't order dessert or your sister will want some."

Bless them, they meant well. They still do. They paid for diet after diet after diet and did everything to support me. They love me to pieces and are terrified of the health problems that go along with overweight. But I write this through tears. What a horrible way to live.

I have been fat ever since I can remember.

I remember the story my mom tells everyone from like when I was 8.

"we took her to a dietitician, but I love her and, well, its hard to tell her no, she cant have a cookie."

My parents owned a restuarant. I was there on the weekends from prep in the mornings till closing at night. My breakfast consisted of grilled cheese I made with like 3 pieces of that processed cheese stuff. Snacks would be french fries with pieces of that cheese wrapped around it dipped in blue cheese dressing. Lunch and dinner would be what ever was on the menu I wanted. Evenings would consist of eating ... anything. and everything. I couldnt play outside much since i was at the restuarant and never home.

Even though I wasn't physically fat until my 20's, my habits have been fat habits since childhood. I was able to fight them to some extent. For example, my mom bought me poptarts. I ate two and felt aweful 2 hours later. So, I decided I was going to have a home made egg mcmuffalot in the mornings. My mom bought me Eglish muffins, lean ham, eggs, and 2% cheese. I only used the egg whites. I used this sandwhich for many years to start my day and it carried me for hours. My mom would buy chips and dip for my afterschool snack. She didn;t know any better. I loved them. I woould eat an entire bag in one day.

Good thread.

I had a little "meat" on my bones pre-adolescent. Come 14 years old and menstruation my meat was no longer there. I had turned into a 5'8" inch and 125 pounds. In high school I averaged 135 pounds. I wasn't into athletics, but was very busy. I always worked and went to school. That kept me slim.

My eating habits were the same as they are now. I LOVE food. I ate any opportunity that I had, even the junk and the healthy stuff. It didn't/doesn't matter. I would eat the bag of chips, after school on a daily basis. I also hoarded. It's amazing that I never developed bulimia, but I didn't. I was always pretty confident and independent. My family life sucked in high school and I lived with a friend, for most of it.

Fast forward...I've been married since I was 19 years old (21 years now) and had gained almost 120 pounds since married. Part metabolism, pregnancy weight, and time. My eating habits didn't change. Oh, I tried to change them.

Today, I am banded and my life and eating habits have altered. I hope that I never have to lose the band, because I am not sure that my head is on straight regarding food.

Shawn

I've been heavy all my life. My mother had me on so many diets. I remember one where she put a chart on the living room wall and taped quarters to it for every pound I lost. I lost weight, but when the reward system stopped, I gained my weight back.

I remember going to my aunts house and she had those strawberry candies that they put in the cheese boxes from like Hickory Farms....I would eat them and put the wrappers UNDER the couch! I ate so many, then she found the wrappers and I got in trouble. I was so embarrassed. Typical closet eater right there....I was only about 8 years old.

Then the worse was in middle school, about 11 or 12 years old I think. We had to do those presidential physical fitness tests. You had to get weighed. I asked the teacher to weigh me when the other kids weren't around. She said she would, but then went back on her word. I had to weigh in front of everyone and I'll never forget....160lbs. It was humiliating. I gained weight every year and weighed over 260 when I got married at 21, 350+ at the birth of each child. I'm watching my mother and sister go down hill fast because of their weight and health problems. I'm not going to let that happen to me!

I can't remember not being fat and not being aware that I was fat. I was an obese child and that carried into adulthood. About 5 years ago, I lost over 200 pounds via diet and exercise and got down to 193 pounds. People told me how good I looked, I wore a size 14-16, I felt good, etc. So, why did I regain a little over 100 pounds?

Food has always been my safety blanket. After all, who do we hurt the most by overeating? Now I am banded, waiting to feel restriction, and trying to get to a healthy weight. I'm in my late 40's and NEED to NOT be morbidly obese as I have a heart condition with no known cure and severe arthritis.

Interestingly, my mother has always been obese and often used our diets as a bonding mechanism. I could probably keep an analyst busy for decades. LOL. Thanks for starting this thread, DeCarla.

Our grandfather visited his grandkids at least once a week. And he always had a bag of Cookies. Our name for him (from Spanish) was "Tata." My mom says that before I could form sentences, I'd see him and be standing at that door sayng, "Cookie, Tata, cookie."

A toddler's mind at work:

Tata = good

Tata = cookie

cookie = good

I am soo touched by all of your stories, it's amazing how we can damage our children for life with food issues. It is so important to teach our kids young how to eat right and how to not eat just when they want comfort or when their bored. I try to teach my kids to stay away from bleached flour and to look at the Fiber content on everything and also to satisfy their sweet cravings with fruits. Recently my son has gotten into making blended drinks with frozen fruits, juice and Protein powder which are way better, however, it's a neverending battle. It's so important to be balanced with your kids though.

I didn't get heavy until my late twenties...I was a club gal on the weekends when I was younger and late nights me and my girlfriens would make fried potatoes, bagels and cream cheese, etc. and I just kept eatung like that until now and slowly ten pouds a year ended up getting to about 70lbs!!!! Carbs and cheese are the DEVIL! LOL