What's your reason for your obesity

[TooneyNinosMom 50]

I was a size 4 when I got married, got pregnant 10 months later and was a size 6. During my pregnancy I ate everything I could stuff in my mouth. I was 184 after giving birth, I'm 5'2". I yoyo dieted for years after that and I'd lose at most 40lb's only to gain it all back and more. Finally I found myself at 316 and said enough is enough.

[MusicMom1384 18]

I think a lot of mine is genetics but also health issues. I was a size 14/16 when I got married. I was absolutely perfect with that! Ive always been bigger than my friends but a lot of that had to do with my build too... I'm 5'8. Literally right after we got married I was diagnosed with severe endometriosis... I'd never had any issues with intimacy before because I'd never been intimate before marriage. However, intercourse hurt immensely, more than the normal part of your body getting used to it. They found a grapefruit sized cyst on my left ovary and scheduled surgery, that's when they found the Endo growing up my spine, all on my insides... after surgery they put me on Lupron depo. I hate this medicine. It put me in a medically induced menopause (I was 22), made me violent, angry, depressed and I gained 60 pounds in 3 months!!!! My self confidence plummeted! My husband has never once criticized me or made me feel less than Beautiful in any way but he is definitely behind me getting this surgery. I'm looking forward to reclaiming some lost years.

[fastfoodaddictnomore 66]

Emotional/anxiety eater mainly. I am adopted but know bio parentage (relative). Bio mother not overweight nor father, but paternal grandmother was, and maternal great grandmother also.
But I was a preemie - 3lbs 6oz. Adoptive mother fattened me up, was only a little chubby as a child, and maybe 15# overweight as a teen. She also did a psychological number on me, never felt accepted really. Held adoption over my head - ' you better be glad I adopted you or you'd be dead by now.' 'Butch and Marie (natural born children) never had the stuff you did.' And then there is the baking of chocolate cake and telling me I had 'to learn to leave it alone.' Oh let's add my adopted father feeling me up at age 13 - so yeah psycho chit, eh?
But I loved them, I deserved better. Then I married a drunk, had 4 beautiful children, stayed 18 years in that. Divorced, now married 20 years to a great man. I am happy but have a few old wounds. My one saving grace was - school - and God. But God wasn't brought to me by way of my parents for sure. I am a great learner and creative and I'm pretty but never knew it or felt it.
I (like most of us) have sucessfully lost weight over and over, 7yrs ago I lost 70 lbs and got scared. A guy at work started hitting on me and I ran to food.....I didn't know that then. I know it now. Some situations that I can't control that bring up anxiety make me want to find 'a fix'. I recognize it and work on it. The weirdest things sometimes do it - movies with extreme violence or abuse - I can't watch them. Although if I have good control I can cuss at them, lol 'you f****** ba***rd, just shoot him already, and stay away from the chips/cookies/ice cream.... (there is none in the house anyway).
Pregnancies and menopause just added to it all.
Ok. I blathered on enough.

Enough to cause anyone to pack in weight. Thanks for sharing your story.

[AnA92212 577]

I wasn't chubby until around age 8 or 9. I used food as a coping mechanism. I have been on a diet since I was 10 years old (until I had surgery). Part of it is genetic predisposition and PCOS. However, I ate too much. I used food to cope. I ate when I was happy, sad, excited, anxious, mad. I didn't exercise very much. I used excuses to justify my eating. I also didn't really have insight as to how much I was eating. I could literally eat so much and not ever feel full. I cannot believe I spent so much of my life being morbidly obese. I was on the edge of so many health issues.

[Dakini 4]

Frankly, hedonism. I like tasting food. It's stimulating. Come from a family of restaurateurs and chefs and just like food way too much.

Always been fat, like most of the rest of my family.

[AZBlackhawk 122]

Good post!

i remember being 3 years old sneaking the fridge for chocolate Cookies. Eating sugar out of the sugar container. Putting probably 1/4 cup of sugar on my Cereal as a kid. I would cut cakes in thin lines all the way across to try to be sneaky about taking extra bites. I was a little chubby as a kid, but thinned out in high school then yo-yo'd. I don't think anyone taught me those things...I just always tried to sneak extra, sugary, chocolatey things

So-

1. lack of self control

2. Never had good food habits

3. Using food when happy/sad/ any emotion really.

4. Stress and poor sleep

5. My dad was heavier and died when he was 43 (I was 10). My mom died when I was in my 20's, but eating Taco Bell at that time wasn't too bad for my figure. My sister died when she was 37, my 3rd kid was 3 months old at the time and I had just had my ovaries out- so I was a mess.

6. I remember someone saying at my dad's funeral that he would by a pie at 7-11 and eat it in the parking lot... I usually hid my really bad eating habits. So much so, that at one time I would get mcdonalds after work but then eat dinner at home even though I wasn't hungry at all and had just consumed more than I needed!

[Apple1 2,572]

On 9/4/2017 at 2:55 PM, Introversion said:

1. Genetic predisposition...my maternal grandmother was 400+ pounds well before the modern-day obesity epidemic, and my mother was obese. Many of the women on my mother's side of the family are overweight or obese.
2. Hypothyroidism and certain medications that promote weight gain
3. Insulin resistance (it caused insatiable hunger for me)
4. Poor lifestyle choices such as chronic yo-yo dieting, bad food choices, overeating, frequent fast food runs, etc.

What she said exactly.

[dreamingsmall 1,125]

On 04/09/2017 at 6:28 PM, JohnnyCakes said:

genetics and hormones.

With it being genetics and hormones, nothing to do with eating too much how does a sleeve help, do the hormones change after you are sleeved? Or has it got something to do with your eating?

[dreamingsmall 1,125]

I am obese, because I like eating. I suppose it formed a part of my self harm behavour from teenage years from trauma etc. But food tastes good too and I did not care about moderation.

[dreamingsmall 1,125]

It was like.. food was always there, when I did not trust anyone else in this world. My food was always there and I did not have to worry it would run away because when it finished , I can just buy some more, I was in control of that, sometimes I did not even taste the food, I just put it in my mouth chew swollow and brought it straight back up. And moved on to the next food. It is hard thinking what a hard time that was and that I was like this to hide dealing with some things.

Now I have had the surgery , it can not hide the things you need to deal with as the food is no longer shielding you from truths lol.

[Little Green 582]

Overweight/obese since childhood followed by 10+ years of non-stop soda drinking and 2x a day fast food once I got my driver's license and a job. I'm sure there are genetic and hormonal factors that caused me to gain weight as a child, but anybody would probably get fat eating like I did.

As far as how people reacted, I got made fun of a lot in elementary and middle school but I was mostly okay in high school. I didn't have a lot of attention from guys and I was choosy about the attention I did get, so I only had a few partners before I met my husband. I was only 23 when I met him so at that time I felt like I was doing fine and was in no rush to find a long-term partner. Honestly until the last 3 or so years, my weight rarely bothered me, and that's why I never did anything about it.

Edited September 9, 2017 by Little Green

[Rainbow_Warrior 996]

On 04/09/2017 at 9:12 PM, Siyaa Ela said:

The title pretty much says it all

I'm curious what caused your obesity and how did the people react around you

Was stout/stocky until mid thirties ... overweight by 4-9kg (9-20lbs) then a sports injury that meant that over the next two to three years I went from five sports/games per week to ZERO for a year then back to one for the next 6-7 years.

The mould for obesity was cast long before:

1** I was a lover of meat and bread from my preschool years. My granddad and uncles were bakers to several small local towns.

2** Portion Control.

3** Nearly always having "seconds" or extra serves

4** Always having a dad who insisted on a clean plate.

5** Never a binge drinker but a regular consumer of beer three or four days/nights per week from 17yo to 58yo

6** A massive Diet Cola consumer consumer 40yo to 58yo

7** Hot chips (i.e. French fries)

8** Average 3.5 cups espresso all my adult life. (Currently down to 9-10 mugs per week but weaning to cups!)

The good news. (A) Other than the sugar in beer and a couple of Desserts per week, I was a relatively low consumer of sugar. (B) When I overate, I generally overate lots of vegetables and fruit. (C) There is no time of my life where I have not have at least three veges per meal twice per day. (D) My snack foods were fruits ... TOO MANY fruits. I often had 6 to 10 serves of fruit daily. (E) Stopped drinking full cream milk at 13yo ... but have had about a litre (or more) of skim milk almost every day of my life since.

Thanks to all that GOOD NEWS in the last paragraph, I have never had Diabetes 2 despite passing BMIs of 35, 45 and 55 on the way to morbid obesity. Thanks veges. Thanks fish. Thanks chicken. Thanks wholemeal grains.

Honestly, I see myself as a GOURMET GLUTTON. My bad foods are minimal. My portions were high to extreme.

Q. What caused my obesity? A. Largely QUANTITY of QUALITY!

[Rainbow_Warrior 996]

15 hours ago, Little Green said:

but anybody would probably get fat eating like I did.

Quite candid. Kudos to you!

[Rainbow_Warrior 996]

On 04/09/2017 at 11:55 PM, Miss Topaz said:

I stopped being really active, but never really lost the eating habits that I had when I was athletic.

This was the middle of my life of 60+ years ... dropping out of sport/s but not winding back my food consumption by a commensurate amount.

Many other factors though.

[Rainbow_Warrior 996]

On 05/09/2017 at 3:18 AM, Elise24 said:

Retirement. Age.

My retirement brought a loss of 43kg (95lbs) until I withdrew from life for several months after my son's death. I was on a pretty good course of swimming 75-100 mins six days per week and diet diary on MyFitnessPal.