How did you gain weight

Just out of curiosity how did you gain weight, and when was your I got to change moment?

Original Post by jayz_gal2004:

I started really gaining weight when I met my boyfriend. I became 30 pounds comfortable as they say. we ate out waaaayyyy to much and I drank way too much soda. Along with the excess calories I was consuming I did not exercise. Funny thing is I realized that the scale was changing but really wasn't motivated to lose weight. Over the period of 4 years I had gained 36 pounds.I crash dieted all the time. Every week I was trying something new.

The day that I decided I was gonna lose for good was when I looked at a photo of myself standing by my boyfriend and I looked like a freakin cow! I thought to myself "Why does he stay with a fatty like me when he can easily find someone better looking.?"

March 2009 I gave up Soda for good, I watch what I eat, and work out on occasion. I am 36 pounds lighter today. I am the same weight I was when I first met my sweetie!

 awe thats cute, you guys should get married!~erica

I was really skinny until I got to age 40, then I gave up smoking and put on about 14 pounds, which took me to a healthy weight (135 lb from 121)  because I'd been underweight before.

When I was 47 I developed an underactive thyroid and put on about 9 lbs.  Then when I was 52 I went through the menopause from hell, went on HRT and put on another 9 lbs. 

Then I moved to Canada three years ago and spent my first winter terrified to go outside because of the cold, plus my new doctor did not like the way my thyroid condition had been managed in England and reduced my thyroxine dosage.  My weight shot up to 170 lb, but I lost about 7 lb of that quite quickly without dieting.

I started dieting at the beginning of September. Now I'm down to 148 lb.  I'm calorie counting using this and other sites, and going to a gym 5 days a week, and I'm pleased with my progress.  I'm within the healthy weight range now, but I'm keeping going because I want to get back to 135 lb, which I think is my best weight.

I've never dieted before and I'd never join Weight Watchers.  My mother is obese and has been all her adult life.  She's been attending WW since forever -- total waste of time.  I'd rather spend the money on gym membership.

I ate too much.

Oh, I could blame my under active thyroid, for which I have been on hormone therapy for over 10 years, or the fact that I quit smoking, or I turned 40.  But I think the long and short of it is that I just kept eating like I did in my twenties instead of listening to my changing body.  My needs changed and I did not respond.

Well, it is a story. About the time I started dating my husband I got really sick with mono and because I didn't know I had it for about three months, it got really bad. I was forced to quit dancing which cut down my exercise hugely as I had been dancing 15 hours a week right before I had to quit. I gained some weight then, but not too much. The bad weight gain was when I started taking the pill. I was put on yasmin about a month before my wedding and after that month of stress when I could not possibly gain weight from how little I was eating, I started gaining two to five pounds a week for a total of 40 pounds in six months. I went off the pill, but it has been almost two years now. I finally feel like my body is getting back to normal as far as hormones go. No more basket case the week before my period or months between periods. With that getting back to normal and counting calories, I am finally losing some weight. I have been on calorie count for a month now and I am almost down ten pounds!

My moment came when I looked at a wedding picture and thought I looked skinny and then found a picture from the month my hubby and I started dating. I was like wow! I can't believe I was ever that skinny. The other thing that has gotten me very motivated is that I am getting very close to graduating from college and my husband and I have always planned on starting a family after we are through with college and I want to be in the best health that I can when we have kids. :)

I always had to be careful of my weight and would fluctuate around 20 pounds in college (more related to liquid calories and pizza!). After graduating, I was at a really healthy weight for most of my 20's, and very fit and active from running, hiking, and occasional gym workouts or tae-bo.

Then I started a job as I approached 30 that required tons of traveling, many being one night trips or super early am flights with late returns.  Often going from west coast, to east coast, back to west and then somewhere in the middle all in one week --total sleep deprivation. I really don't think there were many good options for exercise - -if my flight got in at 1 am, and I needed to be at a meeting at 8 am and had to squeeze a few hours of work in between, there was just no time.  Plus it was the boom of the tech sector, so there were ton of conferences with crazy spreads and fancy restaurants. Never thought my eating was out of control, but having 3 meals out a day every day just packed on the poundage. So I went from very physically active to shutting down, from preparing the majority of my meals at home to eating out constantly. Bam - 40+ pounds in a few years, nearly all of it coming the first year alone.  

That began the yo-yo dieting of the next 10 years - can't tell you how many times I lost the same 25 pounds on to regain it plus more.  My 'moment' came after getting on a scale after a year of total avoidance  - to find out that I had gained 20 more pounds, not just the 5 that I assumed. I seriously almost passed out on the nurse! 

I was not skinny in high school but I always managed to keep my weight under control because of taking many dance classes a week, being in a bunch of clubs and organizations and working part time.  I still ate a lot when I was at home but I was busy enough to burn it off.  Then I went to college and suddenly here I was not doing nearly as many activities as I was before and eating the incredibly high-calorie meals that were provided to me on my food plan (there were of course healthier options, I just didn't choose those!). 

I was heavier than I ever have been in my life my freshman year of college (around 165 was my worst, I'm 5'8") and I managed to lose a little bit of weight last year just from being off the meal plan and working out more and then this summer I finally decided that this was it and I was losing the weight once and for all!  I am now at about 135 and even though I struggle with being happy with my body, this is a healthy weight for me.  I wouldn't MIND losing five more pounds, but I don't think I'd really want t ogo below 130.  Honestly with all the walking I do I feel like I can still eat a pretty good amount of food and not gain weight, so I must have been eating A TON to weight that much.  But I was not very happy then either, so I think that really contributed to it.

I just hope I can stay healthy and not go down that path again! 

I started high school around a size 5 with a healthy appetite. I gave up the sports/dance/gymnastics when I discovered alcohol and pot and once I got my license forget about walking anywhere. My jeans were getting tighter and my answer was something like hmm... I'll consume nothing but water and a tiny bag of animal crackers from the vending machine for the rest of the week/month and I'll be normal again! I think I graduated weighing about 160-170. I honestly had no idea it was the beer making me fat cus seriously, liquids don't have calories

Right after high school I moved to the south with my boyfriend who was in the army at the time and I gained another 25lbs from being depressed. I missed home, had no friends, was 19 years old and ashamed to step foot on a beach. Why on earth was this fit Army Ranger even remotely interested in me?

So I killed that relationship, came back home and started bartending which led to eating nothing all day, drinking all night, and wrapping it up with some greasy concoction. Same with waitressing. Ate nothing until after I got off my shift at 11pm then drank all night and binged the whole next day. So yeah... 2 years of that and I was 204lbs. Totally not surprised.

10 years of being close to or mildly obese and you'd have thought my A-ha moment would've come sooner. It actually took an argument with my brother to realize I really didn't have any self respect if this was how I was treating myself. I created this person, this body, this f'd up way of thinking and did a pretty horrible job of it. But I know better now, and after 11 months of re-gaining a conscience I'm down to 162.8! Yeah I'm at a snail's pace but so what. It's going to stay off for good :)

I was never thin or fat in school and figured diets were a con and people just were a particular bodysize - I had enough friends bigger than me who ate less and moved more and enough friends smaller than me who ate endlessly and sat on the sofa all day.

At 21 I moved in with my boyfriend and we got into cooking - good stuff, but too much of it. Too much wine too. Big social life, parties all the time, a boozy job where bosses would take you for a pint at lunchtime too. Gradually crept up clothes sizes but I was an unorthodox dresser and a sarky feminist and I made my own clothes anyway and i was brimming with confidence and liked dancing and had a great sex life and pulled girls and boys in clubs and me and my boyfriend (still my current boyfriend) laughed about it all and told each other we loved each other anyway and weren't we naughty and opened another bottle and had another threesome, etc. He always fancied me.

Our first holiday together, in Rhodes, and I hated all the pictures. I was fine with myself in the mirror but I hated all the pictures. I should find one and scan it. I reckon I was a UK size 18, though squashing into UK 16 clothes. Then my nurse told me I had put on a stone in a year when I went for a pill check up, and that was it really. I was 23 I think. 175lb. I thought I'd make some changes. Never dieted though, just ate a bit less and started walking to work.

I am now 29 and 128lb give or take and still cook wonderfully though healthily and walk and hike a lot and wear a uk size 8 and am very, very, very happy with my body. But I do miss my younger self. She was obnoxious and cool and different and brave. No regrets, yeah?

I was a skinny kid and a slender adult, except when pregnant.  I gained 60 pounds or so with each pregnancy and lost it during the first year after.  If I gained a few pounds over a holiday, I'd go on a crash diet and lose it.

Then when I was in my 40s, that strategy suddenly stopped working.  I'd starve myself, lose a little, stall, starve some more, then give up and gain it all back plus 5 more pounds. 

That's how it went - 5 pounds a year gained until I was 60 and 235 pounds.  After seeing the pictures of my daughter's wedding in 2004, I got serious, lost 20 pounds by the end of 2005 and once again stalled, but managed not to gain it back.

In early 2006, I found calorie count while searching for calories in something.  Finally I got the push I needed.  Somebody took me under her wing and told me the tough truth - I was not eating enough and was putting myself into starvation mode.  That was hard to hear after years of believing that to lose weight you had to eat less and less. 

At that point I consulted a nutritionist, went on a 2000 calorie regimen of very healthy balanced foods and gained back 8 pounds.  Then that leveled off and I was maintaining at 2000.  After 6 weeks, she began cutting calories until I began losing at about 1500 calories, a full 600 more than I'd maintained on before.  The whole process took 6 months. It took me a long time to lose 50 pounds, and I still have 25 or so to go, but I'm in this for the long haul.