Getting personal, why were you fat?

Hi,

If you had asked me before surgery I would have said that I was fat simply because it was too hard to exercise from a wheelchair. However after 2 years it is easier to see that was just part of the problem. Sure calories in and calories out were not in balance, but much of that came from emotional eating. It is sobering to realize how often my impulse to eat is not related to true physical hunger. Stress, boredom and loneliness were most often soothed by eating to the point of discomfort. The sleeve forces me to slow down and eat smaller quantities; the education and support I have received helps me to see my irrational impulses for what they are and begin to build healthier habits.

All the best, Katy 

It all started after highschool for me. In highschool, I thought I was fat..lol.. but I was healthy! I played all sports and worked out at least 6 days a week. I was in great physical shape. With all that activity came an immense hunger and I ate whatever I wanted and had no problems. AFTER, when I went to college and the most strenous thing I did physically was walk to class, I put on my first 20 pounds, I never lost it and it snowballed from there. Put in my next 40 when I got married, we were broke and our main source of "going out" was going out to eat.  After a 60-80 pound gain, it became overwhelming to me and my goal became to just try to maintain and not gain any more,,ha,ha! I failed that  with another 15 pound gain over the past 2 years.

 So , It was a combo of lack of excercise, lack of control  and food being my main source of entertainment.

I was told when I was pre-kindergarten that I was fat by a bunch of older school kids.  I spent the rest of my life fulfilling that judgement so that I wouldn't have to address my feelings of worthlessness.  When you take the fat away, you no longer have excuses for why you don't have a lot of friends, why you don't participate in activities, and why you don't have a boyfriend.  It's a great security blanket.  And when I got older and wiser (and got over my crippling shyness), eating crap was just an ingrained habit obtained after years and years.  

By the time I was ready for surgery, my obesity was due to one thing, and one thing only.  Choice.  I chose to eat fast food, junk food, and diet sodas even though I had educated myself on the nutritional aspects of the diet.  I had worked through my feelings of being unworthy, but was mindless when it came to food.

I had to choose to wake up. I had to choose to feel better.  I had to choose to eat better.  I had to choose to face the carb demons head on and pace the floor for 2-3 days because I wanted chips and soda so bad.  And after the demons disappeared, I had to choose not to invite them back in with "just one bite".

Good luck in your journey - you're smart trying to figure this out up front instead of approaching it like just another diet!

It was a variety of things for me. I was overweight in high school, but not fat. In high school, I ate what was prepared for me.. and neither of my parents were all that knowledgeable about what "healthy eating" means. My mother would gain and lose weight over and over again... and she would do it by eating low-fat everything. I've come to learn that fat is not the enemy and that a restriction of sugar and simple carbs is a much better solution.

Then, there was the whole "eating my feelings" thing. When I came to college, I was going through a really stressful time. I had emotional issues from my childhood, my Mom was going through ANOTHER divorce and was a basket case... used me as her "person to talk to" and she also took out her feelings on me. I worked a lot, didn't sleep, then would go to class a zombie. Repeat, over and over and over for four years. I ate food that was fast and available, I got no exercise, and I packed on the pounds like you wouldn't believe.

Eventually when life settled down, I found myself very overweight and it was depressing. So... I ate some more... then I would think "I have so far to go, why bother even trying? I could never lose that much weight!" so I ate some more. A vicious cycle or feeling pity, depression, etc. and of course - DENIAL!

After my father-in-law passed away... it was a slap in the face that I needed to stop with the denial and change my ways. Hopefully it's a permanent change, but I have a feeling I will be fighting the rest of my life to get to my goal and stay there. That's ok though.. I'll definitely take this life over the one I was "living" - if you can even call it that!

Totally no jokes here.  I n high school I was a 3 letter athlete and in the summer I was a lifeguard.  I've never been skinny, but I've been athletic enough to require much larger shoulders than waist in the past.  When I was a junior I wa**** by a car.  Several weeks in casts and crutches and months of therapy later and I was already gaining quickly.  I was eating an enormous amount of food even for a teenage boy because of my activity level.  I never stopped eating at that level.

After that came work, stress, boredom, and a fairly decent skill at cooking.  Ultimately every part of it was by my choice, but I can trace it back to that event for the start of my weight gain. 

Wrong question -- it's not "why was I fat?"  You already know why you're fat - you eat too much, you said it yourself.  Th real question is "why do I compulsively overeat?"   THAT, my dear, is the question you are looking to answer.  

However, no matter WHY you started using food as a tool to soothe and comfort yourself, or as a way to push down bad feelings, the fact is that it has now become a BAD HABIT, something you do automatically.  Heck, you probably even overeat when you're not feeling out of sorts.  You can lay on a therapist's couch for years (and I'm a trained therapist) and delve into the dark recesses of "why, why, why?" but that's not going to change any of your behaviors NOW or in the future.  

What you really need to focus on is "what will I do instead of eating when I get scared/frustrated/angry/lonely/sad/bored/etc.?"   Implementing some of these new coping skills will be the key to successful maintenance of weight loss once you have surgery.  

Best of luck to you! 

This question really has me thinking...  there are many reasons why I'm fat, and many reasons why I will not be fat anymore.

I'm going to give some more thought to this..but I want to follow this along.  I'm learning so many valuable things here.  I know I will have to see a counselor to really get to the bottom of things, but this thread has been wonderful.  Reading about everyone's struggles and how they so relate to my own.  Thank you all for sharing, and I will share my reasons soon.

Your question got me thinking...there are lots of reasons.

While I am not blaming my family for my weight problem, my upbringing did not set me up for success. I was trained very early on by my parents to clean my plate and eat the foods I was given, even if I did not like them. I was also taught that food=love by my grandmother, who was my main caregiver besides my parents. While my grandmother thought I was perfect as the fat little kid I was (and told the doctors so), my mother somehow instilled a sense of shame in me to the point that I would sneak junk food and binge on it in secret (I remember eating like 10 Hershey bars in one sitting). I wasn't allowed to do sports, so I never got into any sort of physical activity. I have also had depression and anxiety my whole life and used food to medicate myself.

So I ended up as a complete food addict. I used food to medicate, comfort, and entertain myself. Whether I was sad, stressed or happy, I ate. I think control also plays a factor. I have had "disordered eating" my entire life. But then I got so out of control that it was like "why bother?" Losing the weight seemed completely impossible, so I just ate even more. I used food as a form of self punishment.

I also become resentful of the fact that I struggle with obesity while no one else in my family does (sister and I had same upbringing...she was always normal...now she is anorexic...I weighed three times as much as her at my highest weight). I guess I still get resentful at times, like a kid throwing a tantrum, that I have to deal with this. I still experience periods of what I call "diet fatigue" and get rebellious, even though I logically know I am only hurting myself when I do this.

I very distinctly remember mourning food in the weeks after surgery. I was in pain, felt weak, couldn't do much and I desperately wanted to turn to that companion/friend/drug/entertainer/abuser I have had my whole life - FOOD - and I couldn't for the first time ever. I think I realized at that point that my emotional issues were far worse than I had previously believed.

So that about sums it up as far as my emotional issues. Plus, well, food is awesome. It's delicious and it's associated with positive things and it is an important part of our social culture. Our society doesn't set any of us up for success.

I went round and round with this question in therapy and never really came up with a great answer.  I think the real reason that I was obese is because genetically I was pre-programed to be obese.  My body type is very similar to my maternal grandmother and she and her three sisters were all big.  It also didn't help that my grandmother, who lived through a time after the war in Russia when people literally starved to death on the streets, tried really hard to keep me chubby.  Also, after my two pregnancies, I gained another 80 pounds and could not lose them and keep them off.  I was always hungry, not just a little hungry, but shaking with hunger and waking up starving.  I would plan my whole life around satisfying that urge to eat. Once the hunger was under control, I could eat to live rather than live to eat.  I am not sure that it's more complicated than this.  The metabolic changes of this surgery made it possible for me to put into effect the same skills I could use in other areas of my life and plan and implement a good weight loss and maintenance plan.  This surgery made it possible to lose and maintain my weight loss.  I don't think it was mostly psychological, there might have been some elements of psychological issues, but mostly, this was all about my body's need to gain and maintain weight gain.