Why are YOU Fat?

I felt the need to revisit this thread to see what I originally wrote. Sadly for me, nothing has changed. I was doing fairly well on counting calories until these past few days when dinners started getting sloppy. I'd like to blame my husband for leaving huge pizzas on the counter instead of tucking them out of site, but I can't control or blame the world around me.

I had a bad binge episode tonight. It wasn't as bad as past binges but it could lead me there. Something about stuffing too much food in my stomach (to the point of pain) makes me want to stuff even more in as soon as the pain subsides. It's been several hours since I ate all that food, and I'm still full, but since the pain is gone I'm clenching my teeth wanting to eat more. I'm so afraid of eating that I took a Lortab (narcotic pain med) since they act like diet pills for me.

I'm an addict one way or the other. My stomach is stuffed with enough calories to take me through tomorrow, I'm mentally, emotionally and spiritually bankrupt to the point I broke down crying over today's eating episode, and I'm becoming more and more defensive over people at LBT picking apart my feelings and thoughts as if I'm bad, wrong, cruel or judgmental.

Based on my addictions, I'm beginning to question whether LBT is a good place for me. Even on threads I don't participate in, I'm seeing people debating over why we're all fat. There is no one reason! Some of us have similar food addictions and obsessions, but we get verbally smacked around by a few others that can't understand how obsession reigns over common sense and good food choices.

I don’t mean to piss people off but I’m brutally honest by nature so I tend to offend some folks.

To Dawn in MN,

Kudos for quitting smoking and trying to deal with eating at the same time!!!! I also feel like my weight problem got worse when I started to diet. You're either on a diet or off, and when I was "off" I gave myself permission to do very bad things. I'm trying to think of it as an every day lifetime commitment rather than a diet.

I've also found that dieting in recent years much harder, from no fat to no carb, what's next???. I go from one to the other. In the end, there is only nutritious food and non-nutritious food.

Has anyone else had a problem with too many diets giving mixed messages?

Mags

I admit, I have no discipline at all when it comes to food...I can tell you im on a diet and be eating cookies 5 minutes later. :hungry:

Could it be posible not to advertive on lapbandtalk...?

Why not? whats

Yes... I'm either on or off a diet. And when I'm off of the diet it's look out food! I'm amazed at how much I can eat and not be satisfied.

I've always heard a food addiction is so hard to give up because it's not like you can go "cold turkey" and turn food away from your life forever. It's a battle I'm so tired of fighting.

I told my surgeon I'm just can't fight this fight any longer.... He seemed to empathize.

That's why I'm here... is to be with others who understand the fight. I also am not looking for a judgement, just someone with something in common.

This is such a complex topic and I've read so many things I relate to. Basically I was thin until my mid 20s - could eat ANYTHING and not gain. So I got into the habit of eating whatever I wanted - lots of southern cooking. Got a little older, slowed down after I got married, had a few female problems and their subsequent 'treatments', got fat. I LOVE to GORGE myself on food. I can eat a whole serving bowl of pasta and butter. It is one of my favorite gorge foods. Not much of a sweets eater, but love the salt. Went from 95 pounds at 18 years old to 135 in my early 30s to 185 in my mid 30s, to 230 in my late 30s. Lost down to 180 again when I was 40 and now at 46 am 290 pounds. I am fat and disgusted with myself. I don't like to exercise because I get tired (duh!) and i hate the way I look. When I see myself I just want to scream! I need to eat less, it's not rocket science, but why can't I? I'm not 'hungry' excessively but I DO have appetite excessively - two completely different things. I crave things when my body/stomach isn't even asking for food. I hate this. I'm still wavering on getting the band and I wonder WHY? Am I going to have to have a stroke first? AND a little voice in my head says "you won't be able to eat all that good stuff any more, don't do it". GEEZ little voice SHUT UP!

Hi, I'm researching getting banded and trying to read as much "real" info from banded people. Getting questions answered and weighing...no pun intened...the pros and cons for me.

I've always been a "big" girl...not really fat when I was younger but that quickly changed....have a lot of hormone problems and I swear that has a lot to do with it. I also have a huge appetite like many here and an an emotional binger. I have bi-polar health problems and have a lot of manic episode when I want to hurt myself....my hurt of choice is food. This is why I need to feel that the banding is right for me. I've been on every diet possible...can stay on it for about a month...loose 15 to 20 pounds and then regain all+ like many of you. This has been a life long stuggle and I need to end the stuggle somehow. I am so full of self loathing it makes me sick....I'm a bit scared of the surgery but I can't live like this forever...I don't think I can make it and it def is not healthy for me as I obsess about it every day!

Thanks for listening!

This truly is a great thread...the real question is...how to do get fat as a baby and stay that way? At 2 yrs old, I was actually bigger than my sister who was 2 years older than I was. Basically, it was negelect...."let's feed the baby until she is satisfied and won't cry anymore" and that is the way I learned to cope with situations....I was a middle child that was truly in the middle, "stuffed" inbetween the "golden" first child, the overachiever and the baby. I also come from a long line of obsessive compulsives. My parents were both very small but smoked 3-4 packs of cigarettes a day each. It was only after my dad quit smoking that he became overweight whereas my mother could never quit. Both succumbed to lung cancer. Their addictive qualities were passed down to their 4 daughters. We all have issues. My issue just happens to be food. Try as I might, like all of us, food fills my thoughts a good percentage of the day. It's always there. When I feel good and want to celebrate w/friends, we go to dinner. When I feel happy it's there...lonely, it's there....depressed...it's there. Always there with me. Right now, I'm trying to refocus my thoughts. I have found that if I go to the gym directly after work, I'm basically too tired to "give in". I'm really working hard and actually seeing some small results which are encouraging to me. I keep thinking that if I do this long enough, it will become a habit and in the future I'll not mind going. I have already realized that if I get too close to my house from work, I can easily talk myself out of working out then the cravings will take over. Therefore, I feel in danger of a relapse at all times. My question is this...will these feelings ever to away? Oh well, thanks for being there and listening. Cyndi

The relationship we have with food is the common thread!
I had few friends as a kid, except for food and Food was focal part of every aspect of our lives.
Two views:
1. It was like a hug from inside, being full and swallowing felt good. When I drank soda the bubbles tickled and filled me up. Nothing felt better than eating a whole bunch of food and then snuggling up under the covers and watching TV.
2. Eager to please! "Do you like my cheesecake Jennifer?" "Oh yes, may I have some more?" Every event from St. Patricks Day to Christmas to Sunday's Nascar Race had food as a focal point. "Jen, are you making those chedar cheese pretzles for Sunday? They are great!" Eating to make others happy and providing food for others is a great feeling!
Food became more important than conversation, the race, the presents etc.
Since my decision to Lap it up, I go weekly to a Support Group and there is no food! We talk! We share! People have become such an important part of my motivation. This past Thursday I spent the day with my two girlfriends. (We are like sisters) Once a month we chart on our calendars a day for Us. One of my "sisters" was banded 11/1/2005 and the other has been a size 6 all her life. Two of the best people in the world! After our "therapy" day of gosip, shopping, laughing and yes eating(carefully), I went to a Support Group meeting at our local hospital. When I came home my house was a wreck (kids home for more than one min. without me screaming "We dont have a maid pick it up!") but it didn't bother me I felt so good. I was almost HIGH!
I have made a turn in the road that has given me something else to focus on besides food! People, I call people, I email people, I read and post here now! I have changed my focus to people, events and not the food.
We all have different stories but the common thread is our relationship with food! Change that and keep the support level high seems to be working for me so far!
One of my favorite movies is Finding Nemo and the character Dory says
"Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!"
Good Luck to all who are looking for the change they need.

"We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance." Harrison Ford

I have read this post several times & have never been able to come up with a good solid reason as to why I'm fat. Obviously, I eat too much & eat the wrong foods. But why do I do that?? Now that I have lots 50 lbs, I have been able to look back & see myself in a whole new way.

I grew up in a good home with great parents. I had a mother who made 3 good, healthy meals a day. I was loved & cared for. No problems at home!! I was never overweight until I got married & had children. Then, all of a sudden - WHAM!! I'm fat. It seems like it was overnight, but it took a good 2-3 years.

I have always had a great self-esteem. I don't binge eat or get out of control with food. But yet, I'm still fat!! Through my weight loss process, I realized what happened & why I'm where I'm at.

I am not very good about taking care of ME!! I take care of my kids, the house, my job, the husband, the lady next door, my sisters, my mother, the pregnant woman at church.....etc. I have always put myself last in everything. I would stop at fast food places for lunch as I was on my way to help my sisters. I would make a meal for my family & then run out the door to work & stop at a fast food place on the way home. (It was 10 p.m. at night!) I never exercised, I just didn't have time. Or should I say - I didn't MAKE time. All the years of neglect had finally taken its toll & I became 100 lbs overweight.

Since being banded, I now put myself FIRST!! I felt very selfish in the beginning, but I have realized that if I don't take care of myself, I can't take care of anyone else. (Besides, noboby will be taking care of me - right?!?!?!?) I am so much happier & my family is too!! If Momma ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy!!!

I am now eating for MY health. I am exercising for MY health. It's all about ME!!! :D

Ok....this is a great thread....I have always wondered what reasons other people had for being overweight. Mine is pretty mundane actually. I was not abused as a child, I grew up in a pretty normal family...with it's little secret dysfunctionalities like my over bearing dominating chronically depressed mother. But other than that my family life was ok. My mother is obese...no more or less than me but she is shorter than me so she doesn't look like a giant refrigerator walking into a room like I do at 5'7" and 275, at least thats how I feel, clumsy and lumbering. I am also a dietician to boot, of course I do not work in my field exactly, well kinda but I am an administrator so I do not have to counsel people on nutritional issues thank god! I feel like a Doctor who smokes and has unprotected group sex. I am ashamed of myself and I have been obsessed with my weight for 32 of my 42 years. Even though I was not a heavy child and my highest weight up to the age of 19 was 133. My sister was nearly anorexic in her thinness and her highest weight at age 20 was 112, same height as me. I grew up hearing my older brother singing "Fatty fatty two by four can't get through the bathroom door so she did it on the floor" and "How do you do Miss Blue" (Miss Blue was a morbidly obese teacher in our school) and "Fat people got no reason to live" (instead of short people...what a horrid song anyway!) and "She's a fatty, she's my sister" And the list goes on and on. These may sound funny to people now but they still pack a mighty sting for me, so I can only imagine how much I hated it back then...I never knew that I wasn't fat UNTIL I GOT FAT! So...I don't know what made me eat....probably a combination of a lot of things both environmental and genetic but I do know what made me fat...FOOD. No one force fed me, I ATE IT ON MY OWN. Now It's time to pay the piper.:hungry:

I just wanted to thank everyone for this post. I have not been band yet. I am thinking about it and wanted more information about it. I am going to my first meeting this week and this was one of my biggest concerns. How can I, a VO person my whole life stop eating the only way I know. My husband and I love food so do my kids. My children have been going out to eat since they were born. My daughter is starting to gain some weight and I am so scarred for her, I know what other kids are like and how they say things to over weight kids. It breaks my heart but I still give into them and they eat too much. I really think that I should do this not just for me but to help my family. I just really didn't think I would ever be able to cut my intake so serverly. But reading the post I now know it can be done.

Wow, all i can say is wow.

I know now that part of my weight has to do with my Cushing's. I don't care what my doctor said, it is NOT normal to gain 25 pounds in one month,

DeLarla, You have been working for so long.... you have been so good and once in a while guess what... you have to revert! At least I do... I want a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips NOW! ok and because it's Sunday I want to have desert with the family perhaps I will even have two brownies.. (late at night when no one is looking) but who cares.... I say I have to do it to keep myself sane.... then the next day or three days later I say" I am only making myself sick Hello, don't you get it girl???"
You may or may not have this exact same problem but the thing is we need to be "The biggest black hole of need" once in a while.... Sometimes it is all about "me." So screw what others say, do what is right for you, listen to your body and when the binging stops don't beat yourself up.... Try a Oh well back to basics, Protein, Water and Calories... set goals agian,,, pretend you had your surgery yesterday and today is the first day to start loosing weight!!! Just Keep Swimming"
(((((((((Huggs ta ya)))))))))))