Why are YOU Fat?

desertmom · 01-28-2008, 10:30 AM

I am fat because I can never get enough food.I can litterally eat and eat and eat and eat.I mostly ate at night.....The band didnt change any of this because it is too tight in the morning and no restriction at night.

tchrshelli · 01-28-2008, 09:44 PM

Thank you for your words of encouragement...

chell1957 · 01-29-2008, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by desertmom

I am fat because I can never get enough food.I can litterally eat and eat and eat and eat.I mostly ate at night.....The band didnt change any of this because it is too tight in the morning and no restriction at night.

desertmom

=== If I may I have a question or 2 to ask...now that U are banded, have U lost weight? How do U cope with this issue? I see a bit of my self in your statement. If the band is not working for you on this issue, what did u do, if anything to get past this problem? Thanks for the understanding in my asking the question. Chell

desertmom · 01-29-2008, 09:06 AM

hi

I regain and diet and regain and diet...like I always did before.Now the only problem is I constantly worry about what am I going to do when I get older...I am considering the sleeve (first part of DS)

You are much lighter to start with so I think the band might have a different effect...I have noticed that it does seem to work a lot better for lowe BMI patients than for high BMI patients.

Good luck

Blund · 01-29-2008, 09:36 AM

Regarding yesterday's posts....isn't it rediculous that you have to take a class and get a license to drive a CAR, but ANYONE fertile can become a parent?!!! I was brought up with 2 older brothers and we were like a pack of wolves at the dinner table! If I didn't gobble stuff down, I didnt get anything to eat! And being southern, we were praised for cleaning our plates. The reward being....you guessed it....SECONDS! I often wonder exactly when (& what)started my overeating. I learned at a young age to "stuff" my feelings. (Anyone have older brothers who constantly tormented you?) I suppose that was easy to convert into "eating" my feelings. I don't want my kids to have food issues. I already have to distract them from eating cuz their bored once in a while. I know that I'm not as cold as my my was, but what kind of example am I showing them about food?

sadie11 · 01-31-2008, 11:52 PM

Desert mom- I was so encouraged by your comment that lower BMI folks seem to do better- my BMI is 38 and I realized I am starving (ha!) for encouragement. Thanks

The topic is compelling for sure. The stories are heartbreaking to read. We have all suffered so much! It is overwhelming to read these stories.

I of course, have a sad story too. Mother died when I was 3 and I was on my own. My father was chronically depressed and was just unavailable. I got myself up for school, made my breakfast, walked to school, came home for lunch, made my lunch if there was any food. and walked back to school. All this in kindergarden!

I do not remember adults speaking to me during my whole childhood. It is all a fog to me. All very sad and dark.

I have surrounded myself with wonderful loving people in my adult life. I have been very successful and reached every goal I ever had except for controlling my weight. I am hoping the band will give me the edge I need.

I realize my childhood will always be dark and sad. I will always miss my mother every day of my life. That emptiness will always be there no matter how much i eat. I cannot have a happy childhood but i can have a wonderful adulthood and for the most part, I have a had a wonderful life.

I am blessed with a wonderful loving partner who treats me like a queen and friends who love me and want to be with me. It has not been without struggle.

I am off to Hawaii and then back for my band. I am hoping this final problem of weight will be solved with this tool.

Love to you all
Sadie

valstar · 02-01-2008, 03:19 PM

Sadie and Juli,

I can really relate to both of your comments. my mom died a few years ago and I have had a hard time getting over it. I, too, turned to food. Through counseling I realized why all of a sudden at 10:00 PM I was starving. That was the time I would settle down and call my mother to talk about my day, the kids, the job, etc. Shewas my sounding board and when she was gone, all the feelings and junk that I processed and released with her were just there inside of me, so I put a blanket of food over them. I was always heavey but this certainly didn't help.

I like what you said about helping myself in a different way now. Now is the time to take control and move forward. My 12 year old made a sign for her locker that says "The past is carved in slate, you can't erase it. If you could, you'd have nothing. Learn from the past and carve more into your present." God Bless her. I'm carving hope, light and forgiveness into my present.

Good luck all!

Sunwyse · 02-03-2008, 02:36 AM

I have a couple of reasons for being fat. As a child I was very scrawny. When puberty hit so did the weight. I didn't know at the time, but my eating as a response to hormonal changes was due to sexual abuse when I was very young. Then at 13 I also developed PCOS which didn't cause the weight gain, but did keep on what I was putting on and made it almost impossible to lose it again.

Also at 13 I developed Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which again didn't cause me to be fat but made it so hard to eat sensibly or exercise in winter.

I had a lot of emotional pain and rage that I felt I had to stuff down my throat with food because my own home wasn't a safe place to express them. Later on, what added to the weight problem was all the crash dieting I did. My first diet attempt was starvation. I was borderline anorexic at 15 (before they had a name for it) but brought myself out of it before it became an issue. After that I tried just about every crazy diet going.

Queb · 02-04-2008, 10:27 AM

First of all, I would like to say to you that my English is not my first language thus be indulgent please!

I read here really sad stories. I have no story so sad. I am too big because, on the base, I like eating. When I was young ( 20 y.o.), I was athletic and sports. I had a black belt in aikido. I weighed hardly 180lb. I knew that I got fat easily but I so went in for sport that I eventually lost the extra kilo by paying more attention. I began getting fat when I changed drastically lifestyle when I began my engineer's career. I work 50 to 60 hours a week and I am always in the restaurant and the hotels. I have to learn to make better choices and dowsize my meal when I eat outside and I have to work less to keep me some time for sport. Lap band will help me a lot for this. I hope.

I find however that all the people here are very hard to themselves. Indeed on, We are all responsible for what we put in our mouth but, beside this, it is scientifically proved that the problems of obesity have almost always a genetic constituent. We are genetically predisposed to develop this kind of problem. In a rich society as ours ( Canada-USA), it is almost superhuman not to develop this genre of problems for people who are genetically predisposed. In a world where the food is difficult to find, we would be favored. It is easy for people who have not such of genetic predispositions to make feel guilty obese people, they do not understand. But at least, we should'nt put too much on our own shoulders.

mis42 · 02-04-2008, 07:19 PM

I have thought about this a lot lately.I am coming to realize that I was an unwanted child from the beginning. Probably an accidental pregnancy; my sister is 11 years older & my brother is 14 years older. My early childhood was very lonely. I always perceived myself as being in the way. Then at age 11 or 12, my mother abandon the family. I was really alone then. My father had no idea how to raise a young girl. Sometimes he was gone for days. I was scare & sometimes hungry. I remember eating concentrated orange juice out of a can. My siblings were grown & gone. Other family members either didn't know what was going on or didn't care. To cope with all of this pain, I think I turned to food for comfort when I had some.

Crosby2343 · 03-06-2008, 06:55 PM

I am new to this particular forum....and what a topic to start it off with. Ive been asking myself this for a while now...not why im fat...bc i am fat bc I binge eat, eat out all the time (and always get an appetizer), and im inactive. What ive been trying to figure out, it why I binge eat. I will come home, and eat...like anything i can. Or ill make pasta and eat a MOUNTAIN of it! Ill go out to eat and eat an appetizer, bread, salad, and a big dinner...and still was desert later. For about 6 months straight I would have 3-4 freshly baked cookies every night and a big glass of milk. I get a high from eating. I am addicted for food....and i havent really figured out why yet. I was always just a little bit over weight as a child and my dad HATED IT..youd think that I wouldve turned aneoreix..but nope... i just kept eating. I eat when Im stressed, bored... if its dinner time and im not hungry...well i still need to eat bc its time to eat. I was jsut banded on 2/27 and I am looking forward to this journey, however it is SO HARD. I wish they had a cure for addiction bc that would be good for all of us!

Thundercat · 03-07-2008, 12:40 AM

My reason is simple... I love food too much! Even worst, I eat at night before I go to bed because I hate going to bed hungry.

BJean · 03-07-2008, 10:59 AM

Crosby: Man a cure for addiction would be fantastic. I was watching a movie on TV the other night and one of the female characters walked in the door from rehab, glanced over at a bottle of alcohol and the look she got on her face, that look of wanting that drink, needing that drink and how it made her feel, was exactly how I feel when I see or think about ice cream. Man, it was scary for me. She left the room and gave herself a chance to think about it, but rushed back over and poured herself drink within a few minutes. My behavior to a T!

I'd like to believe all the hype that binge eating is something we can overcome by understanding that it's just calories in and calories out and if we like ourselves enough and wish to be thin, we will burn more than we eat. Well, it isn't that simple and if it were, people wouldn't be overweight if they didn't want to be. Millions of us don't want to be overweight anymore than alcoholics want to be dysfunctional because of drinking or anorexics do because of not eating.

If some researcher can figure that part of the equation out, maybe there would be a chance for a cure.

**Kat817** · 03-07-2008, 01:39 PM

BJean--that is one of the reasons I chose band over bypass---I am the same way---but mine is more with the chips and that kind of thing. Being told I could NOT have any sweets with the bypass, made it a no deal, I do not deal well with deprivation!!! The band allows me to eat a few, but makes me a sick puppy if I eat a few too many!
Aversion therapy----I keep hoping someday I will learn. I will say, after sliming potato chips, they are NOWHERE near as appealling as before!!

I agree with what you are saying. My brother had/has an alcohol issue. He has been sober for over 7 years---but before that he tried and tried....and failed and failed....same as me and dieting! It is still something to this day he avoids situations that put him in close proximity to lots of drinking.

Kat

Angelyco · 03-09-2008, 12:13 PM

This question is so easy for me to answer, yet I remember when I was a kid I'd always tell people that "it's genetic" since my grandpa was a very large man. I just love food. Growing up, I felt like I was never full. I could put away a whole package of hotdogs or a pound of turkey cold cuts on two sandwiches. It didn't help that my mom is disabled with a low fixed income so I never understood why she always got mad when I would raid the food when she was sleeping. Of course, I feel awful about it now. Surprisingly, my eating capacity hit a wall a few years ago, I can't eat nearly what I used to be able to (I'm not even banded yet), but my eyes are still bigger than my stomach and then I just love the taste of food and want to finish whatever I am eating instead of stopping.