# Why are you fat?



## Dromond (Jun 27, 2010)

Inspired by an exchange between three posters in the heavily threadjacked "irresponsible fat woman on a bus" thread, I am moved to ask this question.

I'm not being judgmental, I'm honestly curious. Why are you fat and what does that mean to you?

I'm fat because I chose to take my mom's toxic thoughts about food and body image to heart. Am I blaming her? Nope. That was her issue, not mine. It was my choice to stuff my face, she didn't force that food down my throat. 

What does it mean to me? I'm pretty sanguine about it these days. Yeah, it almost killed me. The operative word is "almost." Even though I had weight loss surgery and I lost a bunch of weight, I'm still fat. And you know, that's okay. At my current size my health is stable. I don't want to be skinny. I'd like to lose a few more pounds to improve my health (stability is good, improvement is better), but I'm not that fussed over it.


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## Fat Brian (Jun 27, 2010)

My answer, copied and pasted from the other thread. I will add that at 360 pounds my indicators are all good and I have been healthy my whole life.

"I take total ownership of my fatness. I know that my eating and lack of exercise are 100% of the cause of my fatness. It is a life choice, I like to eat and be still more than I like to be hungry and jump around. By not taking on a victim role I feel more empowered to tell people where to go when they say something about my weight. If more people would accept fatness as a life choice and not as their being a victim of some unknown assailant SA could be moved forward at a much greater pace."


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## imfree (Jun 27, 2010)

YRUFAT is what Richard Simmons' License plate said.
I think fat is sexy and choose to be fat. There are
limits and I could have killed myself by extreme
overeating and extreme insulin use. I have recently
become more moderate in my use of food and insulin.
My legs are almost completely free of diabetic sores
now and I've been off oxygen for 2 weeks with O2 
saturation in the 90's, usually mid-to-upper 90's.
Oh yah, my metabolism has slowed and I'm beginning
to regain that 120 lbs I lost between Oct 09 and Jan
2010. The heat in Middle Tn. no longer oppresses me.
God is good and His mercy astounds me.:bow:


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## wtchmel (Jun 28, 2010)

I honestly feel that I have dieted myself to this weight/fatness. If I never dieted in my life, i more then likely wouldn't be fat.


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## imfree (Jun 28, 2010)

wtchmel said:


> I honestly feel that I have dieted myself to this weight/fatness. If I never dieted in my life, i more then likely wouldn't be fat.



There is at least a reasonable probability that dieting 
does depress the metabolism, causing rapid regain 
of lost weight and increased difficulty in future 
weight loss efforts.


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## rellis10 (Jun 28, 2010)

wtchmel said:


> I honestly feel that I have dieted myself to this weight/fatness. If I never dieted in my life, i more then likely wouldn't be fat.



Apart from the obvious literal reasons of eating too much and not running like speedy gonzales every time i ate a burger...i honestly think i'm happier like this than i would be if i was thin. I am like this because i like it and i dont like the alternative of battering my body every day to stay in shape. If other people want to do that it's fine by me, different strokes for different folks.


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## NYCGabriel (Jun 28, 2010)

Last year I was in the hospital most of the summer due to illness so I couldn't get back into shape. I got a bit lazy
depression caused me to lose interest in maintaining my weight at 200, im now around 250
I'm a foodee.


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## stldpn (Jun 28, 2010)

We could go for reasons but I'll likely go for guesses. 



I'm fat because I was a lifter. And even after I stopped spending hours in the gym each day, I continued to eat.

I'm fat because I eat and I love to eat.

I'm fat because I'm built like my father. I have his eyes, his ears, and his bone structure. And since I haven't lived under the same roof as him since I was five I think it's awfully coincidental that he spent twenty years of his life hovering around the 350 mark too. I have to think that some of my weight is just what I was genetically predisposed too.


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## CarlaSixx (Jun 28, 2010)

I'm fat mainly because I am genetically predisposed to it. Half of my father's side of the family is either overweight or obese, and my entire mother's side of the family has always struggled with their weight issues.

In my family, it is so much easier to either maintain weight or gain muscle underneath our fat. I am like that. If I don't change my exercise or eating habits, I can maintain my weight. If I change my eating habits, the most I can seem to lose is about 20-30 lbs. I have even gone anorexic to try and fix my problem because absolutely nothing else was working. 

I was in dance all my life, but I had taken a 2 year break at one point only to enter a dance class in high school in grade 10. I had lost a lot of muscle mass because I had stopped biking, running, swimming, dancing, etc. I was active, but always fat. But in my dance class, I regained muscle, but didn't even lose an ounce of fat. I went up in size and weight and was devastated. 

Over time, my family told me this had always been the same kind of problem for them and my doctor does test me and all seems normal for me. I am healthy and that's all that really matters. I can generally keep up with my friends. The main thing that prevents me from keeping up with them is my height, not my weight, granted I carry around the weight of one of my friends x3 and a little more.

I will never be small. I'm only small in height. I am not built internally to be small. Even my uncle, at 5 foot 10, doesn't look like he's 280, and he's about a size 34 for men, but alas, he is. 

Same for me. I am often told I do not look my weight. My doctor has said the same damned thing. Most people at my weight, even when taller than me, are much larger than me. We, meaning my family, carry our weight internally. Perhaps we really ARE big boned in some odd way.

Is it a choice to be fat for me? Not really. I would like to be around 150 lbs lighter than I am, but that's never going to happen. Sure, I have takeout food on average twice a week, but I eat way less than many other people do. I am also poor. I cannot afford the luxury food my friends can. And rather than go hungry for 3 days just to afford a very healthy and "upscale" meal, I'd rather spend the same amount to buy enough for a bologna and cheese sandwich for a few meals. My priority is to keep myself stable and alive rather than look like I'm "trying" to be healthier.

And besides, as I've said, my doctor has run tests on me and my family frequently and the results come back saying we're just as healthy as the rest of the skinny society, and in quite a few cases, we're even HEALTHIER.

So I'm fat because that's how I was made to be.


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## Your Plump Princess (Jun 28, 2010)

I am fat because I chose not to listen to my parents and because I [believe?] I have some food addiction tendancies. It's my own fault, and I know it is. Yes, there are compulsions sometimes, which I literally _cannot_ control. But you know what? I should have sought help for that instead of thinking I could do everything myself. 

I would not be fat, if I had taken up an active lifestyle, either.

But as soon as I figured out "Oh hey, running around makes me feel pain" I took up doing next-to-nothing. From about 7 or 8 until I was 12, it was videogames. Then from 12 until 19, my computer was my life. And now [yes, just now] I'm starting to go back out and have an actual physical social life, too. But I still spend 90% of my time whilst awake, on the internet. 







What does it mean to me?
It means that I am just like my thinner peers, there are only two things different.
1) I am larger, therefore have some minor hinderences as far as where I can hang out.
and 2) I have to endure more pain, and push myself harder, to keep up and do the same things people my age are doing. Walking around a mall, for example, results in me being in pain all night long and my leg muscles aching the next day. 



It's almost like children in school.
Some get math easily.
Some struggle real hard. 
The ones who get it might ridicule the ones who don't, but in the end, they are still equals.


I'm fat by my own doing, and if I get sick of it, I'll do something about it.


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## Seda (Jun 29, 2010)

1. Genetic predisposition
2. Depression/Mental health issues lead to overeating
3. Lack of exercise (see point 2)
4. Because my arse looks damn hot with some pounds on it!


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## Lamia (Jun 29, 2010)

I was a skinny little kid with lots of energy. Around puberty at age 10 (yeah I was early). I started having days where I was so tired. I remember laying on the couch folding towels and my dad making fun of how lazy I was. After folding each towel, while laying down, I just remember needing to rest. The next day I might be hiking and rollerskating and having so much energy that I would feel like I was going to burn up inside if I didn't burn it out. 

My favorite thing was putting on my dad's socks and sliding on our kitchen and dining room floor. I would run and slide....run and slide and I still didn't feel tired I remember spinning like Curly from the three stooges just trying to burn the energy inside me. 

Sadly the high energy days got less and less. 

Due to low energy I started doing less and less. I also ate junk and drank too much soda. 

I had joined nutri-system and they put me on a 1600 calorie diet and I never came close to eating all the food they gave me for each meal. I actually gained weight on their diet because I was trying to eat all the food they gave me for each day. Of course they believed I was cheating and eat Mcdonalds etc. 

I've dealt with this my entire life. I think I've posted this before in another thread just like this one. Sorry if anyone has heard this before.

After nutrisystem in 1998 that's when I found Dimensions and decided to not let my weight control me anymore.


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## Shosh (Jun 29, 2010)

I have been eating too much, and exercising too little.

I have basically been lazy.


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## OneWickedAngel (Jun 29, 2010)

As a very wise friend of mine likes to respond to the question:

*God made me, and I helped along the way.* 

As I like to say:

*I don't get to maintain this level of beauty by skipping thirds! *
_enuf sed :bow:_


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## imfree (Jun 29, 2010)

OneWickedAngel said:


> As a very wise friend of mine likes to respond to the question:
> 
> *God made me, and I helped along the way.*
> 
> ...


Good/Bad Girl!:doh:Wow, you're doing the same thing
I am!:bow:Oh well, it really works, beautiful Bad/
Good/Bad Girl.:smitten::bow:


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## NoWayOut (Jun 29, 2010)

All of these sound like very good reasons.


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## Jes (Jun 29, 2010)

I like to eat unhealthy food more than I like to eat healthy food. Portion sizes are large, and I often eat too close to bedtime. While I'm physically active, I could be far more physically active. It would help in every single part of my life, but laziness gets in the way. I would sleep better, feel better, be happier... doing the easy thing is easier because it's easy! haha. I'm also short and squat and polish, and gave up a long time ago thinking I'd ever have graceful ankles or long slender fingers. But now and again I have yearned for those attributes! Interestingly, I never really dieted. My weight wasn't driven up by diets. While I agree that most diets (done as advised) don't work, I do believe that changing your eating habits and being more active works to change your weight and your physical strength and resilience longterm.


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## CastingPearls (Jun 29, 2010)

1. I have a rare genetic disease that causes obesity and extreme chronic fatigue which prevents me from most exercise. The disease is poorly researched and considered an 'orphan disease' 
2. Besides that I have a genetic predisposition to it (entire family is fat)
3. I like to eat unhealthy food.
4. I like to eat large portions of #3 as well as healthy food. 
4. I hate exercise although as a child I was very physically active.
5. For years I used eating as a coping mechanism to deal with stress. Now I know my triggers but it's a daily battle. 
6. Any fluctuation in my weight can and has made the disease worse and cause catastrophic results (as happened three years ago when I basically starved myself into malnutrition and severe anemia and was hospitalized several times for long periods) so for all intents and purposes I must remain at the weight I am now.


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## Lovelyone (Jun 29, 2010)

Simply put, I am fat cos I ate and abundance of food that is considered unhealthy (but is mighty tasty) and didn't exercise AT all.


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## supersizebbw (Jun 29, 2010)

I'm fat because I stuff my face and don't exercise...last year i started eating healthy and exercising and lost close to 50pounds....then the holidays came:eat1:...and some months later i've almost put back every single last pound on.:doh:


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## Shosh (Jun 29, 2010)

Lovelyone said:


> Simply put, I am fat cos I ate and abundance of food that is considered unhealthy (but is mighty tasty) and didn't exercise AT all.





supersizebbw said:


> I'm fat because I stuff my face and don't exercise...last year i started eating healthy and exercising and lost close to 50pounds....then the holidays came:eat1:...and some months later i've almost put back every single last pound on.:doh:



I love these honest answers.

Just owning and acknowledging that it is our own behaviour that got us where we are.


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## Saoirse (Jun 29, 2010)

this thread is very telling.

I didnt start putting on weight until puberty, even tho I was pretty damn active. Im lazier now, have weird eating habits and drink too much beer.


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## Fat Brian (Jun 29, 2010)

I was never small, I was a 10 pound baby, but was fairly average until shortly before I started school. I was the biggest kindergarten at 70 pounds, and stayed the biggest kid in my grade until well into junior high. I've become so used to being bigger I really don't care to change now.


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## DitzyBrunette (Jun 29, 2010)

There's more answers in a very similar thread if you want more insight from others: How did you become so fat?


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## escapist (Jun 30, 2010)

Heheh I said it on the other thread and I'll say it again. I love to eat, and I just don't workout enough. When I was doing Jujitsu 4-6 hours a day eating an entire wok full of chicken and rice was not an issue....and now it just is. I still eat like I'm working out 1/2 the day. Funny thing is the moment I start working-out again I loose weight pretty fast.


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## jellybellyrolls (Jun 30, 2010)

I'm not fat, but my my lack of exercise and recently growing appetite has put a few pounds on me. But I know I will be fat, because I love eating.


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## Mayla (Jul 1, 2010)

This is a tough question for me, but I should be honest with myself by answering. 

Why? My possible reasons:

1. Fat phobic parents coupled with my own fat love/fat hate relationship (extremes)
2. Feeling curious and intrigued by extremely large children and adults (fantasy and reality)
3. Hiding/hoarding food and growing up and feeling pleasure with binging/stuffing/hiding sweet junk food. 
4. Going in the total opposite opposite direction and doing the extreme weight loss/exercise diet thing for years (yo-yo diets & yo-yo exercising)
5. Weird/unusual diets
6. Never got over the fascination and love of folks enjoying food, and not caring if they gained weight when they did. 
7. Increasing enjoyment of my own softness and curves, in a provocative way.

The rest, is probably just me finding the balance in myself, and letting myself be me. I still want to keep healthy and exercise and I love the outdoors, but...I don't want to be an extremist any more, in any directions.


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## Dromond (Jul 1, 2010)

I'm glad everyone took the opening post in the spirit in which it was intended. Thank you everyone who has contributed and will contribute.


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## CastingPearls (Jul 1, 2010)

I should also add that due to my ethnic background, the idiom 'Food is Family and Butter is Love' is as ingrained as gospel. If we had a family crest, I'm sure it would be inscribed not in metal or wood but in granite for all eternity. Family gatherings and holidays were and still are like the last feast before the impending Armageddon.


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## Dromond (Jul 1, 2010)

CastingPearls said:


> I should also add that due to my ethnic background, the idiom 'Food is Family and Butter is Love' is as ingrained as gospel. If we had a family crest, I'm sure it would be inscribed not in metal or wood but in granite for all eternity. Family gatherings and holidays were and still are like the last feast before the impending Armageddon.



Let me guess: you are Italian.


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## CastingPearls (Jul 1, 2010)

Dromond said:


> Let me guess: you are Italian.


Give that man a prize.


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## Dromond (Jul 1, 2010)

I know this because I am Italian, and my family gatherings were always a feast of overindulgence. That's a thing of the past as the family has scattered to the four winds over the years. *sigh*


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## HottiMegan (Jul 1, 2010)

-I am fat because i have addictive tenancies towards food. Loath food in general but can't stop wanting it in all it's goodness. If i could never put another morsel in my mouth for the rest of my life i'd be happy. While i diet, i get manic and almost anorexic in my behavior. I love that power of NOT eating as long as i possibly can. Only to eat when i feel like i'm going to pass out. I'm an oxymoron when it comes to food. I revel in it while loathing it at the same time.
-I am also fat because as a child i suffered from chronic illness and it kept me at home sick a lot. I ate and didn't move.
-I am fat also thanks to depression. i have been battling depression more of my life than not. I would say well over half of my life i have been depressed. That also leads to a sedentary lifestyle. 
-I love carbs. That is another reason i'm fat!


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## Tooz (Jul 1, 2010)

I'd be fat no matter what I do. I was always fat, even when I was a child and swimming several MILES four times a week. I was a size 18 in the third grade, and I hit 2xx pounds in the 6th grade. I am fatter than I WOULD be if I was super active, but even if I was a gym rat, I'd still be at least 300 pounds.


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## fatkid420 (Jul 1, 2010)

i gained a lot of weight after being molested as a kid, my psych told me she figured i started eating to make myself less attractive to predators. when i reflected upon this concept it really did hit home for me. i was a very good lookin kid (not to brag) and unfortunately for me i fell victim to some very shitty people. started as early as i can remember and stopped around 8 or 9 when i moved cities.


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## knottyknicky (Jul 4, 2010)

I think my fat stems from a variety of reasons, but I think it started innocently enough. I've got a thyroid disease that went untreated until very recently (and is still undertreated) and I think that probably started it all. I was an extremely (and I mean *extremely*) active child that, while I loved food, didn't eat anything particularly unhealthy. I had my share of ice cream cones, but our house was never full of cokes, chips, and junk food by any means...lots of grilled meat and veggies, salads, beans, etc. I grew up without TV and got plenty of excercise, although I was artistic and spent a lot more time inside than outside, and my outside time tended to be of the cloud-gazing variety instead of the bike riding kind. Both parents forced me into diets from about age 6 on...I actually saw a dietician at age 6 and was on a restricted calorie diet made for adults but adjusted to have even less calories. Dad put me on the Healthy Choices frozen dinner diet for a couple years, and I never really lost more than a few pounds. I think those early experiences caused me to rebel and feel shameful about enjoying food, which I think caused an emotional issue with food that may not have been there otherwise. Now I'm fat because I don't excercise, I love food and hate depriving myself, and I live with a French guy who doesn't believe in diets (and neither do I). I don't really deprive myself of anything, so if I want ice cream, I buy ice cream. I've gotten a lot better about not feeling the need to eat the whole carton though, and now I end up throwing a lot of it out because it sat in the fridge too long. I haven't actually lost any weight, though. I think I need to up the excercise, along with optimizing my thyroid, and probably cut out flour and sugar, too. Sigh.


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## Dmitra (Jul 5, 2010)

There are many reasons I'm fat, known and unknown. I've spent a fair amount of time thinking on this during my evolution of self-acceptance and am convinced a large part of it is due to lack of activity enforced by starting school as a child long with chronic yo yo dieting. I think a timeline is helpful in exploring this. One of the big unknowns may be my life-long insomnia, as I seem to be seeing more about the effects of sleep problems on weight of late.

I'm not "magically fat" yet refuse to succumb to the self-flagellation of saying I "DID" this to myself like I'm confessing to some heinous crime. It really is ok to eat, to like to eat, and to be whatever weight your life leads you to be (and, yeah, I do need to repeat that to myself every so often). I'd like to get moving more actively again but it's still a challenge to re-equate exercise with fun rather than weight reduction.

Birth to 5 - 6 lb+, regular old baby size. Skinny, extremely active toddler

5 - sent off to Old World, Albanian/Greek grandparents (dad's side) who were plump, as is most of my family on either side. They believed in eating well but I was still active enough to remain thin despite being stuck in 1st grade prematurely.

6 to 7 - moved to rural WI and started school for real. Immense family dysfunction lead to solace eating by all. Still very active yet consuming large amounts of Coke and sugary foods while sitting still all day in school lead to first plumpness.

7 to 12 - major moves, family break-up, molestation, lifelong battle with depression/anxiety begins, minimal weight gain with some loss during last summer of this time due to swimming most of the time. up to 155 lbs and 5 ft 2in by 5th grade.

12 - put on first low-cal diet by dad despite only weighing around 165 lbs at 5 ft 6in and walking 2+ miles -- in addition to gym class -- every day.

12 to 25 - crazy diets, fasting (longest for 1.5 weeks), yo yo weight loss and re-gaining, started smoking at 13, relatively active as usually walked/rode bike wherever, by time of last starvation/diet had grown to almost 5ft 7in and 275 lbs. First diagnosed with PCOS at 22. At 25 hospitalized for depression (developed bronchitis while there) which began loss of 50 lbs in 5 months that stopped/plateau'd hardcore despite eating 2 very small meals a day and no sugar.

25 to now - steady weight re-gain along with increasing effects of depression and increasingly sedentary way of life. quit smoking at 33 with no weight gain, oddly enough. managed to find size acceptance movement and make concrete changes in attitude towards food, eating, body, and self-forgiveness. currently around 365-375 lbs. extremely low blood levels of Vitamin D implicated in high blood pressure beginning about a year and a half ago as pressure was in 120s/80s for majority of adulthood.


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## mercy (Jul 5, 2010)

I'm fat because I have an abnormal relationship with food. I'm not saying this is normal of fat people, but it's true in my case. Seven years ago I was severely underweight and suffering depression. At the time, starving myself felt good and I could never get skinny enough. Bizarrely, it was around this time that I realised I was attracted to fat men and fat women, as well as having fantasies about being fat myself. 

At some point, I realised I couldn't go on like that and ate normally for a while until I had a depressive relapse and ended up going in the other direction - compulsively overeating. 

Right now, I'm probably more ok with my weight than I have been at any time in the past. But yes: I have issues all over the damn place.


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## lucidbliss (Jul 5, 2010)

LOL IM FAT BECAUSE.... well i love food ... and i don't work out because most of the time i'm to lazy to.... ive been large all of my life... my dad is large my mother is larger ... my grand parents and so on .... but my genetic background is just the "chance" I would be large...im large because i chose to be large.. its the decisions and the lifestyle i chose... i was always the big girl in elm school ...then the big girl in high school ( its easy to be THE only reallyyy big girl when your high school has 300 people tops in it ) ...im mostly still fat because i didnt make my lifestyle change ... i ate what i want and did what i wanted...all my choices i made ... are the reason im a large gal today lol .... and i have a metabolic disorder.... but still i dont blame it even when i was on meds for it i would sneak and eat all kinds of stuff i wasnt supposed to lol .... so i guess... I AM THE REASON IM FAT LOL


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## lucidbliss (Jul 5, 2010)

Shosh said:


> I have been eating too much, and exercising too little.
> 
> I have basically been lazy.



HAHA ME TOOO


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## saracee (Jul 7, 2010)

its quite simple, really. i've always been overweight and yo-yoed back & forth in college. 

i've come to the conclusion that life is too short to waste on bland food and exercise. as hard as i tried to work out, it was always still a chore. when am i happy? when i'm eating, drinking, and being lazy. feeling skinny just feels weird. i'm turned on by fat and am learning to embrace it - no matter what judgmental people will think of me.


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## freakyfred (Jul 9, 2010)

I just don't take enough exercise and the food I love tends to disagree with my family (ie: cereal, pasta, white bread etc)


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## frankman (Jul 9, 2010)

Because I eat a lot and rarely work out.


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## chartreyu (Jul 19, 2010)

This is the reason I joined this forum! Fascinating answers. 

I've been thin my entire life but over the past two years I've been living in the "Overweight" range according to the BMI calculator my room mate left on the fridge. I have terrible constitution, part of why I was thin most of my life, and during one particularly bad spell I was on and off a steroid for a period of 6 months which caused me to put on nearly 40 pounds. I now weigh apx. 195lbs at 5'8". Frankly I wouldn't want to loose more than 25 pounds. I was too thin before imho. 

Being an FA myself, I don't consider myself Fat. I barely consider myself overweight, but the belly speaks well enough for itself.
I've remained this weight for 2 years now, because I do not have the highly active lifestyle I once did, no longer a Dancer... and otherwise I have no reason to try to loose it. I don't consider myself unduly heavy and considering I find the weight attractive in the opposite sex, and my other does not find it unattractive I leave matters as they are.


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## Lamia (Jul 19, 2010)

This is why I'm fat
This is why Uh [2x]
This is why I'm fat (Uh)
This is why I'm fat Whoo
This is why [2x]
This is why I'm fat

I'm fat cause I'm fly (fly)
You ain't cause you're flat (Mims)
This is why [2x]
This is why I'm fat [2x]

 this is what pops into my head everytime I read this thread title.


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