Recently, a thread with this title appeared on the 3FC boards, and the answers posted in it were quite interesting and enlightening.
How did we get so fat? How did I? Honestly, I don’t know. I wasn’t a pudgy child when I was very young, but I started getting a little belly and gradually putting on weight around the age of 8–I guess I have to thank a very early puberty for that, and let me tell you, when you’re 8, you’re really not concerned by healthy matters, diets, potential boyfriends and wearing that cute little skirt.
Maybe it was all the wrong foods I had at home. Being taught that it’s okay to eat Nutella on bread and drink hot cocoa for dinner because it’s less expensive than meat. Being served pasta and pancakes several times a week because it doesn’t cost much to make. Never getting used to eat vegetables and fruits because they were too expensive. And then, at other family members’, eating all the cake, bretzels, buns and other ‘delicacies’ because I knew I wouldn’t have any at home. Maybe it was that. You know there’s something wrong with what you’ve served daily when you use your little amount of (rare) pocket money to go buy apples. Earrings? Clothes? Magazines? Nope. Apples.
But maybe it was also what happened later. Meeting a man. Living with him. Unconsciously starting to eat the same portions as him, because it’s easier to divide quantities this way rather than the contrary, rather than impose your low quantities on him, who needs more anyway because he’s taller (and it’s not hard, being taller than I).
Or maybe it was giving my life away to please others, following them where I didn’t want to tread, and kind of losing myself in the process. Maybe it was getting depressed, staying at home all day long, not having a car or other means to get out of the village, in which there wasn’t much to do to start with. And without anyone to see, without friends around, why dress up like a fashionista? Ending up continually wearing the same old baggy things because they are much more convenient to do the housework and chop wood or something.
Maybe.
Maybe these were just excuses, or parts of the problem without being the whole problem itself. Maybe I also lacked awareness and information regarding what I was doing to myself. Maybe not being happy played a part as well. Come to think of it, my best years were between 18 and 21, the very period when I lost weight without even realizing it, just because my life was interesting enough for me to stop thinking about food as comfort. Or something like this. Why did I ignore it? What was I thinking, how did I manage to kid myself in front of my own mirror, or standing on my own scale or at the doctor’s?
However, I guess I am still to be counted among the lucky ones, so to say. Because it could have been worse. I could’ve woken up much, much later–both in terms of weight and in terms of taking my life back on the right track. It could have been worse, and sad, and sordid. I don’t know. I hope I’ll never know. I am glad I’ve taken things in hands now, and not at 40 or 50.
Why did I get that fat? I have hypotheses, and I can work around those. Some may be the right ones, some may be completely wrong. But as long as it works, as long as I can tread on a healthy path and be the one I am meant to be, I hope all those mistakes will become useful experiences, and not something to cry about.
And how we all got so fat is still an interesting question, in my opinion. Because once it is asked, it makes us think
- Kery
January 7th, 2008 at 17:44
The fact that you bought apples as a special indulgence I think says a lot about the economic basis for a lot of your earlier food habits. If more produce was available, it sounds like you would have been happy to eat more of it.
Interesting analysis–and I think self knowledge is always worth pursuing.
January 7th, 2008 at 21:39
I think I would indeed have eaten it. The fact that I managed to ‘teach myself’ to eat vegetables, for instance, makes me more prone to believe that had I been given the chance to discover more of these in my teens, I’d probably have liked them at the time.
I still have some of those reflexes today–they are annoying. Since I live on a half-salary only, on top of it, it also makes it easier to be… tempted, so to say, to just eat pasta and nothing else. But I’m holding good. After all, I *like* those veggies and fish and stuff! And if I have to sacrifice some more money on their altar, well, so be it. (Guess who’s just bought 2 pounds of zucchini squash that she’ll be eating all week long? ;))
January 7th, 2008 at 23:09
I agree that it is a question worth asking, and that it makes us think.
Like you, I can think of a lot of things that may have contributed to weight gain. I may be wrong about one or two reasons, but I bet I’m right about some of them!
Being aware of the past helps me recognize situations I need to handle differently now and issues I need to work on.
Thank goodness for our ability to learn from the past.
And good for you for asking the question.
January 7th, 2008 at 23:58
Interesting question… and interesting post! I think we all have various reasons “why,” and we all need to face them… and deal with them… in order to succeed at weight loss. Definitely something to think about!
January 8th, 2008 at 16:34
Happy, welcome on my blog.
Truth be told, I may be wrong about some of my reasons as well. But I think that considering them may still provide useful ‘tools’, or may at least lead to more exact observations. Who knows!
And thank goodness for this ability of ours, indeed. In fact, I think I even learn more from my past mistakes than from my successes…
January 8th, 2008 at 16:36
Chubby Chick — IMHO the ‘whys’ don’t have to be very deep reasons (I very much doubt that all of us with weight problems have them because of some deeply rooted psychological cause or whatever). But even if it’s only “because I ate too much without paying attention to it”, knowing it can’t harm more than ignoring it, can it.