Looking at the Artificial Sweetener thread, there are a number of people who freely admit to being fat. So, are you?
Poll to follow.
Fat but working on it. My current BMI is 30.4, (218 lbs) so I am just about to transition from technically obese to technically fat.
Got things moving the right way (started at 247 lbs) from a high protein/low carb diet and lotsa running (Just did 7.7K in 45 mins doing HIIT at the gym this lunch time)
Yup. Morbidly obese in fact. At my worst I was up to 347lbs, back in Jan 07. Since then I’ve dropped down to 275, and aiming for between 200 and 225 by my next birthday, which is mid July next year.
No excuse for it either. I was lazy, ate way to much, and didn’t give a rat’s ass whether I was fat or not.
I wasn’t sure what to put. I voted a little over, but that may be subjective.
I was once morbidly obese.
My doctors (my heart specialist, my GP and my surgeon) all are content with what I weigh. But by my BMI, I am fat.
My GP is content, but is also content with my goal to lose more. She says that over all I am doing all the right things, in as much as I exercise every day and actively work towards improving me health.
My heart specialist says that losing weight won’t improve my heart problems, which may be congenital, or may be due to surgery, or a combination, but he would like for me to do so because it should lower my BP.
I am about 20 lbs over what I weighed at 20, and then I was pretty trim, but muscular. Now I have less muscle, so I am carrying more than 20lbs of fat compared to my 20 year old self.
I’m within my BMI range, although at the high end. I’ve put on a few pounds in the last year now that I have to get up at 5:00 A.M. during the week. I never used to eat anything before lunch, but I need to munch on something in the mornings now. Seven hours is a long time to wait for lunch, compared to 4 or 5 hours when I worked closer to home.
Not anymore. 
I used to be really obese. I’ve been eating less (the main thing that killed me was snacking) and exercising every evening with my friends. I’ve lost about 40lbs in the past year. Woo! Now I’m just slightly overweight though hopefully what remains will be gone soon, too.
Formerly obese. In 2004, I was 35 and weighed a little over 200 lbs. I had been dieting for 20 years - lost weight, regained, lost weight, regained MORE, etc.
I finally had a crystal clear moment where I realized every time I “stopped dieting” I regained all the weight I had lost and usually a few bonus pounds. I decided right then I would start eating better and I would NEVER STOP.
This morning, I weighed 133 lbs (I am 5’7"). I have maintained my weight loss by doing exactly what I did to lose weight. I count calories (although it’s more of a running estimate in my head, not a precise Fitday calculation), I use portion control (after all this time, I still weigh my pasta with a food scale) and eat whole foods and avoid processed foods (for example, I haven’t had traditional fast food since 2004). The only thing that’s changed is I go out to a nice restaurant once a week and have a great dinner, glass of wine and split dessert.
It was really tough getting off the standard American diet - it’s so…easy. I cook nearly every night, I pack a healthy lunch for work every day. I do a ton of meal planning and grocery shopping. I have a list of foods I just don’t eat - sugary soda, fast food, most fried foods, packaged baked goods. For me, it was much easier to just say “I don’t eat that.” If you had told me 6 years ago I would live a life without scones, muffins, cookies, croissants, I would have said you were crazy.
All my life, I thought I had a problem with food. I couldn’t stop eating. It turns out I had a problem with some foods - white carby sugary foods. If I ate an Oreo, I wanted another Oreo immediately, I wanted to cram in the second Oreo while I was still chewing my first. I didn’t (couldn’t) stop at 2. Giving up those foods has been like a minor miracle. I was in food prison and now I am free.
Occasionally, I am a bit blue that I need to avoid the 500 calorie scones at Starbucks and can’t eat Wheat Thins (since they are like crack) but I remind myself I had 20 years to eat what I wanted, when I wanted and it didn’t make me happy. When I was 200 lbs, I was depressed, lethargic and avoided the camera. For 10 years, there was maybe 5 pictures of me, all usually taken by surprise.
Now, I eat mindfully and I have a closet full of size 6 clothes. I am a happier person, I smile more, I adore the camera.
I don’t think being slender will ever be natural for me, it’s work. But it’s worth it to me.
I was fat between 1986 and 1996. Since then I’ve been a normal weight. I *really *have to watch what I eat, else I’ll be fat again.
I used to be in the underweight range. I’m still lanky, but I’ve succumbed to early middle age spread (at, uh, 28) so now I’m smack in the middle of the normal range.
I’m fat, on the cusp of obese (going by BMI). 5 and a half feet tall, 205 pounds. This is the heaviest I’ve been ever, not counting during pregnancy. I spend a lot of time wishing I were thin(ner) and zero time doing anything about it.
Within in the range, but just barely. The BMI is a crap reference for anyone who is muscular. I’m short, but very broad shouldered. 5’7, 157 lbs, 30 yr old male.
I don’t think I’m overweight, but by the easy BMI formula I am a bit (5’11", 188 lbs, makes for 26.1 BMI).
I am 6’3", 210 pounds, and was surprised to discover just now that I am in the overweight range by a few pounds.
I’m not really overweight, but there are always cameras pointed at me, throwing off the charts. BMI is a good measure though, because most people are shaped like a cylinder, and composed of uniformly dense material.
I’m not sure whether I’m morbidly obese, or what the official definition of that is, but that’s where I’ve put myself.
Considering I’m on the bad side of 350 pounds, yeah. I’m rather Jabba-like.
Yes.
Bit of a hijack, but I’ve been wanting to say this for a while. The thing is, and the thing that makes me mad, is there’s a lot of people here who really presume that all fat people eat and eat and eat and eat. But we don’t. I eat fairly healthily, three meals a day + one snack. My breakfast and lunch are almost always the same thing, and I keep close tabs on them. I eat a LOT of fruit and veggies. I eat small portions. I never skip meals, but I don’t eat potato chips or fried foods and often go vegetarian during the weekends. My cholesterol and BP and all of my stats are well within normal, so to be honest, I am not that worried about fat. I bike to work three times a week in the summer. In the winter I do bhangra dancing or other dancing, again, three times a week.
My problem is that I just don’t do ENOUGH exercise. And really, it’s incredibly daunting when I find out just how much exercise I’d have to do to really truly lose weight. I have a life and I love it and I enjoy myself and have lots of things to occupy my time - it’s hard to take time out to do more exercise. That combined with a sedentary lifestyle, and there you have it.
But I never bitch and moan about my weight. I never complain about how I “just can’t lose weight”. I know exactly what the reasoning is, and I am mostly happy.
End of hijack, but I feel that needed to be said.
I don’t know my BMI, but I can see the size of my belly. I could stand to lose about 10 pounds: Way back when I started college, I put on a “freshman 30”, and although I burned off most of it the following summer by biking to work every day, I never managed to get all of it. I’ve lost a little more in the past few months by cutting back on soft drinks, but it’s not really a priority for me.
What constantly surprises me is not that people eat and eat and eat… but how little food one can eat at a given meal without gaining weight. When you really start getting serious about portion control, boy-oh-boy, you don’t eat a lot. Half sandwiches, half a banana, tiny little portions of everything. At least, that’s what I have to do, and I’m pretty active on the exercise front. When I don’t exercise, my appetite goes down to near nothing - but regardless of if I’m hungry or not, it’s hard to cut down on the eating.