mrodgers

Got married, LOL.

Before marriage, I ate two $0.99 Whoppers with cheese every day for lunch and dinner. After marriage I had a home cooked meal every night. Wife cooked everything from scratch. Don't know how I could be 160 lb soaking wet eating Burger King Whoppers every night and balloon up to 245 by eating home cooked meals.

Waiting for it to reverse. Divorced 3 years now. It's not reversing....

RubeRad

Eat more whoppers

JLDickmon

and they ain't no $.99 anymore..

raria

As I said in the OP it isn't just as simple as calories in / calories out. 4 whoppers = well over 2000 calories so unless your wife was cooking ribs every night you were eating less calories during marriage.

My own case is the opposite of yours. I lost 15-20 pounds eating a French diet high in wine, butter, bread all those things they say you shouldn't. But I did exercise 1-2 hours every day since I do not own a car and I wasn't stressed (since work was under control).

Not to pry, but was there any differences before/during married life? Was it stressful?

Sudovoodoo80

I'm a snacker. I will mindlessly snack on anything and everything all day. Has been a struggle to get it under control, but using MFP to track my calories has been an eye opener. It's easy to add up the calories with a candy bar here and a bag of chips there.

RubeRad

Or even just a candy bar here... 40-50g sugar is a LOT!

Eliminating (or let's face it, reducing) snacking has been critical to my weight loss. I am learning to maximize smaller sugary treats (like a fun-size candy bar or a quarter of a donut) by taking smaller bites, chewing them longer, savoring the remaining taste in my mouth before taking another bite, etc.

Also, as everybody here probably already knows, fruit juice is just as sugar-filled as soda, often worse! If you want fruit, eat fruit. Don't drink your calories, eat them!

Milton Keynes

As I've told my wife, I didn't have any grey hair before we got married...

Milton Keynes

Yes, I've had to change my snacking habits as well, choosing baby carrots or a hard boiled egg over chips or candy. And you're completely correct about fruit juice, from what I read eating fruit is OK because you have all that fiber from the fruit for your body to break down. Fruit juice often has added sugar, which often means high fructose corn syrup, and only around 5% juice. It's important to read nutrition and ingredient labels on all food you buy.

mrodgers

That's for sure.

Yes, difference is I got married. Had to now do marriage stuff instead of playing softball, basketball, hockey, vollyball, and swimming all the time. Instead of push mowing my parents' half acre for an hour and a half I was riding my 2 acres. Instead of going out and doing single guy stuff, I was at home doing marriage stuff with a woman which means a lot of TV and movie "our time" activities.

raria

Good point. I lost my first 20 pounds just by reading labels and given choice, choosing the item with lower calories. It's suprising that there are so many hidden calories everywhere.

NickInTheValley

Milton Keynes

What's worse is that in many foods labeled "fat free" they add loads of sugar in order to make it taste better, so you're trading fat which isn't wholly unhealthy for extra sugar, which is unhealthy. I totally avoid anything labeled "fat free."

RubeRad

As I tell any of my kids when they point out the grey in my beard "It's your fault"

RubeRad

I lived in England a couple years, the non-low-fat (i.e. 'real') versions of foods are labeled "Full Fat". I can't imagine "Full Fat Sour Cream" or "Full Fat Yogurt" selling well in the U.S.

Milton Keynes

Well they also have something called "clotted cream" over there which doesn't sound appetizing...

RubeRad

Ha, sounds funny, but is really just thicker cream. "Black pudding" though, you might want to avoid

hadassah

Sprout4u

I was 11 lbs and 2 feet long at birth. I have always been big. @ 325 lbs and 6'6" now I just consider it normal size. An addiction to sweets doesn't help either.

RubeRad

Nice, you beat mine. My kids were born big and bigger: 8lb2oz, 9lb4oz, 10lb8oz. We decided to stop there or the next one would split the wife in half. 10lb8oz I think was also 24" long. He's skinny though, luckily got his mother's frame.

starkmojo

From dieting/counting calories I have learned:
I ate 2500 calories of food a day; and between 100-1500 of garbage on top of that.
If I quit eating the garbage I can eat what I like. Except burgers. What I call a burger my calorie counting app calls 2/3 of my daily caloric intake.
When push comes to shove (when I say "I will ingest no more than 2500 calories a day" and stick to it) I prefer food to booze. This actually surprised me.
I am lazy, Sometimes I skip eating simply because I do not want to figure out the calories involved. I figure if I feel that way I am not that hungry.
Lost 20lbs this month with only moderate biking (10-15 miles a few times a week). So yeah I would say food intake was the problem.

PhoenixBiker 

I've always had a large frame. I played baseball in college at 6'-2" and 195 pounds. After I got married, I gradually became more sedentary and put on weight. At age 45, I got active again, mostly swimming and cycling, and dropped from 295 to 225. Developed back problems, had spine fusion surgery and got sedentary again. At 60, I had a bout with lymphoma that required a stem-cell transplant. The docs warned me that transplant patients often become malnourished because they lose interest in eating, so I should eat as much as I could. I shot back up to 293, and was too weak and tired to exercise for more than a year. Finally, last September, I went on a low-carb diet and started exercising again -- walking, swimming, weightlifting and cycling. I'm now down to 233 and don't plan to stop. My goal is to settle in the 210-215 range, which in my mind won't be bad for a 62-year-old.

So I guess the short answer for why I got so big should be that I had a gland problem -- the gland between my nose and my chin.

why1504

starkmojo

I have to say that there are medical conditions that make weight loss impossible without treatment. A family member of mine has no thyroid function and even with synthroid struggles with exhaustion.. I had an undiagnosed medical conditions for three years and was also struggling with exhaustion until I went and got treatment. It really gave me a lot of empathy for people who deal with chronic health issues. That being said I also think there is a personal responsibility to get the treatment you can for health issues and do the best you can with the life you get. I would advocate if you are struggling with weight get a complete physical and rule out common issues that cause weight gain line diabetes, hypertension and causes of exhaustion like sleep apnea. While I hate my CPAP machine and flip it off each night before i turn it on, using it had given me the energy to exercise, the mental clarity to make reasonable food choices. Being healthy requires a grounded real world view of yourself. Fake news isnt going to cut it.

Tikaani

I was 140 lbs in High School (76-79). Played soccer and baseball. Joined the Air Force in 1982 and weighed 160 LBS and stood 71 inches (5' 11").

In 1986 the Air Force sent me to Germany where I discovered real beer and spiessbraten. When I left Germany in 1989 I was around 200 lbs.

I retired from the Air Force in 2004 at the same weight, 200 lbs. I moved into my next career, but had a lot of time on my hands without the extra demands of the military. I took up cooking as a hobby. Lots of experimenting brought me up to 240 lbs within a few years.

A few months ago I realized I was around 6 years from real retirement, and recently diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. I've been doing well putting money away, but realized I need to live long enough to spend it. Bought myself a Trek Dual Sport 2, and here we are.

I had forgot how fun riding a bike was. Just this morning I went on a 12.5 mile ride with the local club and had a blast.

Trsnrtr

I was a Cat 2 racer in the 80, retiring from racing in 1991 at age 40. During my racing years, I weighed~145# and managed my food intake daily, counting every calorie and watching the quality. Food was fuel and weight was the enemy. I was constantly hungry.

After I quit managing my intake, I ate everything that didn't move and started eating all of the crap that I had deprived myself for over a decade. Result? I weighed 195# by 1995. From then on, it was a series of yo-yoing till today; 165# in 1996, 220# in 2007, 165# in 2008, 230# in 2013, 178# in 2014, and 225# today.

I swear to heaven, I need a psychologist. Seriously. My taste buds seem to like fat and lots of it. I obviously know the rules of proper eating but my pleasure sensors take over as soon as I see crappy food. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

BTW, I still average over 6,000 miles a year so riding more certainly doesn't guarantee less weight.