I absolutely LOVED the time I spent at home on maternity leave after I had DD two years ago. Before pregnancy I was around 175lbs, which was only a 7lb gain since I was about 20 (and I actually lost weight when I was pregnant!!!). Anyway like I said I loved my time at home soooo much I ate everything in sight! I had a routine - full English breakfast with extra bread smeared with margarine and honey and (maybe a croissant or two thrown in) and a bucket of a milk chocolate drink, then at around midmorning a plateful of jam doughnuts with a cup of coffee with evaporated milk and sugar, then lunch, then a mid-afternoon snack ...... you get the idea!!! Anyway by the time I returned to work had gained about 20lbs, and to compensate for missing my DD so much, I ate and ate and .... you get the idea!!! Funny thing was I actually lost weight when I didn't eat so much for a day or two but I just couldn't help myself!!! Wake up call was when I realised I couldn't walk from the bus stop to my house without my feet hurting like hell and also that DH and I were finishing a whole bottle of wine AND two helpings of pasta AND and a WHOLE dish of APPLE PIE with cream in one EVENING! Now we thank God and DR A for helping adapt this WOL!!!!

Most of mine seemed to gradually appear after graduation from college. I always had semi-active jobs where I was running around a lot and standing, then took my my current job as a laboratory manager. I spend most of my time with my butt in a chair in front of the computer at work and at home. I guess I'm a mouse potato.

****** Stopped Smoking ***************

A skinny smoker who became a fat non-smoker

Overeating, and eating the wrong things. Once upon a time you could bribe me with a Wendy's #6. Now, I drive past Wendy's and don't feel magnetically pulled towards the damn place. Before I started Atkins again, I had tried out so-called "healthy eating". Lots of yogurt (which by the way, only has 4 carbs per cup. Check out "The Secret To Low Carb Success" by Laura Richard if you want info on that), Mueslix Cereal with low fat milk, salads......I gained about 10 pounds in 2 weeks. Of course I was eating cereal all day long, hungry or not. I love cereal. I felt like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man! Atkins really helps with portion control, and not eating when I am not hungry. It's great. But, before Atkins, I have gone through all kinds of eating disorders. I have thrown my food up, I never really starved myself but I went through a "barely eating, but when I did eat, I ate fried chicken and drank OJ" (somehow I lost weight doing that), I have eaten many whole pizzas by myself. I have hit up more than one Wendy's on the way home from work. If I bought Ben and Jerry's I ate the whole thing (who doesn't, though?). I can't buy the little cartons of Atkins Ice Cream, because I want to eat the whole carton. I do better with 1/2 gallon cartons from Mayfield's Less Carbs, and I spoon my ice cream into a 1/2 cup measuring cup, and eat it out of that.

Ahh yes, the evil Wendy's #6.. I hear its siren song calling me often...

I would love to totally blame pregnancy, but the fact is that I chose to put the food in my mouth - and I put a lot in it. Including low fat foods, junk foods, chinese - you name it. Part of the weight gain was the drastic life change - with a baby I couldn't go to the gym or do the things I did previously, but the end result is that it was up to me to find new solutions.

I'm with pd Rydia

I'm BiPolar Too

I was 125 at twenty and then WHAP: psychosis folks.

Zyprexa took away the hallucinations and the voices but I gained 150 lbs in a year and a half.

7 years later my meds have changed and my qty of Zyprexa has dramatically been lowered but it was and has been a two edged sword:
Sanity or Vanity........................

Charlie Girl

Christmas! Every one I put on weight which didn't go away. I still put on weight at Christmas but I know how to get rid of it again now.

I believe my weight came on from a whole plethora of excuses or reasons. First of all I have PCOS which makes me insulin resistant and prone to gain weight. But that's now. Which came first the chicken or the egg? I was a thin child-my Dad was a raging alcoholic who beat my mom and us. I used food to calm me down and comfort myself. Food was a wonderful source of self pleasuring for me. I started to gain weight rapidly. By the time I was in 6th grade I weighed 197lbs. I went on the Herbalife diet in 8th grade and lost 30lbs and as well as grew taller and looked normal. But that's when my PCOS symptoms first started. I went on diet pills after gaining the weight back and lost the same 30 lbs again. The funny thing is I used to eat about as much as my friends did and they didn't gain weight like I did. It didn't help that I smoked a lot of weed so I ate nothing but junk food. I was at my highest at 215 and got hooked on cocaine to try and take it off. I lost 65 lbs but ruined my health and my life in the process. I entered recovery and gained 80 lbs. I then joined a 12 step food plan and lost 67lbs only to gain 80lbs again which had put me at my highest weight of 238. I went back to a LC food plan and lost weight again then decided to supplement my weight loss with methamphetamines. Eventually even on drugs I couldn't lose weight. I gained about 50lbs and 20lbs of that was once I had gotten clean and sober again. My struggle with my weight has taken me to places I don't ever want to go to again. The funny part of it is that I never really ate that much to begin with. I didn't know that I had PCOS or that it causes insulin resistance. My greatest obsession was to eat like other people. Only to find out that I'm not like other people-just like a diabetic can't have certain foods-I too have food allergies and absolutely cannot eat certain foods. I'm just grateful that they make so many LC products now so I can eat somewhat normal and not feel deprived for life.

But my problem started before then, I just didn't gain weight until I hit puberty with full-blown PCOS. And of course, the PCOS was brought on by IRS. I believe I had IRS long before puberty. One of the symptoms of PCOS is starting puberty late and I didn't get my period until I was almost 15, at which time the damage was already done.

It took me almost 30 years to find the "cure." I'm now PCOS-free and I'm sticking with low-carb for the rest of my life.

BTW: PCOS is a symptom of IRS, not the other way around. Weight-gain and diabetes are also symptoms of IRS. The problem is you don't know you have IRS until it's already done serious damage to your system.

Stress! Lots and lots of stress caused me to gain weight, plus I was eating when I wasn't hungry just for the heck of it alot and I knew I shouldn't have.

When I used to eat "only".......cakes...cookies...and.....still think is so yammy..........(((PASTA))).... :-(((....

"the PCOS was brought on by IRS"

DebPenny,

Quick question...like I said was it the chicken or the egg that came? How do you explain the women who have PCOS and are not insulin resistant? To me it doesn't really matter which came first because I'm both however there are some women who have PCOS that aren't.

I have struggled with my weight since I was about 13 and the children in school made fun of me for being chubby. I starting dieting and exercising then. I quit smoking, then gained 62 lb with my first pregnancy, then lost all of it.

However, with my second pregnancy, I quit smoking for good and then gained almost 70 lb. However, after pregnancy when I started low-fat, low-cal again the weight simply would not budge. I started walking, then cycling, then both but still no weight loss. I consulted a naturopath, who diagnosed me with way too much cortisol, and she also suggested doing low-carb.

I finally have HOPE for losing this weight!

Thanks for your question, MsTwacky.

I haven't heard of anyone who has PCOS and wasn't IR unless they just didn't know they were IR. According to most everything I've read on the subject, the excess insulin caused by IR (also known as Syndrome X) is what causes the hormone imbalance that causes PCOS.

The problem is that you can be IR and not know it. You can also have PCOS and not know it. I didn't know/wasn't told I had PCOS until I was almost 40 years old. But based on my symptoms, it affected my puberty development (one of the symptoms is late puberty, I was almost 15 before my periods started) and affected my life from then on. And based on how I ate as a preteen/teen, I was IR -- I way overate carbs, especially grains, to which I'm allergic, and then I yoyo dieted to make it worse between about the ages of 13 and 17.

But I didn't even hear about IR until I started low-carbing and reading this forum about 2 1/2 years ago (I'm 46 now). Based on that you might say the PCOS came first, but not based on my development.

MsTwacky, to me it does matter which came first because it affects how I understand it and cure it. If it weren't caused by IR as has been reported in most current literature on PCOS, lowering carbs would not necessarily be an effective cure. However, lowering carbs is an effective cure because it reverses the root cause of PCOS -- insulin resistance.

However, you're right, it doesn't really matter as long as you are following an effective method to reverse your PCOS. I know how liberating it is finally to have it gone. I wish you luck in reversing yours.