Sudden weight gain: What's going on?

Carol Wilson5 said:I’m not taking any pills at all. I don't deal with any of that stuff like shortness of breath or dizziness. The only thing is maybe my heart rate jumps up a bit faster when I'm out for a walk. My digestion is perfectly fine—regular every single morning, pretty much on schedule. And my cycles are totally normal too.
My sister, my mom, and my grandma all claimed they just started gaining weight out of nowhere without changing what they ate. But honestly? They just decided that was the reason and used it as an excuse to start overeating. I think my mom and grandma were about 5'1" and probably weighed around 200 lbs. Then there's my sister. Three years ago, she insisted she was too busy with work to eat anything more than a single sandwich a day, yet she kept putting on weight. And she actually shot up from maybe 125 lbs to 150 lbs in a really short window (which takes a lot of calories!). I used to think she was exaggerating and eating way more than she let on, but now I'm starting to believe her. She's sitting at about 140 lbs now, but she swears she can't get below that no matter what she tries. Plus, she'd rather die than actually go see a doctor.

The constant spamming on this forum lately is becoming genuinely exhausting...
Anyway, if you do a quick Google search on hypothyroidism hyperthyroidism, you'll find a massive, disjointed list of symptoms. The danger is that you eventually just get used to feeling off, convincing yourself that you're just burnt out, while your actual quality of life steadily erodes. 😢
For me, personally, the brain fog was the worst part; I was forgetting everything, which was a total nightmare, especially when I was at work.
But once you read through all the data, you realize you're dealing with a handful of seemingly unrelated issues that all share the thyroid as a common denominator, and doctors will fight tooth and nail to avoid looking into it. 🙄
You end up bloating so much it feels like you're gaining weight from nothing but water and air because your metabolism has slowed to a crawl.
Your sister really needs to see a physician because if this is a thyroid issue, leaving it untreated is not an option. If she needs hormone replacement therapy, she'll be on it every single day for the rest of her life. It becomes particularly critical if she’s planning to get pregnant; she absolutely cannot go through that without getting her thyroid checked first.

Thanks for the info!

Alex Moore62 said:The constant spamming on this forum lately is becoming genuinely exhausting...
Anyway, if you do a quick Google search on hypothyroidism hyperthyroidism, you'll find a massive, disjointed list of symptoms. The danger is that you eventually just get used to feeling off, convincing yourself that you're just burnt out, while your actual quality of life steadily erodes. 😢
For me, personally, the brain fog was the worst part; I was forgetting everything, which was a total nightmare, especially when I was at work.
But once you read through all the data, you realize you're dealing with a handful of seemingly unrelated issues that all share the thyroid as a common denominator, and doctors will fight tooth and nail to avoid looking into it. 🙄
You end up bloating so much it feels like you're gaining weight from nothing but water and air because your metabolism has slowed to a crawl.
Your sister really needs to see a physician because if this is a thyroid issue, leaving it untreated is not an option. If she needs hormone replacement therapy, she'll be on it every single day for the rest of her life. It becomes particularly critical if she’s planning to get pregnant; she absolutely cannot go through that without getting her thyroid checked first.

My bad—I really didn't mean to clutter up the board.

Carol Wilson5 said:Thanks for the info!

My bad—I really didn't mean to clutter up the board.

It’s not you who’s cluttering things up, 🙂 more like the site itself is having a bit of an identity crisis. I keep getting hit with random errors where posts just won't send or pages refuse to load entirely. It feels like the whole system has been stumbling over its own feet lately.😢

I was honestly starting to think I was just messing around on this specific thread, like maybe I somehow botched the initial setup process myself 🙄 But then yesterday? The whole thing crashed on me three different times right while I was in the middle of typing out a reply 😠

While feeling constantly exhausted and noticing sudden weight gain can certainly point toward thyroid issues, it is also possible that it's something much more benign.
It seems to me that for many people, the metabolism tends to slow down in quite noticeable shifts right around age thirty, and then again once they hit their forties...
It might just be that simple—your metabolism slows down and then eventually settles into a new baseline. I know I've rambled a bit here, but I truly hope my point comes across clearly!

feralharbor89 said:While feeling constantly exhausted and noticing sudden weight gain can certainly point toward thyroid issues, it is also possible that it's something much more benign.
It seems to me that for many people, the metabolism tends to slow down in quite noticeable shifts right around age thirty, and then again once they hit their forties...
It might just be that simple—your metabolism slows down and then eventually settles into a new baseline. I know I've rambled a bit here, but I truly hope my point comes across clearly!

😁 No worries, I totally get you. 🙂
I've been thinking the same thing since my weight has plateaued. Maybe you just can't eat like you did when you were sixteen now that you're twenty-six? 🤷 Hopefully I won't end up hitting 200 pounds like the other women in my family. 🙄

You aren't going to end up hitting 200 pounds if you just stay mindful of what you're doing!
For instance, I’ve managed to keep my weight almost exactly where it was back in high school, though my eating habits have changed quite a bit since then.

First off, my apologies to the moderators if this topic already exists elsewhere—I only saw weight gain mentioned in the thyroid thread.

I'll keep this brief.

A year and a half ago, I weighed 143 lbs at 5'7", and I’d been steady at that weight for several years without ever going over.
Since starting college—I'm currently a sophomore—I've added another 45 lbs to that baseline.
About 22 lbs came on in just two months, and the rest has been a slow climb; honestly, it feels like it won't stop at 187 since the scale keeps creeping up every time I step on it.

I'm 20 years old, and my diet hasn't changed one bit since I started school.
I still live at home with my parents, so there wasn't any sudden lifestyle shift—no moving out, no major changes in meal prep, nothing like that.

A few months back, my OB-GYN sent me for some hormone panels and a TSH test.
Everything came back within the normal range, except for my prolactin, which was slightly elevated.

I was actually doing okay with the extra weight for a while, but lately, it's been getting harder to handle mentally. It's tough to just accept these pounds when you have no idea where they're coming from.🤷

I'd almost prefer it if it were my own fault—if I could just blame a poor diet—but it isn't.

Before I head to see my primary care doctor, since I've mostly been dealing with my OB-GYN so far, does anyone have suggestions on what tests to run? Or perhaps you've dealt with something similar or know someone in your circle who has? 🤷

Weight gain isn't just about what you're eating; it's also driven by a sedentary lifestyle and constant exposure to stress. These two factors are becoming increasingly prevalent in modern American life, and college students are definitely not immune to them. Gaining twenty pounds is certainly not something to brush off—you really need to rule out any underlying medical issues first. I’d suggest getting your glucose and lipid levels checked, along with your thyroid function (T3, T4, TSH), specifically looking for hypothyroidism hyperthyroidism. If those tests all come back clean, then you're looking at a direct consequence of your own daily habits.

Over the last ten days, my appetite has been through the roof, but I can't wrap my head around how I managed to put on 3 kg in just a week. 😲 Mathematically, that would mean I’ve been overeating by about three thousand calories every single day, which... yeah, I don't think that's actually happening. At most, I'm probably hitting an extra thousand calories above what my metabolism needs. Anyway, I'm definitely not pregnant, I'm sure of it. 😁

It’s kind of funny how you’re suddenly eating so much more for no real reason, though I guess it's possible you might actually be pregnant without even knowing it yet.🙂
If you really are eating this much, maybe try adding a little more physical activity into your routine.

With thyroid issues, you can pack on quite a bit of weight in a really short window, even if your appetite hasn't actually changed.