Tell me about your rock bottom

bcattoes

I didn't really have a rock bottom. I knew I'd stopped exercising regularly and had been gaining weight. I've been thin most of my life so when I put on weight I just don't feel like me anymore. So I did the cliche thing and waited till Jan 1 and made a resolution to started exercising again.

prettylyzard

My student hugged my fat stomach, looked up at me and asked, "does it keep you warm at night while you sleep, like a polar bear?"

She wasn't being hurtful, she was completely innocent. But I cried. :sad:

That was the moment I knew my stretchy pants weren't fooling anyone. I didn't even know what I weighed, I didn't own a scale.

When I found out the number was 237, I was shocked. Badly. I didn't expect it to be above 200.

But then I found MFP, fast forward three years, and now my life and my health are completely transformed.

That sucks, but it is also the cutest thing I've ever heard.

HauteP1nk

For over a year all my clothes were snug. I kept covering myself up, buying spanx, and living in the world of denial...saying I will lose weight....it will come off...blah blah blah...tomorrow I'll do this and that....etc. Excuse after excuse...

It wasn't until I jumped on the scale and saw the NUMBER that I realized just how big I was getting. I weighed pretty much the same weight as my fiance! Granted he was underweight at the time but still...I weighed the same amount as a 6 foot man! I was so disgusted with myself.

thershey

When I got on the scale and I was 5 lbs from the 200 mark, I am only 5'4! I had quit smoking almost a year ago and had really packed on the pounds from that. So now that I am well over a year smoke free it was time to take that weight off.

TeachTheGirl

When I realized I'd been in the same funk for three years since my husbands affair.

He realized how depressed and low I'd become and signed me up to a gym and joined MFP not long after. I still have my issues to work through in regards to how I feel about myself, but at least I know my weight is something I can control and manage. And that helps.

AmberLee2012

My rock bottom is when I saw 199 show up on the scale. I’m only 5’3 so that is a lot. I promised myself I would never see 200 on that scale. I am now down to 175. I can’t wait to hit my goal weight of 135.

_Bob_

When I lost my job, my wife, my mom died, I was fat, and it almost cost me my life. that's when I realized that there are some things that you can't control, but I could control my weight and it was making me miserable. so I started slow, taking walks while I tried to sort my life out.

conniehv40

I feel like I am there now. I have a great life--I walk around feeling unattractive, chubby, annoyed at myself and lazy.....

bjohs

The photo on the left, taken in December 2009, was my rock bottom. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this picture. I knew at that moment I had to do something before it got more out of control. My daughter had just turned 2 years old at the time and I couldn't continue blaming it on baby weight. Enough was enough!!! January 1, 2010 was the start of my journey and I'm still sticking with it!

ElizabethObviously

When I fell asleep at night, wondering if I would wake up. Thinking how I should probably teach my 7yo daughter to dial 911 or my sister's number in case I died in my sleep and she found me. Yeah not happy thoughts is it? I am only 29 and that was the kinds of thoughts I thought...

amanda3588

At 247 lbs two years ago (size 14), I crash dieted all the way down to 200 lbs (size 10). I didn't eat much and excercised religiously everyday for hours. When I realized I was exhausted 99% of the time and never had fun or went out for drinks with friends, I stopped. I gained everything back in a matter of months, plus a few pounds. To make it worse, I never had a tummy pooch even at my highest weight, but then I had that too, along with other unwanted features. Then I saw a picture of how big I had gotten (size 16, pushing 18), and realized I needed to lose the weight healthfully. It's coming off slower this time, but I'm losing steadily while excercising 3-5 times/week, still eating out, and going out for a drink here and there.

vabrewer33

I am at my rock bottom today...stepped on the scale and I've gained 35 lbs in the past couple years. I can't fit into my clothes anymore, I am depressed, fat, lazy-everything that I don't want to be. Thanks for all these stories about overcoming this phase! It is really inspirational and makes me believe that I can do it!

kimimila86

When my knee blew out and couldn't walk for a weekend and my husband, who has never said boo about my weight, cried and asked me to start taking care of myself so that I didn't die of heart disease. HUGE wake-up call.

I've had several wake up calls, but I always found a way to drift back into sleeping through my health problems.

My husband has done something similar... I refused to have sex and started crying one day in January. He wanted to and I couldn't stand being touched because I really hated myself. He told me that he never wanted me to feel insecure and that he wanted me to live a long and healthy life with him. Seeing him so sad was my final wake up call. This is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with and I needed to make a change. He's commented every day since then about my progress. I couldn't ask for a better support system between him and my friend here on MFP.

Moviedust

There were a few things. I'll post pics later if I remember. I went from being like a size 0-5 at the very most all my life and then went to a size 15 at my biggest and it wasn't fitting well. I was NOT happy. However, I was eating right and exercising and I couldn't lose (turns out I have a medical condition that caused me to gain the weight and not be able to lose it properly). I also looked at pictures of myself and compared to my high school pictures I was HUGE, well compared to all my pictures I was huge. I was bigger than my mom's size who was taller than me and I weighed more than my husband!!! It was ridiculous. I ended up being 191.8 lbs at 5'6" and I didn't want to get to 200! I wanted to make sure then when I get pregnant I can gain 50lbs and not end up being over 200lbs!

prov31jd

Mine was last early December 2011. My workplace had started a new "Wellness Program" that if we participated in, we could get a discount on our monthly health insurance premium. So I signed up. That meant we had to have biometrics taken (weight, height, neck, waist, hips, blood pressure, blood lab tests). My BMI was in the "obese" range, my blood pressure was "borderline high" and my glucose was "borderline high." I have been overweight for years -- not like it was any secret to find that out! But the blood pressure and glucose ("pre-diabetes") levels were a wake-up call. I had never had scary numbers in those categories before. My youngest child is only 4 -- I want to be around for her!

nileighttig

When i saw photos of my friend's hen do.My stomach is massive even though i distinctively remember breathing in as hard as i could!

Syderelli

Bought a pair of jeans a few years back that were wayyyy too big. Didn't try them on in the dressing room, got home and yeah, they didn't fit at all. Would barely stay on my hips. But, I lost the receipt, so I just threw them in my closet. Well, I was running out of clothes that would fit anymore, so I thought well at least I have my fat pants! Well, I tried them on... they BARELY fit! That was when I realized that I needed to make a MAJOR change.

However, they are, once again, much too big

violabeatle

Three things:
1) Since I came back from my first year of college I've been seeing a nutritionist because my doctor is conerned about my weight. I figured, when it got to the point where I needed professional advice, it was really getting bad. But I had no motivation nor did I discover MFP...yet.

2) My friends were talking about being hit on out in the street or on public transport. Both of them have boyfriends so they were joking around about it and not taking it seriously. As they were exhanging stories, I realized that I had none. I know that since we are ALL taken, myself included, it shouldn't matter. But back when I was in high school and weighed about 60 lbs less, I used to get hit on occasionally by random guys and had a few guy friends that liked me through the years.

3) My boyfriend and his best friend came up to visit. The first night they were here we went to a stir fry buffet place in the city. The second day we went to lunch and got waffles and french fries. The friend left the third day and my boyfriend and I decided to have a date night at Max Brenner. If you're unfamiliar, it's famous for its chocolate-inspired recipes. He insisted we order onion rings as an appetizer. Then I got a giant burger which I polished off, along with the fries. Somewhere in here I had a phenomenal but surely awful for me hot cocoa. We decided to split a dessert of churros, which included melted dark chocolate, a raspberry sauce, and melted toffee in which to dip the churros in. I had discovered MFP at this point but this was really when I decided enough was enough, I'm going to start tracking. It's been a (difficult) month and a half and I'm down 5lb!!

I kind of knew at part one, which started almost a year ago. Part two made me more self-conscious and fully aware. And part 3 was the straw that broke the camel's back.

thomassd1969

I hit 183 this last January and realized the heaviest I ever was pregnant with any of my five children was 176. I wasnt pregnant but wished I was lol

echandle12

Mine was in October of 2011 and I had to sit on an angle in my car so the seat belt buckle didn't dig into my hips. Then realizing I NEVER wore Jeans anymore, all yoga pants. I signed up for the gym october 13th and had a personal training "assessment" and couldn't do things that were so easy about 5 years ago. Before joining MFP I lost 14 pounds. I am about 1/2 way to my goal.

TheFitHooker

Oh hmm... Rock bottom, not sure if you'd say I really hit one at first, I mean when I seen a photo of myself at 250lbs, I swore that wasn't me, though it looked like me, I just couldn't believe I was really that big. Even though when we bought the Wii and wii fit plus, I stood on it for the first time, weighing myself for the first time since having my son, it said 235lbs, More on the lines of 234.7 or something like that, but I was like "Yeah right, this thing is lying" I didn't think I was that big. I didn't feel big, I didn't look big to myself in the mirror, I mean I knew I was over weight, but obese? Well I ignored the wii fit, and then the photo of 250, was taken a little before I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. But when my dad had his heart attack and found out he was a diabetic, I knew now that heart problems run in both sides of my family, so I needed to get a hold on at least my eating. I didn't work out, I just tried to eat better. Back then I thought working out wasn't for me, and didn't care about that. Well then I find out I'm pregnant with my daughter, now I'm thinking "Oh crap! I'm gonna be over 300lbs when I have this baby." My first OBGYN Appt. the scaled read 250 on the nose. I was so ashamed. I was also tested for Gestational diabetes. Thing is, I suspected I was a diabetic before I got pregnant, I had the symptoms but I didn't want to know, I figured I'd get it under control later. I know that's stupid, but I was in the mind set that I was not that big lol. Well I was placed on a strict low carb diet. I was counting carbs not calories. I joined this site to use the food tool to calculate my carbs. I lost the login info for that account, but made a new one after I started doing calories. While pregnant, I lost 70lbs. So when I had her, instead of being over 300lbs, I was just under 200, I weighed in at 180lbs at my 6 week check up after having her. That didn't last long, I gained 25.5lbs back. I didn't stick to my diet, I wanted carbs lol. Well, in late September 2011, I remember looking in the mirror and literally saying "I hate the way you look, I hate your hips, I hate your waist, I hate everything about you. You are ugly, you look like shamu's mother, you let yourself go, this is pathetic, deep down you are better then this." I broke down, I cried, and then somewhere inside me I had to find the love I have for myself, because if you can't love yourself, how can you do better for yourself? So once I got a grasp on loving myself, I was able to find my way back here and I started losing, I turned it into a game. It became an addiction to see how much I could lose in 1 month. I'm still going strong with 15-20 more pounds to go to hit my goal. I'm smaller now then I was before I had kids. I refuse to go back to that dark place. I'm better then that.

technologiq

For me it was 3 things that did it:

- My wife is a Nurse in a Cardiac Intensive Care unit at a local hospital. The overwhelming majority of patients in that unit are obese and don't take care of themselves. People in there in their 30s who just don't take care of themselves and find themselves on deaths door.

- Reading about how bad sitting all day is at a job and that it's going to kill me. Seemed like for a month, every story I read was about sitting and how it takes years off your life. Since my job is in I.T. plenty of my time is spent sitting at a desk.

- Catching a glimpse of myself in a large full size mirror one day when dropping my dogs off. I am (was soon) fat. I think men especially tend to 'underestimate' their weight. I have a long torso that makes it easy for me to carry extra weight without a belly but damnit, I was *wide* on my side profile.

That was it, something finally changed in me. I've been to the gym more times in the past 3 weeks than I did in all of 2010 (when I had an annual membership). I've changed what I eat and eat less of it. I eat when I'm hungry and not when I'm bored. I've also cut out all soda and only have a drink once or twice a week and try to stick to just one (I find my desire for alcohol is less since changing my routine). I'm so motivated to get myself healthy it doesn't seem insurmountable anymore. I have a good chunk of weight to loose but I think I can do it. Communities like this definitely help out a lot.

hiker282

The other day I went hiking and was turning over rocks....there was a lot of dirt and plenty of creepy crawlers to be found.....

angeliis02

When my 5 year old looked at me and said "why is your tummy SOOOOOOOO HUGE mommy?" Then she offered to help me lose weight. It's not like I didn't already know it but coming from her it killed me.

BobbyDaniel

I had just turned 39 and the realization that I was turning 40 in less than a year and I had also regained 20 of the 30 pounds I had previously lost.

MonicaT1972

I just decided I was sick of only being able to shop at the fat lady stores. I was thin before kids and finally wanted badly enough to be there again!

peacegirl3

I knew when someone saw one of my wedding pictures for the first time and refused to believe that it was me.Ouch!

monkeymomof3

I never had a rock bottom. I had three kids....youngest is almost 3 and I have been trying ever since she was born to get baby weight off....I am 10 lbs from my UGW, but I have been here for so long I think THIS is it. I am just (unfortunately) acutely aware always of how clothes fit me and how I am uncomfortable in my body. It's ALWAYS a work in progress....

RS41

My rock bottom was a few weeks ago when I was on vacation. The hotel room had these huge mirrors that were just awful, and they were right outside the bathroom door so when you were changing you got a full view of EVERYTHING! I was shocked at how big I was. So, when I got back home I thought "it was just the mirrors" since I seem to look fine in the ones in my house. So, I got my camera and took some pics of myself scantily clad and realized that it wasn't the mirrors. Pics don't lie and that was a rude awakening. I can't believe that's what I look like.

LikeNoOneElse84

My rock bottom was about 14 months ago. My youngest was about 8 months old and I was going to the doctor for my (late) 6 month check up. I got on the scale and it read 220lbs. At 5'5, it wasn't a pretty site. At that point, I no longer fit into my clothes either. I went to Kohls to get a few things and I was squeezing into their LARGEST size. At that point, I knew that if I didn't change, that I was going to be 300lbs and shopping out of Lane Bryant. I knew I needed to change. I started Atkins and MFP and I have since lost 45lbs.