What was your tipping point?

tvanhooser

Excuses: too busy, not enough time, mostly just not interested in sweating but the last few years my best excuse was I couldn't do anything with my bum knee. This is only partially true because I found when I finally started, there's alot more things I can do and for a lot longer than I ever thought possible with a knee and ankle that flare up and give out on me at random moments -- used to be daily, now more like weekly. I can't jump (well, actually it's not the up that is the problem -- it's the down. I'm like Indy....I can "fly" but I will crash land! ha ha) or run or anything that puts direct weight or pressure or sudden impact jarring on my left knee and ankle BUT I CAN do my PT stretches, situps, crunches and various ab stretches flat on my back. I CAN walk (record 2 miles in 40 min the other day for a new high of 3 mph!), bike (newest high: 7.2 miles in 69 minutes) and through some low-impact workout videos I have learned several modified versions of jumping jacks that don't involve jumping, wall push ups and lunges and so on that work on cardio and toning without setting off my joint pain.

What it took to tip me over and overcome my lifelong exercise aversion: In spite of knee surgery last year, the pain is not completely gone but neither the doctor nor surgeon will do a follow-up MRI. (Probably an insurance thing if you ask me!!) They took more x-rays this spring and at my repeated insistence, finally looked at my ankle too which has been a problem off and on for decades longer than my knee. But they say everything looks normal and I get the impression that they don't entirely believe me. I am SO NOT a medication junkie....I WANT to get off ASAP but I tried cutting back and it's definitely NOT ready for complete elimination. But when the NSAID started to upset my stomach in April, doctor tried putting me on a new med he called "total pain relief." NOT!! First, I went home and researched it, I found it was an addictive opiate. That right there was enough to kick my butt off the couch and get me moving the next day in spite of myself with the intention to get off of it ASAP. But then, after having the pain completely under control with naproxen and acetaminophen, this new stuff (Tramadol) left me in complete and total agony most of the time. As "total pain relief" it was a COMPLETE FAIL!! It hurt worse than before surgery...even when I tried it in combo with acetaminophen. Then it gave me a rash on my arms and that was that. I had had enough and stopped it altogether after only 4 or 5 days and notified the doctor who still has not returned that phone call but did renew my naproxen and acetaminophen prescriptions when I went to the pharmacy to ask for a restart. I started eating fiber bars and Fiber One cereals and pro-biotic yogurt which seems to eliminate the gastrointestinal issues from the NSAID so I'm good. But last time I saw the doctor, after the surgeon basically said there was nothing more he could do for me, he basically confirmed what the surgeon had noted--that the left knee joint does not fully extend but insisted that they could find nothing wrong to explain the pain. So I asked him what the next step was and he said, (get this for doctorspeak!), "change the weight bearing characteristics on the leg." I stared at him for a minute and managed to dead pan, "So what does that involve exactly?" His answer was a bit more straight forward, "Lose weight." So OK, he's said it before--it's not like it was any great newsflash that I needed to do so or that he thought I should. BUT it dawned on me in that moment that he was hung up on weight being the only problem (in spite of the 23 year history of the problem that I wrote out for him in detail which should make it excruciatingly clear that it started WAY before I was overweight....don't know about my BMI back then....I probably wasn't terribly fit but I wasn't overweight for sure!). So it occurred to me that the only way for me to break through this impasse would be to lose the weight and prove it to him. (and no matter which one of us is right, I win because I get rid of this blasted pain!!) So I got my ire up and told myself, fine, I don't like this and I never will....but we're doing this come hell or high water because I am NOT resigned to a lifetime of chronic pain! That's it.....I don't like being disregarded and not listened to or believed or put in a box of someone else's mistaken assumptions about me....makes me rather angry and puts me on a mission to prove them wrong no matter what unpleasant effort it takes for me to get there....all the while not letting them have the satisfaction of knowing they have gotten to me and letting the results speak for themselves. It can take alot to get me that riled up....only once before in my life have I done anything of the sort but that's a different story....but the whole medical situation has finally managed to get me to that point again and I will not give up until I get where I am going -- healthy weight, BMI, body fat, weight....better than the doctor has EVER known me to be or probably even expects of me but which I know is possible because it's where I used to be, even if he doesn't know it because that was before he met me 14 years ago!

heytherestephy

My tipping point was when my boyfriend told me that his goal weight was 200lbs. That's 9lbs less than I am now and he's 6'3". Yup... time to change and finally get to my goal weight of 180lbs.

dvisser1

My tipping point happened twice....kind of.

2005-2010 I was part of an alpine club and took then taught their mountaineering basic climbing class. Despite having parts of the year where I was really active, I ate horribly and did not train consistently. I taught that class in 2010 weighing 275-280 lbs (I'm 6'2") and struggled badly but made it through. Then did no personal climbing and let things really spiral out of control. When the first outings for the class happened in March 2011, I couldn't. I physically couldn't. A first in my life. Tipping point #1.

April 2011 I adopted my dog and got myself a lot more active. At first it was tough to walk 1.5 miles at a 20-ish minute/mile pace. I don't know my exact high weight at this point, but it was 300 to 305 lbs. By September 2011 I had dropped to 275 by being much more active than before, but I didn't not put much thought into fixing my diet at that time. From Sept 2011 to January 2012 I basically hovered at 275-280.

Mid-January a buddy of mine told me about MFP and that he had been losing weight using it to track calories. So I signed up, weighing 278, and started poking around the site to learn how it was set up to work.

Monday, January 23, 2012. Tipping point #2. After a particularly long Sunday spent sitting in a bar watching football (along with the bad food and multiple drinks), I weighed myself that morning. 281 lbs. I stood there on the scale and stared at the number until the screen went blank. I got mad at myself, but not in a putting myself down way. I used that anger to get determined, to be stubborn, to fight through the hard days and temptations and completely commit myself to using MFP (or some other tool if MFP had not worked so well) to losing weight and getting fit. I don't know why it was that Monday, but it was like a switch flipped. I haven't looked back. 281 down to 218 when I stepped on the scale yesterday.

In terms of non-scale progress.... April 2011 I struggled to walk 1.5 miles and could not run. September 2011 I could walk 4 miles and be sweaty but comfortable, but running was still off the table. January 2012 I started using the elliptical in the gym and was worn out after 20 moderate minutes, but still no running due to my bad knee. April 2012 I had strengthened my legs enough that my knee wouldn't buckle under the impact of running, but more that 0.1 miles was a real effort. June 23rd I ran the first of two 5k races this summer, the second being July 7th run in 26:11. In January of 2012 I was still squeezing into 40 inch waist jeans that were probably a bit stretched out as well. Now I need a belt to keep brand new 36 waist jeans and pants from falling down. I now fit perfectly into a XL shirt when I used to fill out an XXL pretty easily.

Today I ran my first ever 10k race, finishing in 51:33.

My only key to success....accepting that there are no excuses.

Lovestoscrapbook

Went to the doctor and I had gained 2 pounds in the last year...that doesn't sound like a lot but added to the "few pounds" all the previous years, it was adding up. 100 points above the maximum for cholesterol and both grandparents on my dad's side died of heart disease.

But the "breaking point" was seeing a picture that someone took of me and a friend who was 8 months pregnant. Granted, she is very tiny and only gained weight in the very front (2 weeks after birth was just as tiny as before) but when I looked at that picture, I honestly couldn't tell who was pregnant and who was not. Seeing that was a very sobering realization of how I presented to others. Made the commitment that day and then hearing the doctor refer me to MFP turned out to be a lifechanging event.

madtownjeremy

I think in retrospect I had quite a few tipping points; jeans no longer fit, shirts no longer fit, I tipped 350 on the scale, the way I felt every day in general just kept getting worse and worse...

...but the REAL tipping point I think was finally going to see a doctor. I'd been putting it off for so long out of shame/guilt/fear...

He told me that with my BP history being what it is, my LDL being too high and my HDL being too low, etc....that the only reason I'm still remotely alive is my age. My organs right now are still young enough to fight such horrible treatment...but that they don't have long left before they start to give out and my health takes a very sharp downward turn.

That's when, for some silly yet appropriate reason I started singing that "Live like you were dying" song to myself in my head over and over again. I quit smoking and drinking, started eating better, and now I think I'm on my way.

Someday I'll be one of these cats putting up the "I lost 100 pounds" threads...then I'll know I made it. Until then it's just day by day.

Keep on, everyone!

tashaa1992

I've had two miscarriages and given birth to one stillborn baby but even that didn't make me want to recover. My tipping point was when I was in the hospital a few months ago, I asked my doctor why he thought I hadn't ever been able to carry a healthy baby and he said he believed it was because of my eating disorder. He said there was a big chance even if I did get my period back, I wouldn't be able to carry a healthy baby. The odds of you having children are slim to none, that's what he said. All I have ever wanted was to be a mother, I want to have children, or at least adopt, so I have to recover and get well, that was my tipping point.

trophywife24

I don't know what actually set me off. I just had a light bulb moment one morning before I even opened my eyes and that was that. I also saw some online friends loosing weight using MFP and I just went for it.

I made a LOT of excuses about having kids... we eat crappy food because it's fast... we eat crappy food because it's cheap...I'm lazy because I'm working and taking care of kids... I'm fat because I had two kids. Yeah, all of that isn't exactly valid.

blackcoffeeandcherrypie

Seeing them run a marathon on the Biggest Loser whilst still very heavy. I thought if they can do it, I can do it. I bought a treadmill, and got into it really quickly. This led to my bf buying me a heart rate monitor, and as soon as I saw those calories burned I was hooked! That treadmill broke because I was too heavy for it so I bought another one that was much better. Took me awhile to get back into the routine of it but here I am. Have lost a stone in total so far and it just feels like the possibilities are endless.

wattsj56

my boyfriend being 6 foot and weighing 200 and I'm 5'4" and weigh 211.....................

ekirk92

Mine was when my period stopped, my potassium was deadly low, and my electrolyte balance was zilch. My eating disorder had literally consumed me within a 2-year period and my parents were close to starting to arrange my funeral. I knew something had to change, because I had promised myself when I was young that I would become all that I dreamed I'd be. And at that time, all that was fading away.

snowdrop_diva

I think mine was when I found out that my health was under par. Finding that due to my poor health and size I now had to deal with hypothyroidism, low immune system, unexplained infertility and a few other things .. it all pissed me off a tad.

I was always active and fairly healthy when I was younger, and kept the weight down. With a lot of effort on my part I kept it down. Back then I Swore I'd never get near 150 pounds...

Jump to the past 5 or 6 years.. life and my weight got away from me.

No excuses here, it's all my doing.. too little exercise and more yummy dinners out with my husband (he's a pretty good cook too, so even dinners in tended to be a bit decadent). My man also likes a plump gal, so he'd put what ever he wouldn't eat on to my plate before getting up, and stupid me I'd eat it too. *dumbdumb*

217+ pounds later and I was miserable, and extremely unhappy with my body so I started trying to fix things. Not as easy as when I was younger, let me tell you. And with the health issues piled on there it was even harder to keep it up and get the pound to start coming off.

It's been about 8 months now since I started to change my lifestyle and exercise more. It was extremely hard at the beginning, fatigue is a *****, but it is getting easier (thank goodness)

I have a Long way to go still, but at least I am putting my all into it and feeling better with each new day.

lilawolf

Thank you all for your stories

Dawnhasajeep

I needed some new pants for a Christmas party because none of my pants fit. I had to get a W20 with an elastic band. :sad:
This summer I bought size 6 because none of my pants fit me...TOO BIG :bigsmile:

kgb6days

I saw my back, and I had back boobies. Totally disgusting! I only weighed 155, but on my 5'2" body it was way too much.

lilawolf

I needed some new pants for a Christmas party because none of my pants fit. I had to get a W20 with an elastic band. :sad:
This summer I bought size 6 because none of my pants fit me...TOO BIG :bigsmile:

Size 20 to a size 6! WOW! WTG

mrsbee48

Thank you; so far I've lost 18 pounds and I'm exercising to gain strenght in my legs too Already I see a difference

LilKatyRed

My tipping point was really around the time I saw pictures of myself at the beach and the whole trip there. This is what led up to that point:

I went to the beach, and realized I forgot my bathing suit. Had to go buy a new one, and the size I had to buy (I don't remember what it is now) made me a bit upset.
Then, when wearing said bathing suit, I felt a bit big.
I was surrounded by thin beautiful girls (My aunt and her friends) in bikini's all day. Even the little kids were wearing them and looked great.
One of the little girls saw me looking at myself in the mirror and said "Do you think your fat?" As if wondering if it was okay for her to think so too.
the tip of the tipping point:
Going home and seeing those photos. I was 217 (Probably a bit more at that point.) and seeing that on the scale was insane! So, I came home, adjusted my eating habits and Went from 217.2 to 194.4 in a almost under 4 months. (Had huge ups and downs, hence the reason it took so long to lose the weight.)
! yep. that's my story.