What was your "I need to change" moment

aldale

I became a member of mfp a few years ago when I went to try on dresses for an anniversary party. All the dresses I liked looked horrible on me. I quit logging a while later when my low carb diet wasn't working for me. Jump to Dec. 3. I went to the doctor for a rash. My blood pressure was 148/98. The doctor mentioned it but gave me a prescription for rash medication. A month later I called for a refill because the rash had not cleared up. The nurse on the phone said that there was another med I could take if my blood pressure was normal. This was my life changing wake up call. I am eating sensibly (no fad diets) and losing weight. My blood pressure is not normal yet, but it is lower (133/86). If anyone has similar issues or just needs a friend, send me a request.

Valerie_Malone

Sick of always feeling sorry for myself.

chrislynn_marie

I realized that if I were to get pregnant (when at my biggest), I'd be well over 200 pounds, 250 even. That is not a healthy weight, even if it is because you're pregnant.

Kempossible

When my Mom was diagnosed with diabetes. Too close to home for me.

LizCO2DC

When the scale hit 199. I knew that I never wanted to see 200, and something had to change if that were ever going to be true. Since then I've kept at it and have been losing weight slowly, but I'm SOOOO close to being out of the obese category now. I'm just glad to be moving in the right direction.

SmartAlec03211988

Getting on the scale at the doctors office and being about 40 lbs over what I thought I was, and seeing I had breached 200 lbs.

NOT cool.

iqnas

seeing the scale!

rotill

I have been fighting my weight for years, but the real start of this battle was more than ten years ago. I sat down and did the maths. I wasn't obese, and wasn't gaining fast, but I gained perhaps a kilo each year. I have a bad knee and bad pelvis/hips, so carrying all that weight around was not good for me. I sat down and calculated what I'd weight when I was fifty - sixty - seventy - and saw myself helpless and crippled under my own weight, getting worse every year until I'd be unable to get around on my own two feet. It was a horrible image.

That's when I realised I really had to do something.

I lost 14 kilos over the next two years, with low-carb/low GI. Then I maintained the weight carefully for ten years, before I started gaining again a couple of years ago. I had gained 5 kilos when I started logging on MFP - then my metabolism changed, and I lost a LOT of weight, extremely fast (for me.)

I hadn't planned to lose this much, and I am spending quite a bit of time at the hospital for tests to figure out what is happening with my metabolism. But I am still not particularly skinny, so I don't worry, and the weight loss has slowed down, too, so I am more worried that I'll start gaining again....

Anyway - that's my somewhat weird story about this journey.

ladybuggprincess99

My change came when couldn't walk up the stairs at work without feeling like I had to die. I work with 3rd graders and I wasn't able to play, run around or do anything. I also have 3 kids at home (7, 7, and 4). I want to play! So, play I will!

ladybuggprincess99

When the scale hit 199. I knew that I never wanted to see 200, and something had to change if that were ever going to be true. Since then I've kept at it and have been losing weight slowly, but I'm SOOOO close to being out of the obese category now. I'm just glad to be moving in the right direction.

At a REALLY bad point in my life, I made promises to myself that I would never see 200 on a scale. The largest I've ever been is 287. I am currently 250, but I now have the mental stability to get the weight off and KEEP it off.

ScreamingUnicorn

My mother and I have always been about the same size and body style and could share clothes. We both gained a lot of weight over the last few years and both of us were unhappy with ourselves. My "excuse" was having two kids. Hers was that she had gotten too comfortable in a good relationship, no longer had to work and let herself go a bit.

She decided to do something about it and before I knew it, she lost 30 lbs and looked great. I chose not to pay much attention to the fact that my 45 year old mother looked better and much slimmer than me. I was only 24! The day I knew I had to do something about my weight came when she was visiting me and asked if I had any of my old skinny jeans from years ago that she could barrow since none of her clothes fit after all her weight loss. I was pretty sure I did have an old pair from before I had kids hidden away in the back of my closet "for when I lost all the baby fat". (yeah right) I dug them out and handed them over to her and she slid right into them easily and looked great. I was happy for her but I could have cried right then. I had loved those jeans and hadn't fit in them in years. I had almost thrown them away dozens of times under the pretense that I was fooling myself if I thought I would ever fit in to them again.

I decided I wanted my damn jeans back!

20 lbs later and I'm wearing them today

The_New_Christina

:noway: :noway: :noway: :noway: When my two year old was feet away from a busy street and I knew that at 250+ lbs that I wouldn't reach her in time and instead had my hubby run and grab her! I could only think "What if my hubby weren't there and I had to run after her, and I didn't make it to her on time!" That's when I decided to make this change!!! :drinker: :drinker: :drinker: :drinker:

bluskies01

Well although it seems silly it took an actual diagnosis of a medical problem to change my ways. Maybe it's easier for me to find my self control by telling myself "I can't eat X" for medical reasons. I truly do want to feel better. I had a relapse a couple of weeks ago and I started feeling sick again, so that was the reassurance I needed.

katy84o

I had lost 30lbs, and within a year I slacked and it all (and some) crept back up on me. I hadn't really realized I had put all the weight back on until christmas 2011. I'm normally the one take pictures, but my boyfriend was doing the photography this year and I was playing with my nephew. I had on what I thought was a very flattering outfit. But when I got home and looked at the photos, the picture of how fat my face and my chin were so depressing I made a change that day. I haven't lost much in the year since that photo, but my habits have become better and I've learned a lot about nutrition and such. My goal is to reach my goal weight by Christmas 2013, when the family will be getting together again.

darlilama

I didn't like pictures of myself, but that wasn't enough. I hated clothes shopping, but that wasn't enough. I couldn't do some yoga poses because the fat was getting in the way (still flexible, though), but that wasn't enough. It was my annual physical when my doctor laid out the numbers for me. Yes, everything was in the normal range, but creeping way up… and I was heading toward 50, menopause, and type II diabetes runs in my family.

When my doctor told me that people living with blood sugar in the range mine was in die 10 years earlier, that pretty much clenched it. That was the reasoning I needed… a very sound, logic based, matter-of-fact, this is what will happen if you don't change.

One year later, 30+ lbs lighter and more physically fit, my doctor was amazed at how my numbers had reversed themselves and gave me an "A+"! :happy:

casi_ann

When my mil, in her 70's, was able to walk circles around me and I was too short of breath to enjoy my vacation.

TravisBikes

First was having to buy size 40 pants (What the hell).

Quite a few after, smaller ones. Wanting to be healthier and stronger for my kids.

Even yesterday I had another, walking to get jamba juice, listening to my new music of choice (hardstyle - form of electronic dance music), and just not being happy with who I am right now, or how I feel about my body.

amaria0803

Mine was seeing a picture after a wedding in July 2010 (where I had felt super-confident about my appearance). I had already kind of started trying to lose weight earlier that month, but when I saw that photo I was shocked. I realized that there was a HUGE disparity between what I saw/felt when I looked in the mirror and how I actually looked. I decided to just keep going then, no matter what.

FinallyDoingMe

my lightbulb went on when my cardiologist told me I was working and eating my way towards a massive heart attack. First I was like OMG how rude is he, because he was very blunt and 2 secs later it went ding,ding,ding...in my head. That was Nov. 20, 2012. I joined MFP but didn't log. I did my own thing and by Jan 2, 2013 I had lost 17+ lbs. That got me going and I started tracking and logging on MFP every single day. I've lost another 15.8 since Jan 2.

barrattandrew

The time came for me when my dad was diagnosed with cancer. My weight has been up and down a lot in my 20s mainly because of stupid yo yo diets. When my dad was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, and I was told that being over weight was a risk factor (and my dads never been overweight) I thought it was time to make changes. I was about 18.5 stone at the time.

I watched my dads figure slowly waste away while he had chemotherapy, watched his hair fall out, and watched him fight it and never complain. I saw him in intensive care, and took little videos from my son, to cheer him up.
He's now on the road to recovery, has got back to a normal body size a despite the chemo and inability to eat because of major surgery removing most of his stomach.
He's a real inspiration and if he can do that and be around longer for his grandson, the least I can do for my son is to get myself back in shape - hopefully meaning I'll be around for a while!