When was your "Somethings got to change" moment?

still_a_caterpillar

My mom came over for dinner and we were sitting at the kitchen table waiting for dinner to finish cooking and she told me that she was training for a 5k and overall trying to get healthy. She had looked like she already lost weight. She explained to me that after my Gramma (her mom) had died of cancer (lung and brain) she decided that she didn't want us to feel the same sorrow because of her lifestyle. I loved my Gramma very much, but she did smoke a lot for a long time, and she did have a bit of an eating disorder. My family was very very sad to lose her, and my Mom, bless her heart, has had a terrible time getting over that loss. But she said she didn't want to miss out on a long life because of her weight, so had decided to do this for herself and for our family's future. I thought to myself "If my mom can do this, having given up on previous weight loss endeavors, then certainly I can too."

deb3129

When I went to the doctor in March 2012 and was diagnosed with reflux. He talked to me about dietary changes, and prescribed Nexium. I walked out of there, and realized that at 41 years old and 338 pounds, it was only a matter of time before I was on meds for diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. I decided it was silly to take meds for something I could control on my own, and since that day I have remained committed to making myself as healthy as possible!

girlfromOklahoma

When I had to buy size 12 pants consistently. If I had gone over a size 12, I would not have been able to shop at Express anymore!

My heaviest was a size 10. But I remember so many times thinking, if you keep gaining weight at this rate, you won't be able to shop at Express within the next couple of years! LOVE THAT STORE. haha!

Garthamatic

Mine was pretty innocuous...

I hit 40 and slowly watched my weight creep up over the next few months. When my pants started getting a little tight, I sat down and thought about it a bit. I realized I knew somewhere between zip and nada about weight loss, calories, how much protien to eat, etc...

I figured "Hey, if I have learn all this stuff and lose some weight, I'm gonna LOSE SOME WEIGHT. If I wait, it's only going to be harder later."

My wife recommended MFP and being an engineer, I immediately latched on to the numbers, charts, and bar graphs it provided. From there it was a steep learning curve, but a fulfilling one.

Damn glad I did. I'm down 26 lbs, took 4" off my waist, my cholestorol and liver enzymes are mid-range normal now (high before), and I'm about 1/3 the way through a C25K running program and loving every minute of it.

avocado12

When I couldn't get pregnant

lupars

when i found myself in the er having a heart attack! to the cath lab with a 95% blockage, 2 stents later, whole new perspective of nutrition! i had been using MFP for awhile, but now it is not about weight, but heart healthy eating! i also have multiple sclerosis so exercise is limited, but i do what i can. :happy:

RobertHendrix

When I had my physical in Aug 2012 and I weighed in at 489 lbs. It didn't register as close to 500 but rather that I weighed almost a quarter of a ton. Don't know about you but for some reason a quarter of a ton sounds like so much more than 500 lbs. The thought of that weighed on me for about two days and couldn't shake it and decided I was not going to reach that mark.

Cockney365

I've had several 'Weight Watchers' moments, which is what I call those stories you hear on WW adverts or in magazines, when people need a seatbelt extender on a plane or can't go on a rollercoaster because you can't pull the safety bar down. Luckily I never had that sort of public WW moment but Facebook has provided my wake up call.

My first one was when I was at university doing a Sports Science degree. I didn't actually do any sort of exercise, struggled to do handstands, and run anywhere. We had our Graduation Party and the pictures of me on Facebook made me cry! I had to untag those bad boys straight away! The real BOOM!! came when I was at Butlins (a holiday camp) for a weekend with my friends who had all just had babies (we didn't take the babies). I looked the same size as them, and was the only one who had never given birth! I was 17st 4lbs (242lbs) and only 24 years old. THAT shocked me.

I quickly realised something had to change and that had to be me. I started eating less, moving more, starting with a 10 minute run, Race for Life (5km/3.2m), Nike Run London 10km (6.4m), to four half-marathons, each one quicker than the last and finally London Marathon last year. I did WW, South Beach Diet, WW again and now I am here on MFP (or the 'Common Sense' Diet) and have been for a couple of years. I'm still no athlete and I'm still not the size and shape I want to be, but I'm a darn sight closer to how I see myself than I ever was. I'm now 180lbs and want to lose another 20lbs or so and really firm up, so I can be happy being me. I play netball twice a week, do kettlebells twice a week and go to the gym two or three times a week. I will also say, heartbreak is really good motivation for me and I tend to focus more on my food and exercise when I have been dumped or rejected!

JuliaLee67

Watching my dad slowly die of cancer because he smoked, never excercised, and didn't watch his diet at all. He wasn't obese or even really overweight, he was just of that very stubborn mindset that assumed that watching what you ate meant all you got to eat was lettuce, and that excercise was only for fat people. I realized that I was only a couple of years older than my dad was when he had his first heart attack, and I wondered how close I was to mine, because I was doing the exact same things he did: I smoked, I didn't excercise, I didn't watch what I ate. After the inevitable (dad passed away in 2007), I quit smoking forever, I started to watch my diet, and I started trying to excercise every day, even if it was just a simple 30-minute walk in the park. As we all know, it wasn't easy; when I started excercising I couldn't even jog for 30 seconds without being completely out of breath and feeling like I was about to die, but in less than 5 months I could run for 2 hours straight without a single rest (and how amazing are our bodies when they can do things like that!!!). I miss my dad every single day, and I wish I could've somehow gotten him to take better care of himself because he might still be around today if he had. I decided that nobody I loved was ever going to say that about me.

evolution143

Oddly enough...when my sister got pregnant. We have very similar body types and it made me realize just how much I wanted to change my body before babies. I know it'll help me in the long run to lose weight before babies and I also want to look visibly pregnant (instead of just fat) when the time comes! I also had fear of being unable to find plus size maternity clothes since finding regular clothes is already a challenge.

littlemissfrance

When I got on my brand new Nintendo wii and after all the measuring it told me that my BMI was in the obese section. I have always struggled with being overweight but I had never considered myself being obese

tonicandgin

mine was when we had a small fire ina our building at work and when we were okayed to return to our offices the elevators were still not working so had to walk up the stairs....by the last couple of flights i was dizzy, wheezing and could barely lift my legs to the next step...i've been working towards getting fit since

bakemma

One day I was sitting at a desk and my butt didn't fit all the way in the chair and my thighs were being pinched by the bars under the top and I looked at myself and I thought, " I can't live like this anymore. I don't want to be this person anymore. So by the time I graduate I want to be able to fit in my desk without my thighs touching the top." Good news is, I did!

Nessiechickie

When my pants start to get tighter on me...
most recent one is putting on my leggings and I just felt like a stuffed sausage

LisaInUP

January 1st when I hit 165 which was 15lbs heavier than when my almost 10lb Son was born. My family has weight problems and I know it would not be better "later"!

Andrew_peter

Was feeling more and more like crap last year, and even my baggy clothes were tightening up, then several shoot the breeze talks with coworkers and bosses about desk work killing us all just before teh holidays, then the holidays hit and seeing some of those pictures taken kinda surprised me when I saw myself, then after my usual "never drinking again" new years pledge, decided why not try for a change in my weight as well.

So no real moment per say, more like a combination of things.

joe2626

I had a few moments that really made me step back and say enough was enough. One I remember well was a photoshoot for the band I used to be in. I saw the shots and not only was I the only one wearing a hoodie (to hide my body as much as possible), I was also twice the width of the next largest person. A few more scenarios followed until one morning I was at home and I got up, walked to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and, as cliched as it is, I just told myself how disgusting i'd become and asked myself how I could possibly have done this to myself. I then proceeded to cry for at least an hour, punching things, going bat-sh** crazy...because I knew deep down that the only person I could blame for the mess was myself. The next day I planned a new nutrition plan and started tracking calories and that set the ball rolling.

iwillbetinytea

It happened to me in H+M changing rooms. They have loads of mirrors facing every angle of your body. I closed my eyes because I was so horrified.

jolene_ca

When my disappointment in nyself for allowing myself to le myself go, turned into depression. I haven't felt this good in years

CrystalDreams

When I stepped on a scale and it pointed to 290. Plus getting winded from walking up stairs. Plus my clothes looking like they could house a family of 3. Plus feeling sick, awful, and weak. All collided when I stepped on that scale.

bearwith

When I sat on my bed to do my hair and looked in the mirror and everything had squished up and out - yuck! When I stand it was not so bad!

Also, not wanting to die due to diabetes, heart disease and hypertension at a young age.

HollisGrant

Such great stories.

I renewed my driver's license in March, looked at the photo, and thought, "UGH, that can't be me! So old and dumpy!" LOL. Time to change. I can't do much about the old, but the dumpy can go.

chelseascounter

Mine was when I tried(but failed) fitting into a pair of shorts that were too BIG on me just three months earlier.

rebelate

Oddly enough...when my sister got pregnant. We have very similar body types and it made me realize just how much I wanted to change my body before babies. I know it'll help me in the long run to lose weight before babies and I also want to look visibly pregnant (instead of just fat) when the time comes! I also had fear of being unable to find plus size maternity clothes since finding regular clothes is already a challenge.

THIS.

My best friend just had her son. We have very similar bodies, and have always carried our weight the same even though she's always weighed less than me. She wasn't noticeably pregnant until around 30 weeks. We talk about our weight struggles, and she talks about how hard it is to get her body back. I just want to be a cute pregnant lady. OR, thinking about eloping with my current partner is another one. It's a struggle to find cute, flattering dresses now. I just know looking for a flattering, plus sized white dress would be a huge, unpleasant task.

ALSO, these fears of mine are completely ridiculous since marriage and babies are not in my future for another year, or two.

konerusp

My "Somethings got to change" moment was when my 5 year old daughter put her hand on my belly and said, What's in there!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, I am totally motivated to eat nothing but veggie, fruit and water for 7 days......

are you in for an ED?

trigger2354

Zion National Park, West Rim Trail, early May 2010. First rays of sunlight knifing through deep orange and pink canyons of the Great Western canyon section of Zion. The big eye candy pay-off we had hiked all those miles the previous day to see and capture on film was maybe a half-hour of leisurely hiking ahead. The Christmas morning anticipation of what lay just over the next rise shoved out of my sleeping bag. But the gut slopping over my belt and the stabbing pains in my back and knees dropped me to the ground like I’d been shot. I couldn’t get up. I lay there, wallowing in the dirt, unable to even pull on my boots. The physical pain that fateful morning was searing enough, but it paled in comparison to the emotional pain that gripped me as I began to understand that my indifference to my health was about to put an end to something that I dearly loved doing with the people I cared most about. And not only that, but for the first time in my life, I had become a serious liability to my companions on that trip--my sons.

I won’t tranquilize you with the details of what they had to do to get me back to the trailhead and our car that day. But I vividly remember the feelings of disgust, despair, anger, loss that tortured my soul for weeks and months after. Was this really the end? Was I done making backpacking memories with my sons? Were all those hikes we still had on our bucket list now out of reach because I didn’t want to admit that I had lost control of my health?

Well, that was three years, 30 lbs, and a whole lot of work ago. It has been a slow, steady process, but I’m happy to report that we have knocked off two more bucket list hikes since then, and we completed our first century (100-mile) bike ride last summer. And we have another hike coming up next month and two more centuries on the schedule for this summer and fall. I hope I never forget those horrible feelings of failure and loss—they have been, and continue to be, a powerful motivator that helps me say “no” to the bad, and yes to the “good” health choices I confront every day.

upsidedownjelly

My mom died from her lung cancer and was (beside that) vastly unhealthy and I freaked out and realized my own mortality... I'm only 24 but want to create a good lifestyle.

Also I work in a field that is full of superfit people and that requires me to fit into small/awkward spaces regularly. Nothing I can do about the fact that I'm 5'10", but I can change being 250 pounds!

chikoboo

When my blood pressure was off the chart, the hubby was in hospital for an operation to remove a blocked artery in his stomach which was making his foot bad and was unable to walk, coupled with just coming back from Europe on a long haul flight sandwiched into the seats like over packed sardines and getting the photos of our time in Europe showing us giant beasts compared to the rest of them there. Enough was enough! we aren't an old couple (I'm 31 and he is 47) and we have both battled with our weight before meeting each other and getting comfortable once together saw us balloon up again. All events happening so close together was the final straw, I found this website signed up, got hooked, hooked the hubby in, brought us new scales, an exercise bike and now only 4 weeks in we have lost so much weight and gained so much energy that we are left wondering why we let ourselves get like that. We are planning on going back to Europe in 2015, this time we will have a more comfortable flight, be wearing wonderful clothes, have more energy to walk around the cities, actually buy clothes there and take lots more photos as we will not mind having our photos taken =D

plumsparkle

I have been starting diets and giving them up for years, but something that really upset e recently has got me back on here.

i was showing my partner (who has always been very supportive) some clothes I had bought in a sale, which included a pair of denim shorts for the summer (knee length ones, the world isnt ready for my legs just yet!) and he said they look huge, they will be miles too big for you.

I looked at them and realised how big they were, and checked the label, but they were definitely my size. I mumbled that yes, they did look big, maybe the sizing was wrong, i am sure they will be too big when i try them on, and bundled them away, knowing deep inside me that they werent too big at all. And even tho my partner obviously doesnt see me as being that big, the truth is I am!!

So now i am back on here, hoping that by the time the hot weather comes, I will be in a much smaller pair of denim shorts - and they might not be knee length either!!

Cheryl188

At 31 years old I was denied life insurance because of my weight (321lbs). Other than my weight, my health was good. It was a massive slap in the face.