What was your tipping point?

My tipping point is when I decided to lose weight before my wedding and stepped on the scale and it said 288 pounds. I swore I would never go over 200 pounds and now I was close to 300.

-I hadn't worn "real pants' in I don't know how long
-I wouldn't be in pictures
-I never went to social events.
-I lied to myself about my habits.

That was just over a year ago.

I changed. Just broke into the 100's again, through old fashioned eating right and working out!

your stories are inspirational!!!

My tipping point was while watching tv, they explained the impact of obesity on the heart. That did it for me as I had suffered 3 stokes last spring.

bump for later

My tipping point was when I went to the doctor, assuming I had gained around 10lbs that year (after losing 20 during the summer). I had actually gained 40lbs and was 20lbs heavier than I had ever been before.

Like you I had several moments that stood out but never paid them much mind and I always thought i didn't look bad. My tipping point. Sitting on the floor with my grandson who patted my stomach and said Mimi Pillow, after which I had to crawl across the floor to a piece of furniture to drag my fat butt off the floor. I don't want to be known as the soft grandma pillow and be afraid that if I get down on the floor I may not be able to get back up.

I went on a trip with two friends, one who used to be my boyfriend. I didn't want them to see me looking like a marshmallow with 4 toothpicks stuck in it. Joined in Jan and lost 5 pounds by March for the trip. Lost another 6 since then. I am only 5'1", so a little weight loss goes a long way. I feel better than I have in years and my blood pressure is down.

I had many tipping points that have just piled on top of each other.

-scare of being diabetic
-PCOS
-wanting to play with my neice and nephew, and barely being able to bend.
-helping my little sister with soccer and couldn't even speed walk to the ball after like a minute.
-feeling fat and uncomfortable.
-feeling like I can't breath becaues of the fat around my neck, and finding no comfortable position.

What really pushed me over this time?

-feeling like I could barely move without feeling all the weight and extra fat on me.
-my boyfriend's grandpa dying and one of the last things he said to him was to lose weight and get healthy again, so we partnered up.

I had many tipping points...
- The heaviest I've been in my life was 325 pounds.... never thought i could get that big...
- I became anemic because my diet was so bad, i was not taking in the proper amount of iron...
- I don't get to shop with my friends when we go out, because I can't fit into the clothes that the shops sell, and
- I have a fear of getting Type Two Diabetes like my dad...

Not being able to fit into my 'fat pants' - size 10's. I normally wear a 4/6
Getting out of breath on the elliptical trainer after just 10 min - used to go for 60
My boyfriend jokingly calls me fat
My fat pouch has spread
I eat almost all unhealthy processed foods - used to eat much healthier
Feel fat and bloated all the time.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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