What was your "I need to change" moment

I have two babies with a 15month age gap. I saw a picture of myself after my second was born and couldn't believe the size i was. The feeling was horror and disbelief mixed with almost not recognising myself looking like that.

46 lbs down so far but finding the last stone really really hard to shift

My moment was when I started having blood pressure issues at age 24. I also couldn't eat anything spicy. I had acid reflux. Both issues are gone. I am so happy to eat spicy. I eat everything as spicy as I can

One other thing I forgot to mention. Although I didn't start the diet right away after this. One day last Fall, my husband and I were at the OU / Texas football game. For those not from this area or not big into college football, this game is a huge rivalry held at a neutral site. All the girls always dress to the 9's for it! Myself included. Last fall I was weighing around 160 or so. I've always carried a lot of my extra weight right in my lower belly. Often it looks like I have a bowling ball tucked into my belly. My arms and legs are very skinny considering I'm 20+ pounds overweight. Anyway, I had on this very cute spaghetti strapped sundress in OU's colors, of course. This man who was trying to be very nice, grabbed me by the arm and said, "Ah, it's your baby's first OU / Texas game" I said, "What?!", thinking surely I had misheard him. And so he repeated it. I was mortified. I didn't have the guts to tell him that he was wrong, I'm not pregnant, just fat. So I just charged off as fast as I could. It was still several more months before I decided to start logging and counting calories again, but that moment sticks in my mind very well.

Mine was when I was running for the bus. I had to sprint across the parking lot and up a short hill. It was about 45yards or so - a good distance. I caught the bus, but I was so out of breath my chest hurt and I was panting for the 6 minute bus ride to my connector stop and everyone on the bus was staring at me. I was in uniform (security) and I just felt so sloppy and embarrassed I felt I needed to change that.

Signed up for the gym two days later.

I've had a million moments but none of them stuck. But lately I've just become aware of how many excuses I'm making to myself about why I can't lose it and am recognizing it as just excuses. For the first time in years (or maybe decades) there is really nothing more pressing in my life than losing the weight. It's time to take care of it.

Last month when I realized I was turning 40 this year & still had so many things I wanted to do but my weight was an issue (like skydive)

me too 40 is a great motivator

I've been over weight since about 4th grade when my parents fighting started getting pretty bad. I would hide in my room put in headphones and listen to music as loud as I could while I gorged on ice cream or whatever else I could. My parents were never strict with what I ate, I drank sodas all the time and just basically ate all junk. I wasn't a big kid at that age nor was I the biggest kid in class yet the whole class plus the biggest kid would pick on me so that lead to even more gorging. My mom left when I was 12 and that's when it REALLY started. I wasnt active anymore, kept to myself all the time and ate, food could never disappoint me the way people did. I was 20 and 230 when I finally snapped and decided that this was not the way that I wanted to live my life. My life was soooo much better, yet my diet wasn't. My situation changed but my habits didn't. I wanted to be the person who I felt I was. I don't remember the exact moment when I realized I wanted to change I just remember that for the first time I was actually able to loose weight. In 3 months I had lost 30 lbs. But I was so happy with the loss that I began to get obsessive about it. Checking the scale multiple times a day expecting to see changes. It got to a point where I realized that even though I was still losing the weight, the way I was feeling emotionally was not a good place to be. So before it got anymore out of hand I quit, I quit the whole thing. I stopped caring about what I ate and I stopped checking the scale, and I stopped exercising. I hid the scale away for another time.

Here I am 3 months later, back in the game. I only gained 5 lbs back and have already lost 3 in the past 9 days! I eat 1200 cal a day, exercise on my treadmill for at least 45 min a day, and only weigh myself once a day if at all. My diet is great, though I splurge just like everyone else. I love this quote, one break in diet won't ruin all your hard work, just like one day of exercising wont magically get you to your goal.

I realized all of the sudden that 280lbs was almost 300lbs. For some reason, that had never hit me before. When it did, it might as well have been a bus.

I found out I was pregnant with the littlest one. When I stepped on the scale at the first doctor apt I was 218.6... The nurse asked how much I had gained since getting pregnant. I hadn't been feeling well and knew I had lost weight over the last few weeks but I lied and said I had gained 5lbs. As soon as it left my mouth I wondered why I had lied to her. It occurred to me that I didn't want to admit that I was 218 much less that I had been more than that. Right then I knew I had to change. It was hard to wait all those months before I could start but I used the time to change my eating patterns even if I couldn't cut the calories.

I had been fat since I was a kid. I have been trying to lose weight my whole life, n it never really worked, or if it did work, I would eventually gain it all back. After I had my last child 18 months ago, I knew I had to do something to get back to where I was before my wedding. My wonderful husband bought me an exercise game for the Wii, and I had been using it. Then I tried to do a side plank, and I threw out my back. This wasn't the first time, and I have had back problems for several years. After laying up on the couch for a while, I had to call a relative, who thankfully lived next door, and she had to help me with the baby, because I was unable to move. I took Lortabs, Ibuprofen, and she gave me a pain patch to use, and nothing helped! It just barely took the edge off. Later that night, my hubby came home, n was taking care of everything. The next day, I was still in so much pain n still unable to move around. Then it hit me. I have a baby to take care of, and my husband has to go back to work soon. Nobody can sit here and take care of me and my new baby. So I got up, walked to the shower, crying the entire time, because I was in so much pain. Took a hot shower, rubbed on some biofreeze, n tried not to lay back down, because I knew I'd be stuck. From that moment on, I decided I would lose the weight. I knew it was not helping my back, and my knees were also giving me problems. I decided there was no way in hill that I was going to be a cripple. So I started looking online, and found a free 1 week pass to Curves. That's when I found zumba, and that's all she wrote! Been doing it ever since, still love it to death! Just bought me a HR monitor, and discovered that I burned 300 calories tonight, in just 22 minutes, by having fun n shakin' my booty!!! Now I'm 17 little pounds away from goal weight!

i work as a taxi's passengar we take special care kids too and from school... the van is quite high up and i have to heave myself up .. well one morning i got back and went to the toilet only to relise id split my trousers front front to back ... luckly i had a long coat on that covered the split .. but that was it .. up to yet i've lost 15lb and my trousers are comfy now and arent as tight .. so im going in the right direction

Like the original poster, my "holy sh**" moment was when I was in a friend's wedding. Up until the wedding, and even the day of, I was unhappy with my size, but not to a breaking point. I felt like I looked nice that day; my hair was all styled, my dress fit, I had on fancy makeup. Then, when those pictures came a month later, oh my god, I couldn't believe how horrible I looked. I felt bad because I literally untagged myself from every one of those pictures when the bride posted them on facebook, I was just so upset at how I looked. And I love her dearly, but I just can't bring myself to have to see those photos on my page. Admittedly, it was a rather unflattering dress, but it's not as if it was ALL the dress, of course. When I saw those photos, I just cried and cried, and I decided right then I had to finally do something and make a change. I never wanted to feel that way again.

GOing frm a size 5 (before pregnacy) to a size 9-10 (8 months after pregnacy).

I always prided myself on being "healthy fat." My blood work always came back picture perfect, except I have PCOS. but to me the ones that "mattered" - blood sugar, cholesterol, etc was all fine. So I just... ignored the fact I was fat and wrote it off as PCOS and I wouldn't be able to lose weight.

Then at the beginning of the year, I started getting daily headaches. I always felt so awful. I had a check up, and suddenly my picture perfect blood pressure -117/65 was now 150/98. That is when I realized there is no such thing as "healthy fat". It will catch up to you.

I still have food struggles, but I am kicking *kitten* in the gym, so I know all the pieces will fall into place.

When at 26 years old, I was going up my 1 flight of stairs and I couldn't breath, thats when I realized there was a problem. That was 4 years ago, today I look back and I am thankful to myself that I did not give up this time.