What was your "A-ha!" moment?

I just do it because I feel like I have no choice (in a good way). When I'm so unhappy with my weight and how I look and feel, it affects EVERYTHING else in my life negatively. I don't want to live my whole life miserable about something I can change!!!

The pic of me at a fall party a couple years back. I looked like a #*$in' Walrus. That did it. Lookit my pics,,, it's in there.

My moment came when my legs and feet were swollen up like sausages and I could barely walk. I realized that my health was in jeopardy and it was time to do something about it.

The hardest part is that my husband and kids are so thin and they do not have to worry about their weight so they dont understand why I am trying to make them eat healthy! I just keep plugging away at it though!

seeing results was simply my aha I can do this moment..... Watching the scale climb and seeing myself as a heavy person was also my A-ha I better do something moment...


however now I am past my halfway mark and its getting a little slower but I will not give up! I really want to get down to my goal weight and when I get there I hope I can maintain it- not everyone can go by the BMI chart only and it work out for them... but I am heading that way!

My "A-ha!" moment was last December at my doctor appointment. I almost started to cry when the scale screamed 204 at me but I don't think that even did it for me. When my doctor told me all the complications that I would have if I got pregnant at that weight was my wake up call. Having a healthy pregnancy and baby is what made me stick with it in the beginning. Now that I'm a little more than 1/2 way to my goal, the way that I look and feel is keeping my going. I have so much more energy and according to my husband I'm much happier than I was 6 months ago.

I've been really lucky in the support department. My husband is really supportive of the changes I'm made. He has no issues with me cooking healthier and walks with me almost every night after dinner. My family and most of my friends are really supportive too - I got one of my best friends to join MFP and she's already lost over 20 pounds! I do have some not so supportive people in my life but for the most part I just block out the negativity. I'm not doing this for them anyway.

A picture of me and my friend Allison that you can see in my pics. Like others, the weight had slowly crept up over a couple months, compounded by a breakup of the (at the time) longest relationship I'd ever been in. I'd always been in the 150s and was astounded to find that I wasn't the "slightly heavier 160" that I thought I was....I was 175 lbs!! According to BMI, I was obese. As someone already mentioned, the BMI doesn't work for a lot of people, but it was still part of my wake-up call.

Initially it started as preparation for the Florida vacation I just got back from on Sunday. A year ago I went to Hawaii and felt embarrassed in a "mom" swimsuit. I didn't want to feel that way again at the beach and was in fact starting out 10 lbs heavier than I was in Hawaii!
I knew 3 1/2 months wasn't enough time to get into a bikini, but I was determined to try my hardest and at least feel confident and proud of myself for succeeding.
The underlying motivation though, was to have more energy for my family. I want to be a fun mom, who plays with her kids rather than sitting on the "sidelines". I want my husband to be proud of my hard-work as well.

Recently, I just got off track for about a month & instead of overeating and beating myself up over it, I'm starting again. I'm sure I've gained some weight this month but I *know* I'm nowhere near what I was 4 months ago and that's encouraging. I just had to smack myself in the head today, log on here and get things going again!

I haven't seen under 200 pounds for 28 years. I've had a-ha moments before, but I could never get the will power to stick with it. I think the final a-ha moment came after I joined MFP and started counting my calories. Yes, I know I had to watch my calories, but I have never sat down and really COUNTED them. Once I realized the calories I was eating versus the calories I AM eating now and actually seeing them "written down on paper", THAT was the a-ha moment for me. I was like "WOW, this calorie counting thing really works". I was on a diet before I joined MFP and lost 7 pounds. Since I've been on this site, I've lost another 19 pounds.

I had spent most of my life in the healthy range of the BMI, then in my late twenties/early thirties slowly moved up the overweight ladder. When I went for my yearly MD appt. in March, I found out that I had made it to the obese range. Needless to say, I left the doctor's office feeling utterly depressed. I never weighed myself because I never wanted to know that number. Even if you know you've been gaining a ton of weight, it's different to actually have it confirmed in that manner. Anyway, I found out about MFP through one of my friend's Facebook threads and was curious....I started out here in April and I haven't looked back. In terms of an A-ha moment that kept me motivated to keep going was when I realized how much better I felt and how much more energy I had than before. The bottom line is that I had been unhappy with myself for quite some time and knew that I had to lose weight to regain that happiness. It just took that visit to the doctor to give me the wake up call to finally do something about it.

Growing up I was always skinny (5'9", w/29 in waist, 36" inseam) and could out eat my dad and brother without gaining weight. I was fairly active and in HS it helped that my classes in HS were always on the opposite end of campus which made me walk a LOT. College was the same way and I was also in ROTC so I had mandatory PT 3x week. When I commissioned and came on active duty, my first assignment was sort of sedentary, but I still had my PT 3x week. But then my second year in I became an exec and it was completely sedentary, 10-12 hr days and no PT to speak of (bad on my part). That's when I gained most of my weight. I was still within my weight range to get max points for BMI on my fitness test so I wasn't in any huge hurry to make any changes. That, and I kept telling myself it was a healthier weight for my height than where I was in HS/college.

I weighed myself one time to find I was 2 lbs over the max weight for me to get max points and I put myself on a "diet" so to speak. Basically it was making "healthier" choices at the fast food restaurants we went to and a few other minor changes. When I met my goal, made my points and passed, I went back to how I'd been eating,having gone from a size 4, jumping to an 8, then 10, then 12.

Fast forward to Jan to my ah'ha moment. I'm in a new city, new unit, new job, and again, with no PT program to speak of. We got a new Unit Physical Fitness Manager and she starts making changes to the program and takes the at risk of failing or failing Airmen and puts them on a 5x week PT program. She also introducted them to MFP to have them track their food to help them lose weight. Being her supervisor I created an account just to see what MFP was and to know what they would be using. My first act after logging into MFP was to log my breakfast and lunch for that day. HOLY CRAP!!! That was when the lightbulb came on for me and I realized exactly why I'd been putting on weight. That day I decided to use MFP to lose the weight I gained and get back on track with a PT regimen.

With the exception of 7 days I was on a cruise w/no internet access, I have logged on ever single day since 15 Jan, lost 24 lbs and am back down to a size 4! I do PT 6 days a week, finished P90X and got my first ever Excellent on my PT test in April :bigsmile: And now that I know what I'd done wrong, there's no way I can let myself go backwards because my brain is just wired in a way that it won't let me! Thanks to MFP for this awesome tool!

Sorry for the mini novel :blushing:

3) A very close friend said on her Facebook that she hates fat people, and they're just disgusting to her. I could only stare at the computer and think "Is she talking about me?"

I have to admit that I've had that thought, though I would never post it on Facebook! I've never even mentioned it before now. I know that, in my case at least, it's completely a psychological, fear-driven response. I have an aunt that I think she might be larger around than she is tall, and my worse fear is to end up like that. I'm so afraid that I'm going to be morbidly obese that I just can't stand it when people are excessively fat. My thoughts usually center around "why don't you do something?!?" I bus to and from work, and I sometimes see very large people that quite literally take up 2 seats or more, and my Freudian thought is "well that's just rude!" I know I'm terrible for thinking these things, but at least I'm being honest about how I feel and why I have these thoughts.

WOW I just had an evil thought like this just today, and I felt bad about it, but then again I was like really you could do something. I sit at my desk and I am in full view of a girl who is the same age as me but about 80 lbs. heavier than me. I just sit here and watch her eat all day long, and its not like she is eating heathy foods. I now know how many calories she is consuming in some of the stuff she eats, and I am like WOW, do you understand what you are doing to your body?? I feel so bad for thinking this way, but I know she can do something about it. We had a weight loss contest a few months ago, and she was all about it, she lost about 10 lbs. Now I see her, and she just keeps gaining.

I have had a lot of ah-ha moments. I have been up and down with my weight my whole life. After my daughter (1 year ago), I was I just wanted to be skinnier and happy with my body for her, so she doesn't see me "hate" on myself. I don't want her to have a low self esteem like me. I just decided a few weeks ago I was going to do this. I need to fit into my wedding dress, and not feel uncomfortable on my honeymoon. I want my husband to be like "Yah thats MY wife" I was reading a magazine and saw something about this site, so I decided to check it out. And I am here on the road to heathy me!

3) A very close friend said on her Facebook that she hates fat people, and they're just disgusting to her. I could only stare at the computer and think "Is she talking about me?"

I have to admit that I've had that thought, though I would never post it on Facebook! I've never even mentioned it before now. I know that, in my case at least, it's completely a psychological, fear-driven response. I have an aunt that I think she might be larger around than she is tall, and my worse fear is to end up like that. I'm so afraid that I'm going to be morbidly obese that I just can't stand it when people are excessively fat. My thoughts usually center around "why don't you do something?!?" I bus to and from work, and I sometimes see very large people that quite literally take up 2 seats or more, and my Freudian thought is "well that's just rude!" I know I'm terrible for thinking these things, but at least I'm being honest about how I feel and why I have these thoughts.

Oh, well, she went into detail about it. She basically said she hates fat people because they don't ever try to do anything to help themselves, they're eating all the food in the world. It wasn't how you feel (because I feel the same way as you do- I'm scared for other people). She just went on and slammed fat people and put them all in the same category.