What caused you to have to lose weight in the first place?

I looked in the mirror and thought: "No."

I'm finally changing my eating habits and trying to stick to a healthy diet because I've always had a bad relationship with food. All through middle and most of high school I was overweight even though I was active in sports. My family had never eaten with health in mind. It started to bother me, so I decided to do something about it. I wa down to eating cauliflower for lunch and binging and purging everything else. I was down to my lowest weight ever but it didn't last. This has followed me throughout the years and it has been an ongoing struggle no matter how much I detest it and want to stop. I have finally reached a point in my life where I think I am capable of making the right choices and can be in control.

Oh my goodness, such a long story. Lifelong. I will try to cliff notes.

Fat from 5-15
Jenny Craig - 15
Skinny 15-22
Bad Breakup - Depression - Lost Job - Graduated College - Gained 234 lbs in a couple of years.

YES, 234 pounds in a couple of years.

So there is a lot more in between the lines but I obviously have issues with depression and food. I am 36 now. I have been working to get those 234 pounds off for about 10 years now off and on. I have lost 125 then gained some back, lost 125 gained some back, now I am back to 110. We shall see....

Oh and I kind of read the question wrong. What caused me to try again this time. (I've been trying again this time since April 5, 2013 -- Down 50 as of today Woo Woo!) It was feeling terrible. My depression is directly correlated with what I eat and when I gain weight. I couldn't let myself get into that dark place again. Not when I have my daughter to think about now. So, it was time to give up the fried chicken and cheeseburgers again and get serious or I was going to end up over 400lbs by the end of the year. I just set the date to start and did it.

I think MOSTLY poor diet and partly genetics.

I was raised with the typical 1980's American diet of fast food, processed food, everything with lots of sugar, salt & fat. Dessert after every lunch and dinner. Convenience foods exclusively. Few veggies. In adulthood, I branched out but not enough. I was married to a man who was a big fan of fattening restaurant meals and Southern cooking - I indulged as often as he did.

My mom's whole family tends to be extremely pear shaped with huge hips, thighs, etc. Females especially, from puberty onward. They're Italian descent and just shaped in a certain way that's conducive to that. My dad was 6'4" and obese, in a proportional, relatively healthy (yes, by that I mean he worked an active job and had normal cholesterol, blood pressure, etc) way from his early teens until about age 60 when he developed some health issues (prostate etc) related to age and dropped weight quickly with a fairly big diet change and pretty drastic exercise regime. Which is great!

I used to be very involved in athletics growing up. I ran track, did swim team, wrestling, football, gymnastics, etc. Pretty much from 1st grade on I was involved in some kind of athletic sport pretty much year around. After high-school I went into the military and continued to train like a beast and eat like one too. When I got out, I went back to school and put on a few pounds, but nothing to concern myself about. I was still active, just not quite as active and getting older. It was after school and starting my career in accounting that I put on most of my weight. Basically I became much less active..."didn't have time" to work out, etc. Basically I sat on my *kitten* 12 hours per day and then went home and sat on my *kitten* some more...all the while eating like I was training. Next thing I know I'm about 50 Lbs overweight.

I started all of this about 9 months ago and have gotten myself back into reasonably good shape...but still quite a bit of work to do fitness wise to get back to where I was. I've lost 40 Lbs in the process and reversed a whole lot of bad blood work and am off of all of my meds except two that are for hereditary high blood pressure. I have some assemblance of my old life back and it just keeps getting better and better.

I had just gotten accepted to a university and was about to move out on my own. A couple months before I moved, I weighed myself and it said 224. I was 22 y/o, 224 lbs, and 5'5. Something about that number was like "oh hell no". So, I figured since I'd have a gym and be walking everywhere college would be my starting point.

Mine is extremely complicated. Here's a snapshot of the last 15 years or so:

I was not athletic as a child or teen. My parents didn't put me into any self defense, sports, or dance classes. If I was active it was general, kid-running-in-nature activity. I had the starting seeds of an ED when I was a teen. I'd sneak my mom's diet pills (she wasn't fat either but she thought she was), and when I had money I bought diet foods. I tried to purge, but never figured out how, so I'd just skip meals. Then I'd turn around and eat half a loaf of bread dripping with butter because I felt like I was starving. My mom would laugh because I had skim milk with my cereal, then I'd gorge on ice cream after dinner. I certainly didn't think it was funny! But no one stepped in to show me healthy habits. I am not sure anyone in my family knew healthy habits; Gramma caught me eating apricots off her tree once, and told me if I was hungry I should just come inside and have some white toast.

When I moved out on my own I was a decent healthy weight for my height (143, I believe). I thought I was fat, but overall ignored the situation because I'd had enough of diet food and diet pills. After I had my first daughter at 20 I didn't lose any pregnancy weight until she was weaned; then I cardio'd some off but not all (I was in the high 150's).

We moved to a hot state for a few years and I spent a lot of free time indoors. I worked in an office and sat on my bum all day. I ate salt water taffy all the time; craved the stuff, really. Most of everything else I ate was healthy, just too much of it. When I realized how fat I was (195), I starved myself for 2 months and got down to the low 170's. Then I became pregnant with my son and ballooned a bit again.

After he was born I did a lot of physical stuff, walking and running and zumba, but didn't lose much pregnancy weight. He was weaned by January of this year. In February I started my weight loss journey properly, though I didn't come to MFP until April. NOT starving myself, combining weights with cardio, adjusting and weighing my portions. It has been the easiest, least stressful weight loss of my life, even if it seems intolerably slow. 210 lb in February, 170 today. But I look better than I did pre-son, so I'm doing something right.

Not liking the way I looked or felt. My clothes were getting tighter. I was starting to get out of breath by barely doing anything. I knew I needed to do something as I have young kids and I want to be around for them for as long as possible. I woke up one day and said....no more!! It's time for a change.

I looked in the mirror and thought: "No."

Ditto

I always thought I was just big boned. Then I got a job and stopped boredom eating and effortlessly dropped 20 pounds. When I realized I was just fat, I decided to do something about it!