What was your "moment"?

my moment was also a picture a friend posted of me at her sons birthday. OMG it grossed me out..that was so not how I saw myself!!!

and my second moment came about a week later...we took our son to a cave at silver dollar city and we walked down about 100 very steep graded stairs.. (not meant to be climbed up) but anyhow after we entered the cave my child freaked out and was too scared to go any deeper so I had to turn back and take him up alone..just me and him in the woods and the steepest stair case I have ever seen. Well I had to stop at least 5 times up the stairs and my lungs felt like they were going to explode. I'm talking I was afraid of how I was going to get my 4 year old back up..he was climbing them fine. Freaked me out.

I had been dissatisfied with myself for some time, but it was a really bad photo that did it. I had been on a long walk on a lovely day with my husband and son, was so content, and should have been radiating that happiness. But I just looked uncomfortably fat.

On February 14, 2012, I played hide and seek with my son who was five years old at the time. When I was hiding, he found me and said he saw my tummy and said “You are too fat Dad.” This statement by my son really resonated with me -- “Your too fat Dad.” It had been several years since I had stepped on a scale so I bought a scale and on February 17, my weight was at 405 pounds. My grandfather, who suffered from obesity and was a heavy smoker, died of a heart attack at age 47. I didn’t want to leave my wife and child from this mortal life at an early age. I have since lost 215 pounds and have now reached my goal weight of 190 pounds at 6-0 in height. I'm now working on some fitness goals.

We all know when our weight is creeping up. Mine had been for just over a year. It's typical to need to size up my pants but then it became my shirts being too small. I had an idea of what my weight was, but never really wanted to look. Well, you know how you prepare a number in your head and think you're being realistic.....well, it was still higher. Enough so that I realized it was about the weight I would be at immediately after giving birth! You ladies know what I'm saying! The baby only weighs a little bit, but we're still a lotta pounds over our starting point! So.....after the shock wore off, I got serious with MFP. I had dabbled before and not had much success (duh....dabbling isn't going to do it).

I've only been doing this a week, but had also checked into the Paleo eating (btw, www.getcrocked.com is a great site for some easy crock pot paleo recipes). I have been encouraged by some relatively simple efforts yielding results so far, but more astonished by how much better I feel! I hadn't felt *bad*, but didn't realize how much better I could feel! Nearly zero wheat and minimal dairy seems to be helping. Don't get me wrong, those things will never be totally out of my life, but seeing them as a treat instead of a staple is a step!

The crazy thing is, the last times I have focused on weight loss (still never with this much to lose), I used Weight Watchers. I have a friend now that is using WW online for $20/month. We had lunch together last week and split a salad. She was fumbling for how to log it, while I plunked in a few of the high hitting ingredients and was set! Oh yeah, and it's free!

I love reading all these stories!

My moment was when my Doctor told me that if I started a Gluten Free diet and started working out I could possibly get off all my medications and maybe even have a chance at kids! So I will do ANYTHING to be healthy!!! So Here we go!!!!

Feel free to add me! I love a little extra motivation and encouragment!!!

My moment was when I realised I was in my early 20's and I was missing out on life experiences because I was too big or felt too ashamed to do them. Also, I was in my early 20's and I was well on my way to being dead by my early 30's. So I decided that I was 'taking back my 20's' and now they're mine and I am loving every single second of them!

Such great stories.

My "moment" was mid-February 2013. I went to the Division of Motor Vehicles to get my driver's license renewed and couldn't believe how awful my photo looked. Awful doesn't even describe it. I looked like a fat old man instead of a woman -- big fat cheeks, a bowling ball head, chopped off "old man" hair. Triple ugh. For the record, I was 58 years old and looked 78 in the picture. That was it for me. I wasn't ready to give up on life and turn into a fat old woman.

I lost my wonderful husband a few years ago and gained a lot of weight from grief eating, sitting around eating junk food. Every time I went in the grocery store or drug store I would leave with a candy bar or a huge bag of buttered popcorn or ice cream or all three. I'm 5'3" and not sure what I weighed in February -- somewhere in the 180s or even 190s.

I began to walk to work instead of taking my car. Then I started walking to other local errands like the bank. I live a five minute walk from a national park with beautiful nature areas and began to walk there three miles a day. In a few months I was walking 8-10 miles a day on the weekend. I took a week off in July and walked over 100 miles.

I found MFP in April and began to log my food and exercise. MFP has given me back my life, from the great diary to my wonderful, supportive MFP friends. I've lost about 50 pounds this year, counting about 10 lost before I joined MFP. I weigh 136 now, have grown my hair to my shoulders, and don't even look like the same person. I've also gone back to college for enjoyment and have almost earned another degree. I am guilty of age prejudice and thought I would be too old to do well in school (I thought I wouldn't be able to remember anything), but I have a 4.0 average and have made the Dean's List, so I'm having a blast.

Let me summarize why I joined MFP in July of this year:
I'll be 60 in two years;
I weighed over 300 pounds:
my body's organs and extremities were showing damage from being diabetic for 20 years;
and it was difficult to move around in my daily life, due to arthritic knees.
My mom and her father only lived to 71 and 67, respectively.
I was retired, but ready to begin a new life with 'my someone'. (He makes life worthwhile again!)

Some time ago, I had read that food cravings and overeating are caused by food allergies.
I took inventory of the foods I binged upon: sugar, wheat, corn, rice, potatoes, legumes, and dairy.
As I did my research, I found that many of these foods can also cause 'inflammatory diseases'
such as arthritis. I found a life style which took all these difficulties into account: Paleo!
I renounced everything but dairy.

Nowadays, I rarely experience hunger, or crashes from eating sugary foods.
Both the numbness in my feet and the pain in my knees have improved.
I've lost 44+ pounds in 120 days with the help of MFP.
I can eat like this, forever, I'm thrilled to say.

Best wishes to all of you on your Weight Loss Journeys.

The day I learned my older brother had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He had smoked all his life. I am a non smoker, but thought about how my obesity was probably going to eventually cause my death unless I did something about it. I started on this weight loss journey in July with the assistance of MFP shortly after I learned of his diagnosis. He unfortunately passed away in September. It was too late for him to make a difference about his diagnosis, but I can make a difference in my life by eating healthier and getting daily exercise.

I lost a lot of weight in 2006, then put most of it back on since 2010.
This time around, several things:
- We were on holiday and I walked up a steep hill, got out of breath and got crippling chest pain. We called an ambulance because I genuinely thought I was having a heart attack. I do have something wrong with my heart and though it's not life threatening, losing weight would be good.
- I started having problems with my stomach a few months ago. I got stomach pain a lot and severe chest pain when I ate, meaning I couldn't eat proper meals for a while and had to substitute with high calorie/fat/sugar snacks. Doctors thought it was my heart, then ulcers, then Crohns, more recently they think it's probably severe IBS and my heart problem but I figured if I ate less, I might be in less pain.
- I'd been saying "When I lose the weight..." for months and was awake one night in pain, again, thinking, when with that "When" be, why can't it be now?

I joined MFP a while ago and tried then but couldn't stick to it. This time around, a blog friend started MFP at the same time and that spurred me on. I thought, I'll be damned if she'll beat me!

Well, ever since I was a freshman and gained the freshman fifteen, I've been pretty dissatisfied with my body, and lazy. This is the second time I've worried about seriously dieting. The first time, my moment was when I realized I had grad school auditions coming up and wanted to look my best. I lost 17 lbs in 6 months, had 8 more to go, then entered an exceedingly stressful period and gained a whole pile back.

My moment this time, was when I re-watched Thor in preparation to go see Thor: The Dark World. I saw skinny little Natalie Portman, small and helpless. And I saw the superheroes with big muscles. And I realized that I didn't want to be the equivalent of a fat Natalie Portman. Three pounds lost in 2 weeks, 14 to go. Every time I reach for chocolate, I remind myself what I want to look like and put it back.

I am on 12 meds for RA, SLE, AAC, pain, high bp, chronic neck pain, lumbar troubles, etc. I was on Benlysta infusions for the lupus and I stopped it in July. Two weeks later I had dropped 15 lbs from the water retention. I thought, "you're on your way keep it up". So I have now lost 38 lbs. Yipee!!

I'm self-injecting Humira now along with my methotrexate injections. My RA is better and the lupus is a little bit better so I am able to get back to walking. At 57 it is tough but I am getting back in the swing of things!

When I had to buy size 20 clothes. And I realized I was officially able to get weight loss surgery covered by insurance because I was so overweight. I seriously considered surgery. But I had to maintain that horrible weight for almost 4 months to qualify. And the thought of doing that made me crazy. So I decided the very next day that I was going to commit to losing weight and that I would go hard core for those same 4 months and see what I could accomplish. If I couldn't lose weight then I'd go for the surgery, but if I could, then I wouldn't stop until I was healthy.

I'm now 3 months into my 4 months and I'm down 33 lbs. Another 25 and I won't be obese any more. Today I wore a size 14. And my body is still whole. No cuts. And I'm happier than I have been in a long time. And a whole hell of a lot happier than I would have been if I were still 33 lbs heavier- or possibly more.

I'm shooting for 45lbs down by that 4 month mark.

But I don't think without hitting bottom- without having my moment that I would have had the motivation I have lacked in the past to stick with it for so long.

Oh my gosh that happened to me as well. It was everyone though. Even strangers would be congratulating my family and I. I was on medication for a long time that made me that way. Nobody understood until I went off the medication that was making me that way. Within the first two months I dropped thirty pounds. It brings tears to my eyes to know that someone out there had gone through the same situation. Maybe not under the same circumstances, but hearing it all the time broke my heart.