what was your wake up call?

I knew I was overweight until I brought myself a new scale and saw I was 50 lbs overweight! To make it worse, my grandmom asled me if I wanted her old pants. I asled how bug and she said their 16s! I wear a size 10 but I now know I look a size 16... that was my wake up call:sad:

My wake up call was when I was randomly perusing the internet and came across a site that suggested that humans have an avg heartbeat life span. (Not saying I believed it.) i got curious and put on my heart rate monitor to find out my end of day after an hour of relaxation, what my heartbeat was. It was high enough to count as easy aerobic exercise...even though I was at rest. Then entered it into their calculator, and was informed I have about 10 years worth of heartbeats left. (Again, not saying I believed it.) But it got me to thinking that with my back problem, I'm not sure I would have much quality of life after 10 years. Already it's been deteriorating. And I learned that it was easier to declutter by thinking in terms If I did only have about ten years left, what would I do? Part of my answer involved reducing my weight so I could more easily move, reduce the pressure on my back, and live a better quality of life.

Further support for that wakeup call was when my stomach troubles became a constant thing.

This wasn't a way to live, so time to change all that.

I have tried many MANY different things to loose weight and to fit into dresses for special occasions. After hitting the highest weight of my life (234 lbs) was approached to join a hockey team. I started playing and realized I would be much faster if I was smaller. Now I am committing to making small changes so that I can be a better team mate. Also I found out that diabetes runs in my family and I would like to avoid that.

Going to be 50 years old next year and to celebrate, i plan on going on a tour of Europe next summer... By foot! Roughly 450 miles of walking...Crazy, but it's always been a dream of mine..
Soooo, being 60 pounds overweight, with knee and shoulder problems, weak back, borderline HBP, how can i possibly accomplish this dream without exacerbating my problems? Cannot be done...Therefore, i just started one day and that's it! I have been on this WL journey since Feb 2014, lost 12 pounds, stalled for a month but still, i ain't quitting! I'm doing Keto/LCHF and i love it.

Investing in a food scale and seeing how much a correct portion really is LOL

I've known for a while, and made a bunch of half-hearted stabs at losing it the past few years, so I don't really know what changed to make this time around so different. Maybe I just did enough research? I feel so much better prepared, and I don't understand what I was thinking the first couple times - not even keeping a food journal? _Really_?

It might have been huffing at the top of the stairs at work, or how hard clothes shopping was getting, or how sometimes I'd cry for no reason, but ultimately I think it was the moment I was sitting up at two am with the boy I'm in love with, laughing and feeling so so so special, and the sudden realization that I didn't trust it because I couldn't see what anyone might see in me. I think it was that abrupt understanding of just how bad my confidence had gotten and how much it was interfering with my life that I was like "welp, time to fix this."

I didn't have a wake-up call per se, but rather, a series of realizations. In 2008, I realized that I had put on nearly 6 pounds a year for over a decade, that I had gone from thin to fat, and that it was starting to interfere with my comfort in daily life and that, now that I was 40, I was courting long-term health problems by being obese.

I started exercising more, watched what I ate (without counting calories), and lost about 10 lb. Then my weight fluctuated between 205 and 215 for 4 more years. From fall 2011 to spring 2012, I lost about 8 lb. and got down to just over 200, but then put on over 12 lb. between then and December 2012, despite bicycling far more that year than in previous years. I hadn't returned to my heaviest weight (225 or so), but I was heading back in that direction.

That's the point where I realized that "watching what I ate," without calorie counting, obviously wasn't working, so I needed another plan. By happenstance, I discovered three things in January 2013: MFP, which was reviewed in a copy of Consumer Reports that I was leafing through at my sister's house; Beeminder, a website that lets you set up a financial penalty if you fail to meet your own goals; and John Walker's free online book The Hacker's Diet (http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/), which also emphasizes calorie counting, and which treats weight loss not as a moral issue but from an engineering and management perspective.

The results have been pretty good, though in hindsight I would have done more strength training from the start. I love walking, cycling, and running (which I took up again once my weight was under 170), so I have no problem getting cardio, but I approach strength training the way I approach flossing: it's necessary for my goals, but I don't like it and do the minimum necessary.

My wake up call was my (currently) long distance boyfriend being able to join my family and I in Hawaii this summer. Kickstarted me wanting to be healthier and have less jiggle and fit into my swimsuits better. I want to be able to really enjoy the vacation instead of feeling like a beached whale all the time! Usually I'm uncomfortable at the beach, but I really want to enjoy it.

Mine happened when I realized I was fat after my divorce. It took a while to register in my brain; I just thought I was a little thicker than I used to be. Nope. My 135 lb. self in high school had ballooned to 220 in a few years after high school. I avoided photos and felt miserable all the time. I hated seeing the tags on the clothes I wanted to wear - they were too small, always too small, and I was always too large to look nice. After the divorce, I lost down to 185 with ease, mostly because I wasn't eating to keep up with my ex-husband.

The 185 stuck. And stuck. And I didn't care. I still didn't feel good about myself or anything. My circumstances took a dark turn and I had to move a couple of times to avoid the harassment of my younger sibling - and, for some reason, his childish insult ("Fat cow") stuck in my craw.

Spite can be a hell of a motivator, sometimes.

When I decided to move to Georgia in 2012, I knew I had to make a lot of changes - and getting a 2nd job was only one of them. I was going to be meeting a guy I'd only ever known on the internet (who is now my Gentleman, which has been lovely!) and driving across country and generally changing everything about my life.

That was a crazy, crazy period, but I lost most of the extra weight (in a healthy way and only partially spite-fuelled!). Now I'm down to the last 10-15 (because I gained a bit after the move) and it's all about vanity and costumery at this point. *cough*

I didn't really have a wake up call, it's more like I've been texting myself mean messages to get off my *kitten* and fix this situation for a long enough time I finally broke down and did it.

Realizing that I have literally no clothes to wear anymore and not wanting to buy new ones. Also, passing my "never pass" weight by 10ibs in a month. Ouch! But I'm up to the challenge. I lost 30ibs 2 years ago on MFP and gained 5ibs after "maintaining" for a year. Then I went to college and lived in the dorms. When I realized I was eating pizza twice a week, combined with my clothes not fitting and my bra size jumping, I realized that it's time to lose the weight again, but this time, better and keep it off.

I was at the park watching our son play and each time he asked me to play with him I made some excuse.

Now, I'm the one encouraging him to the park so we can run the track together.

Wanting to join the Army and being 112lbs over weight.

I lost it, and got to enlist.

When I woke up from my alternate reality in which the weight I was at was normal for my height. It wasn't normal by anyone's standards at my height. 195 at 4'11".

My boyfriend cheated with someone super skinny. Now i want to lose the weight so it won't happen again.

While I admire you for wanting to lose weight, I have to say -- he didn't cheat because she was skinny. He cheated because he is a loser. Find someone better. If your motivation is outside yourself, it won't last. Lose weight for you -- not for anyone else.

I wholeheartedly second that!!!! It's deficiencies in the cheater not in you.