What is your WHY?

First off, I want to say that I read this thread a few days ago and it totally made me reevaluate myself. I had been inconsistent, but now I'm back, all in, guns-a-blazing :laugh:

My old why was just about vanity. I wanted to look better, because that's what you're supposed to do, right? Once I got halfway to my goal I started slipping, and it took until now to regain my determination.

My WHY:
- I'm a type one diabetic, and want to be as healthy as possible to avoid complications later in life.
- I just registered for my very first half marathon, and want to be FIT when I finally compete in October
- I can't even explain how much happier I am when I feel good about my weight. It affects my confidence, which affects how others perceive me, which affects my friends and family and my interactions with them. I'm still trying to make new friends in a new-ish city so this is a big one.

Fantastic post! I love this so much!

My whys: I got tired of waking up and hating, absolutely hating, the body I was waking up and living in. Tired of fooling myself into thinking that I don't feel that bad and didn't look that bad. Tired of using food and alcohol as a drug to cure my boredom and my self esteem issues.

Instead, I decided I want to wake up and use my body to surprise myself, find out all of the fantastic things its capable of doing. I wasted the first 15+ years of my adult life being ashamed of it. I want to look in the mirror and realize that while I don't look perfect, and what I see is flawed, it's pretty awesome. I want to have a relationship with food that is about not JUST about enjoyment, but about fueling my body.

This!!!

my WHY: I want to be able to take a photo, and feel like I look good. I know that is bigger self esteem issue than just my weight, as I am skinny fat so you can't even really tell in pictures, but to me it matters.
I hate being in a group picture and feeling like the biggest one there.
I hate taking photos with my stick thin partner (lucky *kitten*, good genes) and feeling like an elephant next to him.
I hate seeing the flab or extra weight, instead of a nice toned body.

I also want the health benefits of being fit. I am tired of always being sick because I don't take care of myself properly. There is no reason I shouldn't. I have been given a life in a good economy, and a body that at it's best has made me the envy of many friends.

I want that back. I want to feel good inside and out.

Thank you so much for this post, this has really motivated me to stop half arsing it and actually stick to my goals.

bumping to read later :flowerforyou:

WooWW!

This is a big WHY now for me, all my others have been the tiniest whys in comparison.

In February I had a 4KG tumour removed from my abdomen, I found out one of the reasons it was so big was because of my size, I didn't even know it was there, tucked right under my rib cage, but that was before it was shrunk down to 4KG.

Luckily it was benign, but it was the biggest kick up the butt I could have had, just a warning shot across the bows you could say, lol.

I realised that I've wasted the 22 years of my life (I was slim and very very fit up until I was 20) I don't want to waste the remainder. My husband, even though I've been moaning about it for ages but it fell on very deaf ears, noticed that when I was in hospital how small my meals were, when I came home portions went down by half straight away, (he cooks) first step completed.

My first mission was not putting on any weight at all whilst recuperating, which was pretty tough going, but as soon as I got the all clear from my consultant to resume activities, I changed my macros, started lifting heavy again 5 times a week, which I love, I get such a buzz from it :bigsmile:

Trouble is now just had a bit of a pull and have to stop for three weeks, probably pushed just a little bit to hard!!!! :grumble:

I really feel I'm in a good place now, been at it for six months now 18lb down so far, but about 10 inches lost in total so the longest I've ever kept at it. The goal is to be bikini ready for next summer, so watch this space.

Good luck with everybody, and may all your WHY's be big ones!!

p.s. Just remembered, my lovely Mother said not to worry about the scar at my age, (42!!) it's not as if I'm going to wear a bikini or anything similar!! Well here's to proving her wrong!!

I am a 41 one year mom to two disabled kids. They will probably never be able to live on their own and will need me for many years to come. I have family history of strokes,heart disease,obesity etc..All the females in my family have either died in their late 40's/early 50's or had a debilitating stroke by then. Unfortunately, it took me nineteen years to realize I did not want to end up like them and needed to stay healthy for my sons.Hopefully it is not too late to turn it around. :flowerforyou:

THIS!!!! • I want to feel comfortable in my own skin

I felt myself dying and decided I wanted to live.

I am only 26, so it freaks me out that my "why" is medical. I went in for a routine eye exam and discovered that my optic nerves were swollen. I had no other symptoms, no headaches or loss of vision, but he optometrist wanted me to see a neurologist immediately. I was switching jobs and put it off. When I finally made it in, he ran me through a group of tests and basically said, "I'm 99% sure that it's pseudotumor cerebri." And of course all I heard was "tumor." Turns out, not a tumor. Rather, my fat is stopping my body from being able to absorb excess spinal fluid. Doesn't seem like a big deal right? Except that left untreated, it could make me go blind.

The neurologist wanted me to get an MRI and a lumbar puncture just in case it was something in the 1%, then I'd have to be on medication that could leave me with a numb/tingling feeling in my limbs. I started crying and he said, "You probably wouldn't need to lose that much weight. If I could give you a pill to make you lose 15 pounds, I would." So I made a deal with him. I would start a weight loss program and come back in three months.

I started exercising and taking a hard look at my eating and I realized something: I was fat. I knew that the number on the scale and inside my jeans had been going up steadily for the last few years, but it never really registered that I'd gotten fat. I moved to Alaska last and was up for adventure, but I couldn't keep up with the local hiking clubs and never bought those cross country skis I swore I would get. All of the signs that I wasn't healthy were there, but I'd been ignoring them. The real kicker came when I was talking to my husband about all of this and he basically told me I'd gotten past the point where I was physically attractive (trust me, he's not a mean guy. We're just very honest with each other!).

So now even though I started losing weight because I'm too cheap to get an MRI and too terrified of needles to get a lumbar puncture, I have a new set of WHYs. They still include naturally resolving my pseudotumor cerebri, but also:

- Being able to walk up the stairs at work without having to catch my breath
- Not being embarrassed to put on a swimsuit
- Being able to engage with the outdoors however I desire (hiking, skiing, kayaking, you name it!)

It all boils down to that I don't want to have to live my life as a fat person. I'm tired of my poor eating habits and lack of fitness stopping me from being who I want to be. Like a lot of people have said, I want the inside to match the outside.

Sorry for the novel, but it feels good to get it out!