What motivated you to want to lose weight/be healthy?

I have shared this before on here & I know it will probably be too long! If you have read this before skip it! ;-)

In elementary, I was always the biggest kid although height & weight proportionate. I was never bullied or teased and felt confident and okay with myself and my size, so when I hit my teens and ballooned to well over 200 lb at 5'8" I didn't really mind (weird yet true), I just considered it very normal to be much larger than my female friends and my mom. My dad was overweight and 6'4", guys I dated were the bigger guys among their peers...it just didn't seem like an issue to me at all.

By college I was totally resigned to always being a large plus size. I gained a bunch of weight from steroids & being totally sedentary & hospitalized from a serious spider bite. Later, I lost that weight pretty easily and got back to what was normal for me (still obese). In my 20's I got married and my husband was also obese and loved dining out and drinking. That was our main source of entertainment (for me the dining out moreso than drinking) and even though I ate semi healthy most of the time I was pretty inactive and ate too many calories.

I was around 260-270 lb for a very long time, most of my 20's and when I turned 30. I always had tons of energy, felt great, no aches or pains, etc. Soon after that I got a new job which was VERY stressful but paid well. That led to a lot more dining out, comfort eating, and even less activity. At 32 I realized I weighed over 300 lb and suddenly had several scary issues like swollen ankles and feet, lower back pain, tons of migraines, and shortness of breath when walking long distances or stairs, etc. It really freaked me out and was my wake up call for eating healthier - although I didn't really know what that meant and made NO connection between calories and weight loss at the time - and walking many miles per night and getting a LOT more exercise. It took me more than 4 years but I lost 45 lb and was back to my usual weight of 260-270. Still a pretty terrible place to be weight wise, but I felt great & energetic again and no longer had any of those issues I'd been having at 300+.

In 2011-2012 my life took a bunch of turns. I lost my house in a tornado, got a divorce after 10 years with my ex, had a bunch of job changes, moved to another city, moved back to my hometown, and met someone new (my current husband). There were even more events that I won't get into but I realized that despite all of the craziness I went through, I had not gained weight from comfort eating. I was maintaining in that "usual" range of 260 lb. Sounds weird, but that inspired me a bit and made me feel confident that I would never again be at 300 lb no matter what crazy stuff happened to me. It was empowering to realize that I truly had changed my habits for the better.

But then...I started to get ticked off. Why was I not losing more weight? My new boyfriend (now husband) was fit & healthy and I was generally eating what he ate, and being very active with him...but my weight was not changing. That is how I decided to start using MFP. My husband had lost a lot of weight in the past (not using MFP) and when I asked him for honest advice he helped me calculate my calories. I did not believe that I was eating an average of 2,600 calories per day but I was. I just didn't realize how much certain things added up like mayo and cheese and dessert treats, even when the bulk of my diet was veggies and lean protein and so on. An online friend had lost a ton of weight on here and I decided to give it a try, too. Now I am still losing of course, but at age 37 I am down to 179 lb which is the lightest I have been since I hit puberty. I have no desire to return to my old habits, especially because they were no more satisfying than the way I am eating & living now.

I lost 85kg in 1 month!

Seriously I did, just try this neat trick and you too could lose 85kg OR MORE in just ONE MONTH...

No potions, tricks or diets, I promise you'll never be hungry or need to work out more.


Thats right ladies, just pack him a bag and show him the door... SEEYA!

I knew my time had come when my best friends mom died of a heart attack in her sleep at the age of 64 and then 2 weeks later my mother-in-law had a massive heart attack at the age of 63. Both of these women were overweight and had diabetes. They were your typical grandmas who liked to spoil their grandkids with sweets and everyone else with good comfort food. Unfortunately, that was not healthy for them since they struggled with diabetes. My kids saw my mother-in-law everyday and the day we had to tell them that they wouldn't get to see Nana anymore was the hardest thing I've had to do in my entire life. I decided 1 week later that I wanted to be around a long, long time to see my grandkids and my great grandkids. I wanted to be a good role model for my kids and others around me as well. I weighed 178 lbs and I needed to lose a good 40+ lbs to get to an ideal weight. I knew that it would be hard, but I found MFP on my phone and I started using it when we went on vacation to Las Vegas a couple weeks later. What a time to start huh? This was in 2012. Since then, I've had another child which I'm still nursing, so I haven't gotten back into my workouts as much and I need to eat more calories. But I'm trying to stay conscious of what I'm putting in my mouth.

There are a few things that motivated me.
First, I love to run. It's freeing, calming, and, when you do it as part of a race, people actually cheer for you. They're like "Ya you, look at you move! Keep moving, you!"
Second, I'm vain. I may not be much to look at normally, but man can I dress up. I can rock three-piece suits and turn heads in my "casual" dress clothing. But only when I an fit. Otherwise I look like the kind of person who would be described as "jolly."
Third, my lover is sexy and deserves a good looking bit of arm candy. (Seriously, I'm not that vain, I just over-compensate and give off the illusion of being confident.)
Finally, I don't want to die from some disease I could have easily prevented. Like I don't want to have my heart go "you know what, forget this, I'm done. If this guy won't take care of me, I quit."
Once I am fit this will be my motto:
There is only one god and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: “Not today.” (From Game of Thrones in case you were wondering.)

Menopause demolished my figure. My weight did not change; it redistributed. Before menopause, my ideal weight was 135. I had gotten to the point where I pretty much knew how much I could eat to maintain a weight of 135. Then menopause shattered my hourglass figure! I had to reevaluate my ideal weight. I liked 112. I started a diet July 5 at 121 pounds, headed for my goal back to 112 in a few weeks!