Why did you come to the conclusion to lose weight?

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Replies

  • ElJefeChief
    ElJefeChief Posts: 650 Member
    Mine is kind of a mystery, because I'm not totally sure what spurred me on about it. Approximately 8-9 months ago I weighed in with a BMI just bordering clinically obese (6'2'' and change, around 235 pounds), I was divorcing my ex after a bunch of years spent in a just plain terrible marriage that had been nearly disastrous to my body and soul.

    Anyways, I had been a few months into my separation and I was living in a small apartment by myself, and I was trying to save money. I decided I wanted to quit my gym membership (as I was only using it 2-3 times per week for cardio only), and so I did that, and bought a treadmill instead, and put it by my bed.

    Lo and behold, having the treadmill by my bed encouraged me to start running every day. So, I did - and after about 2 months of this, I decided to weigh myself (at that point I was only weighing myself extremely sporadically - every 4-6 months or so).

    Miracle of miracles, I found that I had gotten down to around 225 in just a couple of months.

    I thought to myself, "wow, if I can drop 10 pounds that easily with just running more, what might happen if I start counting calories?"

    So, I downloaded MFP to my iPad in May of this year and started counting calories and exercise. I started losing more. I eventually got a FitBit (really, just to automate my exercise logging). I kept losing. By the beginning of September of this year, I reached a normal BMI (<25) for the first time in approximately a decade. My rate of loss when I was actively losing was around 1.75 pounds per week.

    Interesting thing is - my ex lost a bunch of weight post-separation, as well. So, was I being competitive? Maybe, a bit. :smile:
  • pakanoir
    pakanoir Posts: 14 Member
    I realized that most of my social anxiety came from the shame I felt for being overweight. I was constantly uncomfortable, tired, and this hindered me from doing a lot of things. Also, my clothes were extremely uncomfortable - especially bras. Basically, I felt like crap about 100% of the time. Not good.
  • VanMi
    VanMi Posts: 8 Member
    alien_type0 wrote: »
    I think mine might be the dumbest one.

    I was playing my favorite game and I thought about how I really adored the leading heroine and decided I wasn't going to stop until I was as strong and brave as my Femshep. I looked at myself in the mirror and I hated what I was seeing. I started my diet and routine that moment and with each sore day and each non-scale victory I'm just more motivated!

    to look like femshep, or a good femherald or femwarden or femhawke, is excellent inspiration. Woot for Bioware!
  • rachiedachie88
    rachiedachie88 Posts: 1 Member
    My health has gone downhill the last 5 years. I really want to hit 40 and start that phase in my life in a positive way with a healthy lifestyle. I want to be healthy, well and live a long life for myself, my kids and my partner. I guess eventually I would like to get married... which means the dreaded white puff of tulle dress *shudders* and the photos that go along with it.
    I bought an elliptical machine so that I can exercise at home. I am hoping that this is a positive step in the right direction as I dont like going to gyms and have a lot of anxiety in general about leaving the house.
  • jlwhitney90
    jlwhitney90 Posts: 1 Member
    My husband is sick and starting chemo. While he is sick I have to have the energy to keep up with two little runners on my own. And if I get back to the hot little number I was when we got married maybe it will boost his spirits and get him through his recovery.
  • Eri0515
    Eri0515 Posts: 85 Member
    ShandaLeaS wrote: »
    My 9 yr old asked me if I was pregnant again....less than a week later my 3 yr old rubbed my belly and asked if a baby was in there.
    Ouch, that'll do it!
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  • MsMaeFlowers
    MsMaeFlowers Posts: 261 Member
    A Little bit of everything for me.

    I am sick of wearing clothes I don't like just because they fit me, or they hide my stomach. I hate looking at myself in the mirror. I am a volunteer firefighter so I would also like to be able to do my job better. I hate seeing girls on TV that have my old body and feeling jealous.

    I always tell myself I want to get in shape so I can feel good again, and I just finally decided enough is enough, lets do this! 4 pounds down, 36 to go. Not too concerned with my final weight, more with how I look and feel, but 125 is my weight goal at the moment, because you need a goal. We'll see how it goes once I'm in better shape and have more muscle going on.
  • anl90
    anl90 Posts: 928 Member
    For me, it's been a mixture of things. At the start of the year, my fiancée proposed, and when I look at pictures from that night I told myself I didn't want to look like that on my wedding day. Around the start of September, I started a weight loss competition with family and friends, and that is when it finally stuck around, and while the competition has ended (due to lack of participation), I'm still going strong with eating healthier and doing a daily walk. Currently, I'm down 16 pounds from when I started it all, and while I don't see it, it's a great feeling to see that number on the scale keep going down. :)
  • enterdanger
    enterdanger Posts: 2,447 Member
    We sold our house before finding a new house and had to rent. I rented a townhouse that was 4 good floors of vertical living. I was out of breath just going up and down all those stairs and refused to carry the laudry all the way to the basement and made my husband do it. Also, I couldn't play on the playground with my toddlers the way I wanted to.
  • sbrmom
    sbrmom Posts: 38 Member
    I have several things and it all hit me about a week ago: when I realized that I weighed more than my husband, I have been achy all of the time for the past several months because I am so out of shape, all of my clothes are too tight, and I have 2 teenagers that I want to be able to keep up with for a long time, and I want them to be proud of me.
  • adhebert8
    adhebert8 Posts: 27 Member
    Trying on bridesmaid dresses. Apparently I look very big to the eye because the dress shop personnel kept bringing me size 26 dresses (I'm a size 22 lol) and I just felt so ashamed of myself. Being the fattest girl in the shop.. I have a long term boyfriend and I want to be thinner when I go wedding dress shopping for myself.
  • Montepulciano
    Montepulciano Posts: 845 Member
    softblondechick wrote: »
    Going to a regular store, and going to "plus" area to find pants. Designers for plus size, think all fat women are color blind, uneducated unemployed, and don't like nice clothes, or sexy clothes...I saw a bunch of junk that looked like a Wal Mart clearance sale in a ghetto. Nothing appropriate for leading a professional meeting, or traveling for a work trip. The suits available were cheap looking, and nothing fitted.

    I need to lose weight to get back to shopping in sections that have decent clothes to choose.

    So true.
  • adhebert8
    adhebert8 Posts: 27 Member
    sasha_sykes wrote: »
    My boyfriend recently broke up with me because I was too 'chubby' and not fit for him and he wanted a slimmer girlfriend so I'm here to prove him wrong that I can become a much fitter and thinner person so when I do I can show him what he's lost >:)

    Dude screw that guy. I was at my lowest weight ever when I met my boyfriend and since then I have gained over 100lbs while he still call me beautiful and sexy everyday. A REAL man will stick by you.
  • qiaralim
    qiaralim Posts: 33 Member
    I was born in a big figure family. And all of us love foods. When I was in my secondary school, I was an active student; participating all the activities. But sadly each time I went to the stage, all of the students especially males will shout and call me 'Big Mama'. They even 'boo' at me. That stressed me so much and I start to let the anger on food. I ate more than I used to be. Until I entered medical school and found a friend who lost a lot of weight and she taught me on how to eat clean, exercises and etc.
  • kyrannosaurus
    kyrannosaurus Posts: 350 Member
    I had to turn down a casual shift at my job because my uniform didn't fit. There wasn't an option to get a bigger uniform so I had to do something about it, or I would have to resign from my job.

    I chose to lose the weight.
  • drbuzzard91
    drbuzzard91 Posts: 1,204 Member
    a sad story but the end result was me no longer wanting to be a lame version of me so I try to better myself everyday, for the most part but i try
  • jasondinger
    jasondinger Posts: 32 Member
    Just feeling bad, sleeping poorly, and having no motivation. I just felt like crap. One day, I looked in the mirror, and asked "what's John Goodman doing in my bathroom?" Ive dropped 50 pounds in the last 6 months (or so) and I feel so much better....
  • moijo1
    moijo1 Posts: 1,214 Member
    when i hurt my back i went from never sitting down, i had trouble gaining weight to not being able to move off the sofa for months and the spinal surgeon finally seen me months later called me obese and said he wouldnt give me surgery because of that... i had always been the skinny one and everyone i know had always been very overweight so they jumped at the chance to go to diet clubs with me to lose weight but i kept gaining and they all lost 4 stone plus each, but they could exercise and i could'nt hardly walk. I couldnt care for my wheelchair bound daughter of or take her on walks so i set up a charity raising funds for all terrain power wheelchairs for kids and had to attend events, i couldnt take part in many things or keep up with everyone walking and i was the now 'the fat one' in all the pics in the news papers and online :(
    So i took drastic measures and paid for diet ready meals and found mfp and educated myself, suddenly the weight dropped off. ive found a few medical problems needed sorting along the way i.e. under active thyroid.. but i'll be back to my old self soon as possible.
  • pearso21123
    pearso21123 Posts: 351 Member
    Endless_Journey wrote: »
    So this Endless Journey started 1,000 days ago. It was a Friday, got home, went upstairs to change, came back down and then something happened. I had to sit down, sweat pouring down me, struggling to breath and had chest pains. my body was telling me that all was not well. The pains got worse so decided to visit my doctor. She sent me to the ER straight away, I was very quickly seen by a Consultant who carried out tests. I did not want to tell my wife as she was at work. The consultant called me in and said very simply, that if I did not change my lifestyle, he gave me five more years. very simply I was killing myself. Going back to my car, I realised now that life is not a rehearsal, I needed to act now. My Journey has now started.
    After tellng my wife, she said that only I could change this and of course she was right. I grabbed the laptop and sat down. So how was I killing myself?, for one week I wrote down how much I was eating and drinking. The results were frightening I was consuming up to 4,000 calories a day, add that to the fact I was not even exercising, nothing more to say. My weight was 276lbs, pulse rate 77. My blood pressure was normal.
    A new diet was planned, out went hamburgers, take aways, junk food. No more drinking alcohol, and eating between meals. The fridge was completely emptied and replaced with fresh fruit, vegetables, salads, chicken, fish. Cans of coke were replaced with bottled water. Extreme you might say but time was not on my side. Eating beteween meals was a problem so each morning I would get a bowl and chop up some melon, apples, raisins, add some celery, nuts and raisins. Now whenever I was hungry instead of having crisps or chocolate I would reach for the bowl. Drinking water before each meal helped to curb my appertite.
    Ok thats the diet sorted but now exercise, being so overweight this was not going to be easy. I just started going out for walks around the block, the first time after twenty minutes I had to stop I was so out of breath. But gradually as each day passed i just incresased it. Weight loss was slow so i checked my diet, reducing my intake to 1200 calories, this suited me but may not suit everybody. My BMI was 49% so the body had enough fat to live off. The next stage of getting fit, I decided to purchase a mountain bike. OMG what a sight seeing me trying to cycle, confidence was low, and made worse by other cyclists making nasty comments, this just made me more determined. I was hooked on cycling and went out every day increasing the time I spent out on the road. The same cyclists passing me by asking if I wanted a push. My time would come.
    My weight was starting to melt away and i started to feel good about myself so the next stage was to invest in a road bike. I did this and started cycling furtther and further. Ok 2014 was not good i got knocked off my bike no less than four times, but was determined to carry on. Easter this year I decided to enter a road race, a 130km race. The weather conditions were the worst I had encountered but was determined to complete the course. Oh so what happened about those cyclists who were so cruel to me I can here you ask? The next time i went out on the road I saw them in front of me approaching a hill. As they started to cycle up it they were all breathless, I pulled along side them and said. would you like a push? I then left them struggling, looking over my shoulder they knew who I was.
    So 105lbs lighter and a healthy pulse rate of 45, BMI now 25.5, everything was going good. Until about 12 weeks ago, after a long cycle I returned home feeling unwell ok I thought it was caused by the long cycle but it was not. After a visit to the doctor and some blood tests, I was sent to ER to see a consultant. Who just by looking at me suggested I may have Kidney Cancer, leaving the room my wife just looked at me with tears in her eyes. Comforting her I said lets see what the scans show. Two days later, after two scans the best results ever, I did not have cancer. There was however a problem with my Kidneys. I have been told that an operation will cure the problem, I am still training only after speaking to the surgeon. I have a 160km cycle planned for November this year which I should be fit enough to compete.
    Remember, life is not a rehearsal, you do not get a second chance, so dont waste it. Your body is a temple so look after it.
    Good luck to you all as you take the first step to a healthier you.

    Wow, this is quite a story. Thank you so much for sharing.
  • chocolatexxmintt
    chocolatexxmintt Posts: 85 Member
    I stepped on a scale.. and saw that I weighed a lotttttttt more than I had guessed. I was ashamed of myself and how far I had let myself go. So I said I would change, and I did. I lost 62.4 lbs so far, and I have a ways to go. But I know now that it's possible and I will stop at nothing to reach my goals both here on MFP and in life.
  • dougl004
    dougl004 Posts: 99 Member
    adhebert8 wrote: »
    sasha_sykes wrote: »
    My boyfriend recently broke up with me because I was too 'chubby' and not fit for him and he wanted a slimmer girlfriend so I'm here to prove him wrong that I can become a much fitter and thinner person so when I do I can show him what he's lost >:)

    Dude screw that guy. I was at my lowest weight ever when I met my boyfriend and since then I have gained over 100lbs while he still call me beautiful and sexy everyday. A REAL man will stick by you.

    #Preach
  • riffraff2112
    riffraff2112 Posts: 1,756 Member
    Story over here is pretty lame and vain. Hated how I looked, and for some reason just felt that this time it was going to happen. I had lost a significant amount of weight a few times in my life, and love sports, weight training etc but I really needed to get control of my eating. Once I did that, the weight came off pretty easily.
  • Jaeger600
    Jaeger600 Posts: 2 Member
    I feel like many of you have said it! Gaining sizes, not liking how I look or feel, the inner tube around the waist, but it really hit me when I got blood work done and the one thing that my doctor said was "Change your lifestyle, exercise more and your sugar level is too high" I eat healthy, well I thought, but it was a HUGE wake up call. I realized that I didn't know enough about eating healthy as I thought! Good to know I am not alone!
  • DeaBomb44
    DeaBomb44 Posts: 2 Member
    I've battled with weight my whole life, lost 50 lbs about 6 years ago and felt great! I started MFP November 1st, 2015 after watching Rocky IV movie lol and got excited again about kickboxing. Went to the gym the next day and hurt my lower back. This past week being hurt actually made me focus on eating healthy before getting back to the gym :). One day at a time!
  • shadows2424
    shadows2424 Posts: 179 Member
    My thighs were ribbon together too much and were very uncomfortable. But what's really motivated me ro stick with it was when i got on the floor to try and do 25 sit ups and struggled to do 1. It was the first to in my life I'd been overweight and unable to exercise. It really set fire to me.
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  • PhoenyxRose
    PhoenyxRose Posts: 70 Member
    edited November 2015
    For me I've been overweight/nearly obese for as long as I can remember (my mother says I started being overweight when I was 5, I'll take her word for it since I can't remember) and it's sort of something that's been with me for my whole life it feels. As a child I was always told by my gp that I needed to lose weight, I saw it in my difference between me and the other children and in the fact that I was a 14/16 child's by I think 10 or 12, and I definitely knew it when I was bullied for being fat around age 8 or so. So for me, I always knew I needed to lose weight but my trouble was trying to find a way to do so as my parents ate/eat unhealthfully which then gave me bad habits in turn, when I finally got to 8th grade and we had our mandatory health class I was determined to try to lose weight, and failed because I knew nothing about health and nutrition (and neither did our teacher, she implied starbucks whipped cream would turn to cemant like material in our intestines) and was told by my dad to "only eat when I'm hungry", so for one summer I drank only lemonade and only ate breakfast and sometimes dinner and ended up with fainting spells and then a year later I tried doing the Atkins diet but couldn't get past the first two weeks. After that I was in the middle of high school in my rather rebellious years and told myself and everyone around me that I didn't care that I'd never been thin and didn't care about what I looked like, which was complete and utter *kitten*.

    Fast forward about 5 years and now I'm a 21 year college senior about to make her way into medical school, and I sure as hell have no excuse for being overweight since I a) have had several biology courses that have dealt with aspects of health and nutrition and at least know the basics of how foods and chemicals work in your body and what happens to your brain and body when you're overweight/obese and b) have access to a nutritionist that I see once a month. My motivation to finally get off my *ss and lose weight was really that I was unhappy with myself: I didn't look like how I've always wanted to in my head, I didn't feel good, and my life long desires couldn't be met when I was overweight, I want to be good at yoga and archery and swimming and learn how to fight, I want to be able to live to 150 and look younger than my age at 70, I want my brain to feel good and energized and be able to remember things well, I want to feel confident about my body and be able to go out in the dating scene and feel like id be worth it for someone to date me, and most importantly I want my outsides to match my insides. I know I'm smart, I know I could be physically pretty (in that I'm not now because being fat doesn't match my personal aesthetics) and I know I have a lot to offer someone mentally so I want to look good physically too and be physically strong.

    While my start has been bumpy and stalled for longer than I care to share I've finally lost these 4 stubborn pounds and been able to break through the 170s I've been ping ponging around and into 169. :)

    Sorry for the long wall of txt but I've just seen a lot of posts about being thin/fit before and gaining weight and not a lot on people who have been constantly overweight and wanted to add that perspective too.

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