What made you finally get off your butt?

I found myself only wearing stretchy pants b/c I don't fit into my pants that button. Also if I gain 2 more lbs. I'll be in the overweight range.

I recognized that I was gradually gaining weight and doing nothing about it. I have too many friends who have just let it go and then are shocked when they wake up one day weighing over 200 pounds. So I stopped it in its tracks. My main goal was to become healthy as I have a lot of family medical history that isn't pretty. I now love working out!!

This sounds like my story. I have a friend I haven't seen in awhile, and she got engaged, which is fantastic. She sent me a couple of her engagement photos and she had gained sooooo much. She was always a little bit of a bigger girl, but at this point, she is obese. And I just was like "Oh, no, not going to happen to me."

at my fattest i was 194 lbs,now i'm 176.4lbs.it took me almost a year to lose 17lbs.of course,i could have done it way faster,but i just couldn't convince myself to eat less for a longer than two weeks.then i used to snap and stop dieting and put some weight back on.then i started dieting again,snapped again and so on.but at least i finally lost some weight.it's really hard to lose weight because overeating is like an addiction,and it's hard to overcome it .i'm new to this site and i really love it.hopefully it will help me.for now it has at least helped me to start doing some exercises,cause that's something i never do.maybe your family should try this site too.

aside from all of the health benefits that come with being fit, i was tired of un tagging photos of me my mother in law would post on an almost daily basis on facebook. she has no consideration for how terrible anyone looks in a picture and i didnt want to share that with people i havent seen in years. so i decided to fix it by getting back to a weight where im happy seeing myself and sharing it with others.

and i couldnt fit into a damn thing i owned.

but mostly my mother in law. and my stick thin sister in laws that i was always next to in the pictures making me look like an elephant.

so do i thank her? or continue to be annoyed lol

Well I can relate however it wasn't my mother-in-law instead it was just anyone who would post photos of me that looked TERRIBLE!!!

I have always been chunky and always been "OK." I have never had any health problems so I never really stressed on my weight. I got pregnant in 2003 and from their on my weight just kept going up. My nickname is 'La Gorda" or fat in spanish because I have always been the chubbby one of the family. My co-workers are also obese so we would eat like crazy during our lunch and snack a lot!

I finally said enough when I got on that scale and saw that it said 250! That only meant I was closer to 300 and it scared me! I have two beautiful girls which I want to be a role model for. I don't want them to be embarrased of me with their friends and most of all I don't want them to follow in my footsteps! Diabetes runs in my family and even though I've been healthy I want to take care of myself now before it's too late, why wait till there is something wrong with me? I am so happy I made the decision to get healty! I feel great and I'm taking to the finish line, I am making a lifestyle change!

Hi LizMena How did you create your profile picture like that?

I was sick of dreading my military PT tests. I was sick of my husband seducing me yet I wouldn't want to give in because I felt so self concious. I started trying different diets and such for the last year when I got informed that I would have a harder time getting pregnant if I kept my weight up. But nothing worked because I was telling myself no too much. Not I tell myself yes-but in moderation. I work out everyday even if it's mowing the lawn or walking my dogs on the weekends. I have no set weight goal really, the only goal I have is to get a 90 on my next PT test and feel better when my husband comes home from his deployment so he can get what he deserves ;)

I was less than 5 pounds away from being "overweight" on the BMI scale. it made me sit back and think... wow... how did that happen so fast?

So, I turned it around. I decided I was going to get back to being healthy before it got out of hand. I am 25, my metabolism is slowing down, and if I pulled that crap for any longer than it would have been REALLY hard to take the weight back off.

A friend of mine lost a lot of weight on this program, and I figured if he could do it so could I. I tried writing down all the things I was eating (earlier) and estimating calories but it turned out that, without MFP, I was WAY off. No wonder I didn't lose any weight for years!

I also had an incentive with a high school reunion coming up last summer. I lost about 10 lbs. before the reunion, and that got me excited to lose more. I'm at 28 # now and really want to lose the next 2 lbs. Plus if I can get twenty more after that, I will be back to normal-looking! I feel great though, and hope everyone else also finds success w/MFP.