What made you say enough is enough?

look under my pics in my profile. the one of me standing next to a fake mountie? THAT did it for me....
about 3 months before that pic, i was slim and fit thanks to generally healthy eating and weekly indoor soccer games.
now i am trying to get myself back down to "soccer weight" by my first game sept 9/10.

I was fat and depressed. For me it wasn't necessarily a moment. I've been overweight for a long time with slimmer phases but overall it is my eating habits that get me in trouble. After my separation I go so depressed I let myself go completely. It took over two year for me to realize that life was worth living without him and that included taking care of myself and the way I looked so I started working on it

My son was born in January of 2010, at that time I was getting ready for back surgery also. The thought of not being able to play with him was tough. Well, back surgery came and went. I had a good bit of improvement, for a while. I got to where we could play and I could hold him. Come August of 2010, the back pain became unbearable and a 2nd surgery was needed. I know that my weight wasn't the direct cause of my back injury, but it didn't help.
A light went off, I knew that I had to fix myself, on top of what the doctors did. I was scared to death I would miss out on so much of my sons life. I lost 50lbs before surgery, and another 50lbs so far. My back is not perfect, I still have bad days. But, I'm no longer afraid that I will miss out on anything.
Also, when you start losing weight, you will gain something, confidence. Let it take control of you, run with it. You're going to screw up on your journey, none of us are perfect. This is your ONLY life. Live it to the fullest.

I felt uncomfortable with how big I got for a couple of years. My nice work pants started to get tight one day. I was already horrified at the size they were (US 14) so there was no chance I was buying bigger pants. On that day I set out to find an app on my phone to help me count calories, which led me to MFP!

How bad did I let myself go? Well I am 5'7" and weighed 175 lbs. at my heaviest. I estimate I was a good 30 pounds overweight.

2 things really nagged me enough to make a real effort and stick to it. The first one was that I couldn't sleep anymore - I felt like I had a hot fat cat sitting on my chest when I was in bed. I would twist my body in all different directions just to breathe at night.
The second was that strangers kept asking me when my (nonexistent) baby was due. It was a very common occurrence.

Last year I felt very lethargic, irritated and flabby. I took a long, hard look at myself in a full length mirror and hated what I saw. Especially the two huge tyres around my stomach. But what really made me aware of my weight for the very first time was when I was a young teen. On the train a boy was teasing one of my friends and I told him to stop. He then proceeded to loudly announce to the entire carraige that I was "a big fat blue whale" (I was wearing a blue coat that time). I remember very clearly my friend's pitying looks and the fact that I cried all the way home but I suppose more good than bad came out of it since I'm now healthy and fitter than ever!

I'm in the medical field, the light eventually went on when one of my patients saw me at a fast food joint. I had told that patient the day before to stop eating crap.

A friend of ours came to visit for a weekend, and I saw what he ate: all organic things, soft boiled eggs, etc., and he brought it all with him in a cooler. Anywhere we went that wasn't a real sit down restaurant, he brought his own food. He was certain of -exactly- went in to his body at all times.

It occurred to me that I am 100% responsible for what goes in to my mouth, at all times. Nobody has a gun to my head demanding I eat fast food.

Also I'm a nurse and see chronic condition patients and how miserable things can become, even just in your 40's and 50's if this doesn't change.

I'm in the medical field, the light eventually went on when one of my patients saw me at a fast food joint. I had told that patient the day before to stop eating crap.

Interesting ... I always wonder how health professionals who are overweight reconcile their personal way of eating with what they know and advise patients.

Anyway, for me it was a combination of having a closet of clothes that were too small alongside a whole other bigger wardrobe that was getting too small, and the realization that with creeping weight gain I'd eventually end up being my Mom (nothing personal, Mom). MFP has helped me fix that :-)

Well... I started dieting, randomly, one day, i was dinking around on my new phone, thinking of things to download off the free market place, and i thought about i bet theres some stupid calorie counter, so i searched, and MFP was top of the list.. i ended up downloading it thinking how stupid it was, and well.. i havent missed a day in 150days..

But prior to this.. i started realizing i had a problem when Id have breakfast at home to save money on fast food, and by the time i got into town, i was hungry again and buying fast food that i was trying to not afford... Id buy fast food a couple times a day generally, and when my boyfriend would get into the car, hed be like "you went to mcdonalds...were going out to dinner"...i share a car with my mom, so id either use the excuse "its not mine, its from my mom" or "yea, but I went before work this mroning".. when id eat it after work, and i had to eat because i knew once i got to my boyfriends we might sit around for a couple hours, and i couldnt make it a couple hours without starving to death. That and the amount of money i was spending on food--- between eating out everyday a couple times, and then going out with my boyfreind a couple nights a week to dinners, i didnt have any money and had trouble affording anything at all, toher than food. .

Now I eat out occasionally with my boyfriend, but i make good choices when we do, and skip fast food, and dont leave the house without eating breakfast, and having packed 2 snacks and lunch. I can afford to buy food for the house now that im not buying fast food, and can get toilet paper and things that i need, and can even think about going on trips and such with excess money.

Also, not being able to stand naked, or take off my shirt, etc in front of boyfriend.. not changing in front of him, anything.. after being together for a year and a half... not being able to buy bras at the store cuz stores dont carry H cup.. (although now that ive lost 50pounds, im now a J cup, so i went up two cups sizes!! lol wtf!!), going into lane bryant and asking if they carry anything bigger than size 28 cuz theyre biggest pair of pants didnt fit me well. Buying clothes that i didnt like just because they did fit me... it taking a full day to find those couple of items that did fit me. Not being able to wear swim suits because of my inner thigh bulge embarrassing me too much. having high cholesterol, above average blood pressure, and dodging the bullet with diabetes (my grandma and sister have it, but somehow i never showed signs of it---but thought if i kept going the way i was, i would in no time). Having heart troubles (days of it beating too fast, etc, especially after a night of drinking).

Seeing my self in pictures (they don't lie!)

Like others, it was a photo that did me in. I knew I was chunky... the scale told me that much, weighing a bit more than I ever had before, 20-30 lbs more. But a photo of my husband, my dog and me near a waterfall was just more than I could take. So I teamed up with MFP and lost 20 lbs in less than 3 months! I've lost some of that motivation recently, mostly because I feel worlds better than I did before. So I've decided to go at a slower rate and allow myself to eat a few more calories each day by changing my goal to 1 lb a week. I hope I stick to it : )

My brother's good influence.

He lost a lot of weight on Weight Watchers and actually lost his "bubble butt" that plagues every single member of our family (on both sides, unfortunately! {pun intended}) I figured that if he could have a tiny butt, then so could I!

I signed up for WW the next week.

How bad did I let it get? Well, I gained about 60 pounds in one year, after having gained 20 slowly over a couple of years... So 80 pounds gained within 3 or 4 years, and my butt was unbuckling my seatbelt when I drove. So... bad.

Yep...I can relate!

---

1. The # on the scale was my highest weight ever and confirmed the fact that I'd "let myself go"...again!
2. My clothes were getting tighter and tighter...again!
3. Hated seeing myself in pics...yuck!
4. Swimsuit season...'nough said! LOL!

11/30/2010 I took my daughter and I to see the doctor so he seen both of us and we were weighing in and I seen my kids weight 198 : ( then I seen the look on her face.... It crushed me. I weighed in at 302 and I from that point on I cant tell you what the doctor said, I was in such shock. I do remember if he could give me some type of med to help me lose weight and he said " we don't give them types of meds to people at this clinic" but he did tell me about this app he uses and so latter I looked but, it didn't have is for android phones so I tried this one, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

So far I have lost 79 and my daughter has lost a few but, now she knows how to do it and knows it will not happen over night.