I have noticed how much weight I have put on. I actually was talking to a friend of mine about making this lifesytle change and she gave me the link to MFP. I thank her every day for that. It has really helped me. Now if I could get back to it on a regular it would REALLY help me. So any way ... I was looking for a pair of pants and realized WOW! I cannto even wear my BIG pants because they were too tight. I broke down and some how I was lifted up from that state of mind and elevated to make the changes I needed to. With the health issues I have had in the past I had doctors tell me to fight the weight gain was useless unless I wanted medicated. Yeah so not going to happen. So MFP showed me how wrong they were. I can do this! WE can do this! Now to find that motivation again. :drinker:

There were several things that kinda built up to me getting on the health & weight loss bandwagon. I lost my grandmother(paternal) and my great grandmother(maternal) within 6 months of each other due to heart related health problems. They had both lived long lives but it really hit me hard. I knew I wasn't living anything close to a healthy lifestyle and it could lead to very serious problems with my health. I had a moment when I was putting my size 20 jeans on fresh out of the dryer and realized I could barely button them. They were actually painful to close but I had refused to buy anything higher than a size 20 because I was not THAT fat. It hit me again how big I had gotten. My best friend had started using an app called loseit on her phone and was really working hard at losing weight for her wedding and I kept seeing her posts on facebook and it sounds terrible but I had always been the smaller of us and I didn't want to be the fat friend. So I bought a scale and joined. I can't tell you how horrified I was to weigh in at 272. I had stopped weighing myself except for at the doctors office a long time ago so when I saw how bad I'd let it get it really motivated me. I worked really hard for a year. Starting out working out in my room (I was too ashamed to workout outside where *gasp* people could see me!!) and slowly the weight started to come off. I started going on long bike rides to burn more calories and eventually even started a running program. While the running thing didn't work out I stuck with it for a year and lost 72lbs. But then something happened. I saw 198.6 on the scale and freaked out. It's the stupidest thing but I fell off the wagon hard. It took about 3 months of losing nothing and then 6 months of binging and slacking for me to finally take a look at what I was doing. I had succeeded and I was on the way to being "not fat", "un-chubby", *gasp* THIN! and that really scared me. I knew how to deal with the world as a fat chick and that's the body I was comfortable with and felt safe in. So in some fits and starts and after gaining back 22 lbs (*weeps on the inside*) I've finally come back. I'm ready to do this and get back on track.

then something happened. I saw 198.6 on the scale and freaked out. It's the stupidest thing but I fell off the wagon hard. It took about 3 months of losing nothing and then 6 months of binging and slacking for me to finally take a look at what I was doing. I had succeeded and I was on the way to being "not fat", "un-chubby", *gasp* THIN! and that really scared me. I knew how to deal with the world as a fat chick and that's the body I was comfortable with and felt safe in. So in some fits and starts and after gaining back 22 lbs (*weeps on the inside*) I've finally come back. I'm ready to do this and get back on track.

:flowerforyou: You may actually have solved my conundrum with this! I was pushing hard. If I ate over my calories I would really hurt myself to work it off, and felt better for it. Then after I reached my .25 mark I don't know what happened. My mind went off on its own and things went down hill. Hell you know I hardly ever wear make-up any more even. I look at my self and ask every day what happened to that ambition? Where did it go? How can I get it back? Maybe just maybe subconsciously I am sabotaging myself. I may need to push through this, but I think together we can do this a heck of a lot easier than on our own!