What sparked "I'm going to lose that weight!"

Last years holiday photos made me realise just how much weight I had put back on after losing some a few year before.
I know exactly why and where it came from - I had a miscarriage in May 2010 and spent 7 months overeating due to some twisted logic inside my head that said "you should be getting fatter now". I always had the due date of 11 Jan 2011 in my head as the deadline for when I would stop eating crap and get healthy again, and that's what I did.
Luckily I found MFP just a few weeks later and it has been the tool that has kept me on track.

At 285 pounds I leaned over to look at something on a lower shelf in a store and the weight of my stomach and gravity pulling it downward caused my back to tighten up to keep me from falling over and sent it into a spasm that put me on my knees then flat on the floor. I couldn't get up. Had to have a security guard help me into one of those motorized carts and out to my mom's car. From there I crawled into my house and she helped me on to the couch to wait for my husband to come home. He came home to find me on the bathroom floor where I had crawled and been unable to get up. I thought I had ruptured something in my back. After the paramedics shot me up with morphine twice it eased enough that I could tell it was some kind of spasm. I went to the ER where the doctors treated me like some low life who just wanted pain meds and needed to lose weight. I spent 8 days on the couch with my back going into intermittent, excruciating spasms. When I was finally able to walk again, I decided nothing like that was ever going to happen again. Now I bike, ballroom dance, run, play softball, take aikido, and bend over and check out the bottom shelf whenever I darn well feel like it!

looking at my vacation pictures....

This is my first post at MFP. I'm really liking it here. For me, this began when I took a more active job. After being stuck at a desk as a medical transcriptionist, I ended up working as a custodian at a church. Complete change of activity level! I lost 5 pounds without even trying, just due to the extra activity. At that point I realized I could maybe use this job as a catalyst to work hard on this. I have been a member of a few fitness sites, but a friend joined MFP and I heard about it and checked it out and joined. I liked logging my calories and feeling accountable. It kept me on track. On top of that, I bought a Fitbit and LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I use it to keep my myself motivated to move all day to make my step goals and the goal for how many floors I climb. I like that it gives information on if you were just lightly active, fairly active, or very active, so that motivates me to add extra bursts of workouts throughout the day, just like dancing some extra songs or doing extra walking in the halls at the church. I don't want my daily report to show that I went for a while without taking steps, so it keeps me going. I'm parking father away from stores I go to just to get more steps. The combination of MFP and Fitbit works great for me. My BMI has gotten out of the obese category and now into the overweight category, and I've set my goal at the top of the range for normal BMI. That would mean a total weight loss of at least 42 pounds. I've lost 19 so far (over 6 months, so I'm slow but steady). Since I'm soon to the halfway mark, I feel like I've accomplished something. When I hit the normal BMI range, I might take it further, but I'll be glad just to get that far.

A few things got me to seriously consider weight loss, all health related... digestive issues, back pain, and a 450 lb. doctor telling me to "lose weight". I have to look at the humor in it, because I am NOT happy I got this big. Family happens, life happens, I can make several excuses, but my health and quality of life needs to be most important. Hopefully, wifey will come to this realization also. This time of year is incredibly tough when I am eating spinach and sprouts and she is baking chocolate chip cookies from scratch!

I have wanted to lose weight for many years. I lost some, a few years ago. I went from 245, at my heaviest to 210. In the last few years I have fluctuated between 200-215. I just finally decided, enough is enough. I know what needs to be done. Time to get off my butt and do it! I hope this metality is as easy to keep! But I know now how much better I feel, only one week after admitting to myself that I know what this is going to take, and I am going to do this!

My PCOS and all the symptoms that come with it.
The thought that I'd struggle with fertility in the future when I'm ready to have kids.
I wanted to improve my health.
To prove everyone wrong.
And I was tired of being tired of my body and not doing anything about it.