What made you decide to lose weight?

I finally got to a point where I KNEW I deserved to look and feel better. I am eliminating sugar, white flour, potatoes as much as possible. I (almost instantly) started feeling so much better. I finally had some energy. I slept better. I have lost 10 lbs so far but I can tell I have lost lots more inches. I am once again excited about how I will look in the future. I have completely lost any sugar, bread, or potatoes cravings!! I am taking better care of myself and am feeling proud of my looks again.

If there was a camera in sight I was the first to hide, I've been putting off my family portraits. I had been avoiding mirrors. I saw a picture of myself and thought "Is that really what I look like?". But I think that the biggest one was that I saw my sister-in-law after about 2 years and she was really big. She told me how much she weighed and it was only ten more pounds than I did. I had to do something about it. I'm on my way

For health reasons but also to fit into pretty clothes

My doctor told me that I was at risk for a heart attack...THAT was my wake up call!!!


Naaer(aka Reaan)

Always wanted to lose the 6-7 stone I put on during a relationship but didn't know where to start. Had no idea about calorie in vs calorie out, the only thing I knew about calorie counting is how everyone seems to say "it's not worth living your life like that".
I assumed I just have to pick some crazy diet (Cambridge, juice plus, cabbage etc) and I was delaying it because it seemed like an impossible, and probably expensive task!
I was also sick of people saying "you'll do it if you want it enough", I've always wanted it enough from eating 5000 calories a day to now, 60lbs down, I still want it just as bad.
I downloaded MFP just purely from curiosity whilst browsing other game apps. Had no idea it was calorie counting and just for fun typed in what I ate during the day. It clocked in at around 5000 calories. I was shocked to say the least.
I didn't plan on sticking with it but just to follow the calories it gave me for a few days.
6 months later I'm still here logging every day and to the people who say "it's no way to live your life" - well, it's a million, billion, trillion times better than being obese, trust me.

I had to move out of the way for the fat woman in a shop whilst on holiday - the fat woman moved the same way as me much to my annoyance - that's when I realised that I was the fat woman and was looking in a mirror!! Obviously my mirrors at home have lied to me!!

Besides wanting to feel better - I work for an large Insurance company and they give incentives for staying healthy. One was that if you passed the metabolic syndrome test that you could get a significant discount on your insurance premium. I couldn't pass it. I will next year....and my premium will go down! So saving money and feeling incredible....they are very smart! Saving money can be a great incentive!

I guess my wake up call was when my size 12 work pants were feeling snug, and most of my closet didn't fit. For some reason I was very much against counting calories, but nothing else was working. I'll be 30 this year, my cholesterol is a wee bit high, and I hate feeling uncomfortable in my skin. So here I am, 3 weeks in with logging, and it's going better than I would have guessed. I read the forums daily to keep motivated.

For me health!! Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure

Sick of people asking me if I am pregnant and not believing me when I say I'm not.
Also hated trying in clothes and not looking good in anything.
What has kept me motivated is reading all the success stories on mfp and seeing the amazing transformations.

I've never been a healthy weight. My whole life weight has been the issue and topic that people just identify as being who I am (overweight). I started getting sick of hearing every time I see someone "looks like you lost weight" especially when you know you havent lost weight and they are just trying to cheer you up. And still now that I am losing weight it just annoys the crap out of me to hear. Because I would like to think that there is more to me than what I weigh and I'm so sick of hearing this broken record play over and over again. I so badly want to. Go to a normal clothing store and buy anything, and it would be lovely if one day I could weigh less than my husband (feeling like brianne of tar over here standing next to my 140lb husband). Lastly I'm sick of my weight being a factor in how people treat me. My father in law tries to shame me all the time, my old boss regarded me a lazy even though I was far from it just because I weighed more. (Actually told me I have to lose weight in a review) and I want to take control of. Y life and set a proper example for my children.

I've gone up and down, up and down for years. Last spring something inside me clicked for real. I think part of it may have had to do with starting online dating and wanting to feel better about myself and be more attractive. But that turned out to be superficial. What's really kept me going (I've lost 23 lbs since last May) is wanting to be strong and healthy. I'm in my 40's and not getting any younger--do I want to have a middle/older age that's plagued with heart problems or the like?

It's been hard to stay motivated because I do still go up and down. A big part of my motivation is really staying engaged with my friend list on MFP. They cheer me on and remind me to never give up. So community is important. I also remind myself that if I give up, I will be back where I started (or heavier) and will feel miserable and self hating, instead of proud and strong. I don't forget that every little bit counts. If I don't lose weight but my fitness improves, that's great. If I lose my weight very slowly, I'm still better off than I was.

It's never too late to get on the road to health, so I remain positive, even though my weight loss has been a little slow for my taste. But still, I'm lighter than I was, and a bit healthier. I hope to hit my goal this summer, motivated by my health, improving my self esteem, and the desire to be strong.

*Even though this is a zombie thread, I'm glad it was reactivated I love reading everyone's stories.

My self esteem had always been really low, and I was slowly watching my clothing sizes go up and up. Even as I changed my sizes to fit my body, I just kind of always felt like a sausage being stuffed into a casing that was too small. I was also having some issues with my health, asthma-related, heart-related, mental health-related ... so multiple reasons, really. I just didn't want to feel like crap anymore.

I saw a picture of myself full on from the front taken while I was sitting down. I saw all the rolls and my very heavy bloated face and it made me cry (pic is actually one of my profile pictures and it is my 'before' picture). That was the last straw for me.

A friend of mine joined Farrell's and started kickboxing and invited me along. It was the hardest workout I ever did because I couldn't breathe! I signed up right then and there and decided to become the "AFTER" picture.