A lot of things led to mine.. I have been a singer for a long time and I dont get anywhere because I dont have the look.. so that was a big thing.. also, my parents seperated at the end of my senior year.. my mother moved 18 hours away.. we were super close. I had to take on all of her motherly duties.. I visited for two weeks in January.. which ended up being a month and a half.. while I was there I gained 20 pounds and because I had zero dollars coming in I ran out of money immediately and spent most of my days hauled up in my aunts guest room (where my mother has been staying) with no where to go and nothing to do. While I was there I realized that if I didn't do something about my life I would be doing exactly what I was doing up there for the rest of my life... nothing.. So I began as soon as I got back.

When I found out I was pre-diabetic and my blood pressure was pre-hypertension. But even then the real wake up call was that I was so lonely, and I was having trouble meeting people due to my size.

When my bathroom scale [which goes up to 380, by the way] started weighing me as "Err" rather than a number, that was a pretty big wake-up call.

Hmmmm, well I didn't actually do anything about it for a little over a month but the one comment that finally stuck with me came from the loving mouth of my older brother.

(Please note that this is a bit melodramatic, and is the kind of thing that happens only in my family) We were on a sibling trip in Egypt and were sitting on a bench in Luxor (it was freakishly hot, which is what you get for going to Egypt in June) and I was exhausted and didn't feel like walking the mile or so to the museum and kept begging him to let us take a taxi. So he was pissed off at me and I was 'maybe' crying in public, in a foreign country. And we got to talking and I kept going on and on about how he hated me and how he didn't understand why I was being like I was and finally he said "Frances (pulling out the full name, GASP!), you can't really be happy like that." And he sort of motions towards me in a brotherly and disconnected way. I admitted that I wasn't and that I didn't know what to do. And being the all-knowing man that he is, he said "Don't just do something (profanity) stupid like starving yourself like you always do, exercise and eat like a normal human being. It is going to take a while, like a year. So suck it up and deal with it." And then he awkwardly hugged me. And I cried some more, and we had, by then, attracted some attention from the random old ladies who had been sweeping the street near us. I think they were not amused.

Anyway, because my brother lives and goes to school in England and spends his breaks in China, studying Chinese, I only see him very rarely. I think I'll be seeing him at some point this summer and I'd really like to be in the 130s when I do, because I want to prove both to myself and to him that I can do it. Sort of as a thank you and a 'suck on that' all in one.

I don't think I had a rock bottom as far as weight GAIN goes. My bottom was when I had my eating disorder. The specific worst time I remember is went 4 days without eating anything. I remember those 4 days so vividly too. After I was discharged from treatment (and gained back all my weight PLUS some) I vowed I would live a healthy life style from that point on. It took me about 3 or 4 years to be stable again and I started loosing weight to get back to my goal weight in the right way. My motive is to STAY healthy and do it the right way, for life.

For me it wasn't a rock bottom as such but a drunken conversation with one of my best friends when she told me she had joined Weight Watchers. I didn't even think twice about it and just said I'm joining next week. There was no ifs or buts about it and I am so glad I did. Having her there with me every week has kept me going

Effie12, that is like the best brother story ever!

It was three things for me, that all happened at the same time.

My dad always wants pictures of me and my sisters for christmas, so we take them in front of the xmas tree every year. My sisters are both a size 0, and this year I was a 16. I cried as soon as I saw the picture and was honestly embarrassed to give it to my dad. That same day I was invited to an xmas party with my ballet teacher from high school. I was so self conscious, since I've gained almost 100 pounds since I've seen her, that I declined the invitation. She also had invited me to dance in my old dance school's spring performance, and I had to make up something about final exam week so I didn't have to say "No, I'd probably break the stage if I got on it now." It infuriated me that I had let my weight get so bad - and my image of myself get so bad - that I was avoiding things that otherwise I would have been so happy to do. It took me a few months after that (vacations, new semester, excuses excuses) to really buckle down, but now I'm glad I hit that breaking point.

Paradise mine is a lot like yours! I was at Kings Island an amusement park near Cincinnati OH! (Amazingly Fun- and can't wait to go this year) Anyway I got on The Beast which is a rollercoaster and when I pulled the lap bar down it didn't go very far. A ride operator came over and pushed it down farther smashing my thighs further into the seat and then yelled over to another co worker to come check it out. He was like is that gonna be okay the lap bar won't go down any father on her legs. The other guy was like yeah she is fine! But everyone around me was staring and saw why the lap bar couldnt go down as far! It was totally embarrassing. And I vowed that next season when Kings Island opened I would be thinner and not have to face that embarrasment. I'm a dare devil too. I ride anything and everything including the sky flyer- which is where you have a rip cord and they hoist you up a tower on a cable then when your hundereds of feet in the sky you pull the cord and go flying through the air. With the sky flyer you have like this whole body thing around you to hold you in. I would like to try Bungee jumping but I'm always afraid the cord will break lol. Probably wouldn't but I'm a chicken Sh**.

I'm going to Pigeon Forge in Sept. Hopefully I will be close to my goal weight and then I will do bungee jumping while I am down there. I am already down to 205! YAY! And planning on going to Kings Island in a few weeks actually so we shall see how well I fit in the seats this year!

I've had a few moments - seeing an 8 on the scale at the doctor's office (as in 187), reading that dysplasia can lead to cervical cancer in overweight smoking women (that's when I quit smoking), seeing pictures of myself at friend's weddings. But the real kicker was seeing myself in my own wedding dress and thinking, nope, that's not what I'm going to look like in my wedding pictures, it's just not. Kind of silly that real illness didn't make the difference, but my own vanity has. I think some of that was just that all of this (I'm getting married, we're talking about kids, not as an abstract idea any more, but as a real we're starting a savings account kind of thing) became real and I saw it when I looked in the mirror in that dress.

I can not recall a specific rock bottom breaking point.... I just know that I was flopping around like a fish on the bottom and got tired of it. Although I knew I was unhappy with my size and that seemed to be the bain of my existence, it was when I admitted to the other things in my life that I wasn't happy with that made the difference. When I dropped the first 35 lbs, weight loss wasn't my main focus. My main goal was getting my life in order and weightloss was a side effect. I wasn't spending my days eating and drinking myself into a pit anymore. That was 5 yrs ago.

Now at 180 lbs, I'm nowhere near what I would consider my rock bottom but that's because I feel I have control of my life and there are so many things out there more important than my weight. I certainly feel I could be more active, lose a few pounds.... but that's just because I want to be healthy and look hot in a short skirt. lol.

I can relate so well to most of what you are all saying!

My rock bottom was a combination of different things- pictures threw me off. I don't know if I'm in major denial, but when I look in the mirror I don't see someone as big as I am, but when I see a picture I'm like, 'WHOAAAAAA- that's what I REALLY look like?' Waking up and being stiff as a board- joints aching and huffing and puffing just going up the stairs. Remembering how I used to just love being athletic and dancing and now feeling like a blob. It just hit me right after my son was born in November that I had to change- 2010 could not be the same as 2009.

Probably not a rock bottom moment, but a wake up call was when my doctor told me my cholesterol was too high and if I didn't do something about it, I was going to end up on medication.

I am only 28.. I don't want to be medicated for something I CAN control.

Seeing pictures from family get togethers from Thanksgiving and Christmas added to that too. I couldn't believe how much I had let myself go. I am the oldest of the grandkids.. the shortest AND the biggest. I don't want it to always be that way!

As to photos-- I do not see myself as big as I appear in photos either! There are posing techniques to help that, but still, photos for me are a big wake up call!