In 1999, I weighed 150 lbs and got a great new job. I love my job, but it's very stressful and takes up a lot of my time. My job also has an awesome cafeteria. It was a combination of staying late at work and eating dinner out of the snack machine, not working out and basically just eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted - I ended up weighing around 192 lbs.

I spent a couple of years miserable with my weight - fantasizing and wishing I could lose weight. I knew I had to eat less and exercise more, but it just seemed like TOO MUCH WORK, I couldn't get over my depression and unhappiness to make any kind of positive change.

I let myself go, quit wearing make up, quit buying clothes, I basically wore the same pair of size 18 loose fit Eddie Bauer jeans for 2 years. I let my hair go long and curly - I kept telling people I was planning to donate it to Locks for Love, but in my heart I knew I felt too unattractive to bother with my hair every day. I quit looking at myself in the mirror, or down at myself in the shower. I tried to make myself disappear.

In July of last year, a couple of things happened. First, my size 18 jeans got tight. I complained to John and he said just buy a bigger pair. I couldn't face the thought of buying size 20 jeans. Then, I was in a public bathroom and sat down and cut my outer thigh on a metal trash receptacle. I bled and I cried, I was too fat for a public bathroom. Finally, my mom insisted that I would come visit her for Christmas - she's a naturally genetically skinny person, she had never seen me that heavy, I couldn't bear to go to Texas and have her NOT mention my weight and talk around it for the entire visit.

I was in a bookstore and saw this book called Super Foods Rx: 14 Foods That Will Save Your Life by Steven Pratt. I was idly looking through it and what I read actually made me excited. The author thought that some foods were nutritionally more powerful than other foods - some foods could fight disease, maintain youth and prevent age-related brain degeneration (for the record, the super foods are blueberries, broccoli, beans, tea, walnuts, soy, oranges, tomatoes, pumpkin, yogurt, spinach, salmon, oats, turkey). The book was so exciting, I bought it - what happened next was pretty magical to me.

I decided that day to completely change everything. I wanted to make changes to be healthier, to lose weight and most importantly to lose weight long term. I did not go on a diet, I changed my lifestyle. Whole foods in, processed foods out, 5 veggies, 4 fruits, 2-3 dairy, 2-3 whole grain, 10 different super foods, protein with every meal, green and black tea every day - I concentrated on what I should be eating.

The weight just flew off, I weighed 163 lbs by October and 153 lbs by Christmas (good visit with my mom, btw). I had amazing energy, got a promotion at work and feel so much better, it is a miracle.

I have now been maintaining my weight between 138 and 140 since February. I eat exactly like I did when I was losing weight, just a few hundred calories more per day. I didn't go on a diet, I changed the way I eat forever.

Oh Shellsbells, I nearly cried when I read your story. Your determination is an inspiration. You have a good attitude about treating your body nicely.

Many little things that made up my turning point:
Seeing 184 on the doctor's scale. According to a BMI chart, for my height, that's 2 lbs. away from being obese!

A size 16 was too tight on me, and I hated clothes shopping because I was bigger than a 14. I used to love shopping, and back then I was depressed even going into a mall.

I am bipolar, and around the time of my HW, I switched meds, from lithium to lamictal. I could no longer blame lithium, and its awful effects on my thyroid, for my weight gain. With the new meds, I suffered less depression, and was able to cut down on comfort foods, plus I had the energy to be more active.

Seeing a picture of myself in a bathing suit. Looking at pictures from when I was my normal weight, and not believing that I had let myself gain so much.

Missing the days when I could just "watch what I ate," and not bother counting calories.

The look on friends' faces when people who hadn't seen me for a long time saw how large I'd become.

Just plain old feeling like someone had robbed me of my real body, and then realizing that that someone was me.

A lot of us have similar stories... it's good to see that we aren't alone. This thread is great!

I have became so frustrated within the last 2 months, My weight stays between 180-and 190 it will not go below 180! Does anyone have any suggestions? I keep pushing myself harder at the gym and decreasing my caloric intake but still nothing!

What a thought-provoking thread. Here's my saga.

I was a healthy, active kid from a family of truly "big boned" people; when I hit puberty, I shot up to 5' 10" and was probably a size 10 or 12 - not "fat" per se, but certainly bigger than the other kids. My pediatrician noticed that I was in the upper percentile for kids my age, and announced in her special shaming tone (the one she normally reserved for kids who rode bikes without helmets or played around with live wires) that I was "too fat."

As a young teenager at the low point of self-esteem and the height of self-consciousness, I became keenly aware of my body for the first time. My body was no longer my ally, the strong machine that helped me to climb trees, swim fast, and ride my bike as fast as the boy across the street. Instead, it was a flawed thing, a traitor, the thing that made me different, made me loathsome. Of course the popular girls didn't like me - I was fat! This explained everything! Like so many young girls, I went from having no real body image to having a profoundly negative one practically overnight.

In an attempt to fix the problem, my mom decided to announce to my friends (at my birthday party, no less) that I needed to lose weight, and that she was counting on all of them to support and encourage me. Unfortunately, mom hadn't read up on the social politics of 13-year-olds, and assumed a maturity on their part that simply wasn't there. Already a bit of an outsider, I became the laughing stock of the seventh grade. The popular girls, always happy to have a foil for their clique, latched on to my vulnerability like the baby predators they were. One day in the lunchroom someone started a chant of "Hannah, how much do you weigh?" that built in intensity until I mumbled an inadequate "none of your business," and fled to spend the afternoon in the nurse's office with a 'stomachache.'

My mom meant well, but the humiliation of that moment and all the ones that followed, the feeling of being singled out (look at her - she's FAT!) has stuck with me for the last 15 years.

My existence became one of alternating denial of the magnitude of my weight problem. and painful self-awareness and self-loathing for being so big, for having such poor self-control, for being different from everyone else. I hated myself for eating too much, and ate too much to quell the pain of hating myself. I became my own worst enabler.

Ironically, the path my life took through my twenties had me working in the outdoor industry, surrounded by skinny, athletic types who could eat anything they wanted and never gain an ounce. We're talking the 7% body fat crowd, here. Wonderful people all, and to this day some of the best friends I have, but I assumed that I could never be like them, so why bother? I made excuses to avoid getting into situations that would show everyone how out-of-shape I was (I assumed, subconsciously, that I would get the junior-high treatment all over again), and concluded that on some cosmic level I was meant to be fat, that I was a good person and a good friend, I was funny, smart, the one that everybody likes, and that was good enough.

The turning point for me was kind of gradual. I had tried diets before, but had never been able to stick with them for more than a few weeks, and had never really seen enough results to feel like I had any success. And anyway, they all felt like some kind of punishment. I'm a nurse now, and I work primarily with cardiac patients, teaching them about lifestyle change and how small steps and an understanding of the concept of moderation can lead to big results, that (as I think someone else said in this thread, "you don't have to be perfect, just better."), and I realized what a hypocrite I am. I started thinking seriously about lifestyle change, and slowly started implementing some of the things I was teaching, like eating fewer processed foods and watching my portion sizes. Like getting a little bit of exercise every day. I started to feel better, and in feeling better I felt ready to make bigger changes.

For me, the changes had to come from inside, from understanding what drives my behavior. I have done some serious soul-searching, and this is what I learned: I realized how much of my weight problem is related to fear. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of change, fear of being noticed... and I realized how much I have used my weight as an excuse for not taking risks in my life, for not trying new things, for not getting involved in relationships, for not doing anything at which I might fail or be rejected and prove to myself for once and for all that I am worthless. I realized that I was really tired of it. I realized that the only one who could do anything about it was me.

I have been kind of stunned at how difficult the actual weight loss hasn't been now that I've taken ownership of the idea that I am the one responsible for it, and now that I've recognized some of the ways I've self-sabotaged in the past. I came to understand that eating too much is only the physiological reason for my being overweight; the issue has very little to do with food, and although I love to eat and I love to cook, I have had very little difficulty adapting to the lifelong changes I have made. The secret, I have found, is in learning to enjoy food as nourishment, not as punishment or as an anesthetic, and in learning moderation. I don't deprive myself of anything, but I don't binge, either, and there's been joy in discovering the simple satisfaction of feeding my body the ally, instead of my body the enemy. Eventually, I swallowed my fear and went to join the gym, where I was startled to discover so many other women just like me in place of the army of size-zero's in spandex I half expected. I have my first meeting with my new personal trainer this afternoon.

Since May of this year I have lost 40 pounds. I have another 70 to go, but for the first time it feels do-able, and I'm not afraid of what the changes will bring. Although I'm happy that my clothes fit better (some are even falling off), and my doctor is happy with the improvement in my overall health, the most rewarding moment to date has this: my best friend started to cry when she told me how proud she is of me.

Ah, I thought, maybe this change thing isn't so bad after all.

Sorry for the looooong post. I've never really put all that into words before, and once I got going...

Wow....thanks to everyone for sharing their stories. You are all an inspiration!

As for me, my turning point was in June of this year. I am 23 and have yo-yo dieted multiple times a year with at least 20 lbs., since I was a freshman in highschool. This past June, I hit an all time high of 189 lbs (I am 5'10" and *should* weigh around 160). I felt like crap, all of my clothes were tight and I felt guilty about my binge eating as well. What made me decide to finally take charge of my eating and health was my husband leaving for officer's training. He is a Marine and is in great shape and I want to be in great shape for me and for him. I am sick of my weight going up and down and I am determined to get to and stay at a healthy weight.

Careful not to reduce your caloric intake/increase your exercise so much. Your body could interpret the low, total daily calories as insufficient. If the body feels threatened by starvation, it might:

1. Start to reduce muscle mass, since muscle takes more calories to maintain every day
2. Start to reduce your metabolic activity in order to conserve fuel, to burn what you give it as efficiently as it can, to get by with less
3. Make you binge - a starving body's will to survive is generally stronger than the will to restrict
4. Hold on to fat stores - your body will feel it needs the fat to survive

Genetically, this type of response helped your ancestors survive bad harvests, drought, wagon trains west.

It sounds very counter intuitive, but you might need to reduce cardio and increase caloric intake (to a level still under maintenance for your height/weight/gender/activity).

This was my experience with my plateau. I had lost a lot of weight very successfully at 1400-1600 calories a day. Then, the weight stopped at 140 for 12 weeks. I was doing everything the same! I thought about restricting calories to 1200, but that seemed kind of scary. What if I started maintaining at 1200? 1000? Crazy talk. I increased caloric intake to 1800 calories a day and lost 2 more lbs. I was still under the my "maintenance" calories but my body recognized the increase in food and thought "great, famine over!"

Thanks so much, I hope too to be able to reach my goal like you, your weight change is how I'd like to see mine progress!!

My was when I sat down on the toilet and my belly was resting on my lap (OMG, yucky yucky yuck yuck!!!)

I am 32 years old. I have a son who will be 2 in october and an 11 year old. When my oldest son was 4 I was down to 140 by dieting. My natural weight was always about 165 but phen /fen took me down. for over a year I took the drugs until they went off the market. I had a female problem that caused a hormonal imbalance and the dr gave me a shot of depo and I bloomed quickly to 185 lbs.
The depression hit me hard. But I suddenly didn't care. I ate my way to 230. My husband and I got married in Jamaica in 2000 and the photographer thought I was pregnant. I think I've been numbly living life. Not caring about weight. Trying diets and excercise but not sticking with it.
I got pregnant after trying for 3 years and no one knew I was pregnant. I had been around 260 pre pregnancy , began having gall bladder issues and lost weight while pregnant. After having my son I was down to 230. But it didn't last long. I now cannot even get clothes at walmart or target. Nothing fits. I wear a 24 in stretch jeans but this is a huge wake up call. I can't get any bigger. I won't accept this size anymore. I realized I wasn't living anymore, I was avoiding living. Social situations cause me to freak out. I don't want to see anyone I know. I ran into an old friend and she honestly had to ask 'are you liz?' and I said yes I am 100 lbs heavier. I just don't understand why my life has to be like this. Recently my husband got us tickets to a concert and I cried for a week because it had been on the news that the seats at this venue were small for even normal sized people. I knew I couldn't go. So I lied to my husband and told him I couldn't find anything to wear and I couldn't go so take oldest son. They went and I sat at home- fat.
I started thinking about surgery AGAIN and decided I have to give it a 6 month try. My only goal is to lose 30lbs, I've joined weight watchers and decided after the 30lbs I will join curves. I won't lose this on my own, I will need help... Weight watchers will work with what the family eats- no special foods. I have to do this to chase my 2 year old around, get on the floor and play with him, and not be an embarrasment to my now jr high son. I want to feel sexy again. I want to be the woman I was before, not this thing I am now. I have all these reasons I'm naming to benefit everyone else but its really for me. I'm my biggest critic and I know someday I'll be below 200 and I'll feel good. I'll be able to goto amusement parks with the kids, be able to goto concerts and not worry about seats, I'll be able to be intimate without disgusting myself. I think I'm the luckiest woman in the world because my husband tells me I'm beautiful and sexy everyday. Soon I will feel that way again. Soon I will be healthy and fit and be able to be the wife and mother everyone deserves.
What is different this time is that I know I have to do this. I know I have to depend on myself and not blame everyone else- kids husband- for the my diet failures. This is the last 'diet' this is the last time I will have to do this.
The changes in one week are enough to keep me going. We eat together at the table every night, I make a healthy meal for everyone. No more pizza, hot dogs or cheap spaghetti nights with buttery garlic bread. I bought a grill and I grill meats out every night. I eat all my meals and snack on yogurt and almonds.
When I weighed last week I weighed more than I did 9 months pregnant - 284lbs now. I am so close to the 300 mark and I'm only 5'4".
Anyway mine wasn't a moment but a reflection. A realization that everyone deserved the better me. The me that is deep inside all of this fat. A realization that there are so many things I want to do in life that I can't physically do. I want to take my sons to the water park on the weekends, I want to goto concerts and plays, I want a better job but hardly look professional.
I'm earning my self respect right now. I refuse to sit down and calculate anything more than 30lbs. When you have over 100lbs to lose its enough to make you stop changing your eating habits. I'm just going to concentrate on the first 30. I've talked my mother into joining weight watchers too. She told me Kirstie alley said she lost 30 and felt so different. Thats what I want too, to feel more energetic. Then exercising will be so much easier. For now I'm doing yard work, cleaning house and keeping busy at night. I already feel different.

Liz

This thread is amazing and inspirational. I wish I could just reach out & give you all a great big hug!

My FIRST turning pont was two years ago. It was January & I had just gone to the store to pick up a roll of film from xmas. I came across this one picture of me sitting on the floor watching my kids open presents. I was wearing pajama's (baggy ones of course) and the way my body was positioned I could clearly see the outline of my stomach hanging in between my legs & the rolls of fat across my back. It was awful! I was so embarrassed I immediatley tore up the photo & threw it in the trash. The next day I drove myself to my first WW meeting. I got on the scale & about fell over when I saw her write 238lbs. on my little card. I ended up losing 35lbs. over the course of 6 months & I felt great! I was on my way to a healthy & beautiful lifestyle.....or so I thought I was. Two weeks later my husband agrees to let his sister & her dirtbag husband move in with us temporarily. Lets just say they overstayed their welcome by about a YEAR and 3 months!!!! Anyway, it was during that time they were with us that I felt like I had lost control of my life again. No I don't blame them or blame my husband for letting them stay, I just hated having them around & I felt like since they were "family" we couldn't just kick them to the curb. So, I started making horrible choices again & quit WW, gained all the weight back & felt miserable that I had failed myself. Thank goodness they moved out a year later, but I still wasn't ready to lose weight again.

Fast forward to August 17, 2005....

Husband & I are laying in bed, naked and he decides he wants to get busy So we are making out & I realize I CANNOT get into the position he wants me in because of my fat! He didn't care, but I did! Afterwards, I got up out of bed, walked into the bathroom & stood nude in front of the mirror & cried for about 10 minutes. I couldn't bear to look at myself like that anymore. I felt awful So the next day I walked into WW again & promised myself to commit to a healthy lifestyle. I'm not looking to be supermodel thin, I'm not trying to fit into a size 6 and I don't care if my butt never looks like J. Lo's All I care about is feeling better, shopping anywhere I want for clothes & being able to look at myself naked without getting depressed. Oh and having the ability to get in compromising positions with my husband is a bonus!

Great thread. So motivational.

The turning point for me was the day I realized that it was, for the first time in my adult life, harder to be fat than to lose weight.

mine's a combo of strangers staring and relatives gawking and making rude comments at me. oh and the biggest one ? my family laughing at me when told of my plans to lose weight.

[QUOTE=Gladdy]I am an overweight YoYo and can lose and find 7 pounds in a jiffy. I am amazed by you fabulous chicks who stick to such good eating habits and are able to maintain healthy weights.

I was curious as to what was your turning point? What happened that made you first, commit to weight loss and more importantly, stay the course?

Perhaps your turning point can be the "tipping point" for the rest of us!

[My turning point, Autumn, another 3FC member]

My turning point: I was right where you are 2 weeks ago. Thats when I realized I wasn't getting anywhere and I wasn't following my own body signals. I was dieting someone else's way. Also, I realized that when I quit smoking it had changed my metabolism, my health, my body size, and I hadn't compensated for those changes when I started dieting this time, because I was smoking when I had dieted previously. Now I was a non-smoker. I became frustrated because diets I followed wouldn't work for me as they had for other people. I thought I was a lesser person which led me to eat more. So, in my estimation for your particular problem at a particular point in time, you have to find diet and exercise that work best FOR "YOUR" LIFESTYLE.

In other words, I would exercise myself to exhaustion after I first quit smoking, because I gained 30 lbs. I would injure myself exercising some other person's way with suddenly 30 extra lbs., which I sometimes could not even do and was exhausted over. I would eat things that were making me actually larger, inch wise, or eat things I was allergic to and would bloat, then believe that I would lose weight because someone else did it that way, but I didn't follow MY own body and lifestyle needs.

I had gained 30 lbs and was unhappy but spending 1 hr a day stationary running, eating foods that I was allergic to, or eating things which even though low cal., actually eventually made me larger. Eventually due to depression and self-esteem problems, I became sick. What I did previous to keep my weight in check didn't work anymore FOR ME. I had certain allergies, I couldn't run as far as 20 year olds which got gym advice and I was not a lazy person. Yet, I only found myself injured, growing larger, and spending $$ on fixes, not learning a NEW lifestyle that would work for me. I would do too much, or not enough exercise, I would think some magic PILL could solve the problem, overnight, but I would gain the weight back as soon as I changed something in my life and didn't know what to change in my diet and exercise routines. It took STUDY and understanding. I needed to know what energy I expended during the day, compared to how much fat, and calories I ate and what I did during the day (to expend energy). I needed to know what my obstacles with food allergies were, and suddenly being larger and more out of shape, how to exercise and not be tired or sick afterward.

There isn't a magick answer. I had to exercise every single day for my body weight. I had to eat less of some foods and more of others for my bodies particular needs. I had to eat more times a day some days, but it's different for each and every person and it sometimes changes from day to day. I had to learn what is best for MY own body, as everyone has special dietary needs that work well for their particular circumstances. Some are allergic to wheat, or to certain foods, some do hard labor on the job and get more exercise, and some are office workers and sit alot and don't exercise. Some people are active at home, and dance for fun, and some watch tv. Most people don't have the same dietary and exercise needs at all. No one person's body is the same as another's. My metabolism can work better, and sometimes it can work slower than someone else's, but I have to find what works for MY lifestyle.

I still lost weight just NOT like anyone else, if I dieted properly for ME. Some exercise was injuring me that was suggested, some foods injured me and would help you but not me. Some foods I eat help me but would injure you, possibly. Everyone has to find the proper balance as to what dietary changes and exercise works for their own body, making sure its healthy in the long run.

The turning point was FINALLY, after following SEVERAL diets that didn't work for me, seeing what did work FOR ME. By using common sense, as well as educating myself as to what my dietary needs were, I got to my goals and I was still healthy. I find that NOW I am losing weight by both exercising, dieting, and setting up a healthy lifestyle that works for my particular needs. The KEY is that it's PERSONAL and it's a lifestyle change for ME, ALONE. One that included daily exercise, eating more healthy foods, and in the proper portions and timing for ME. Then I had to learn how to maintain that weight change later, as I have yo yo dieted myself in the past (a few times).

YOU live, YOU learn. I educated myself followed what works best for ME and I finally realized it was best FOR ME to keep a journal on both diet and exercise to follow through. I found I had to carry my plan out, that was very important, since my plateau would only be broken if I did. I also found that a journal for exercise as well as a dietary journal also helped me get past my last plateau.

Fail to plan, plan to fail. I realized I must follow through and keep my plan and yet, not beat myself up if I failed. Instead, see why I failed and compensate for my particular lifestyle obstacles for MY OWN BODY and carry though and WIN!

Autumn

My turning point was the first time my being fat actually got in the way of something I wanted to do....I went to the doctor to get my tubes tied. She wouldn't do it because she was concerned she wouldn't be able to find everything unless I lost some weight....I never told anybody that before. But it sounds pretty funny right now...ahh it feels good to let things out.

My turning point came a month ago when I got tired about reading or watching other peoples success stories. It is then that I wanted to be MY OWN SUCCESS STORY!!! I knew then what I needed to do. I needed to stop sitting on the sidelines and get with the program and concentrate on me. I now go to the gym (religiously)....I know the foods to eat.....and I know I'm worth it.