I was just wondering if anyone had read or seen anything which has really motivated them to loose weight which they may like to share?
For me it was two things, firstly (and most substantially) was a picture i found on the internet, as i mentioned before i am a true animal lover and i seen a picture online which had a photo of a cat and said something along the lines of 'if you die who is going to look after me? loose weight and shape up!' and this brought me to tears! this really motivated me to loose weight because it was so true and so specific to what motivates me, secondly was a picture of me taken in all my finest clothes and make up all done etc and yet i still looked at it in disgust and new i had to change, so what were your motivations?

[QUOTE so what were your motivations?[/QUOTE]My motivation was after watching a cd that my husband filmed of us. I seriously couldn't believe how large I looked! I actually cried. I was mad at my husband for filming close ups of me while having extra weight on like I do. I sat and thought about it all. Why was I mad at him for filming me? I'm mad at myself now for over-eating and getting myself to this point. I'm glad that I decided to do something about it.

Have you read Finally Thin by Kim Bensen? She lost 214 lbs over two years. She has a website, you could try to google her. Her story really inspires me. Good luck!

I was watching the biggest loser in reruns and one of the contestants said this quote. "Nothing Tastes as Good as Thin Feels" I have thought about this everytime I reach for a second helping or thought about going for something not on my plan.

thats a good quote ^^

I turned 40 last year and I did THINK "fit by forty" but I didn't DO anything about it.

What turned me around sounds really odd. I work in a nursing home. I have one particular person who is a miserable, overweight meanie who doesn't want to do anything for themself. I don't want to be that person. Even though I am nowhere close to nursing home age (hopefully), realistically, it is probably downhill from here. If I don't get this weight off, I will age harder and lazier and probably meaner than a fit person.

I don't want to be the fat lady stuck in the bed who gets bedsores since she is too hard to move around.

I want to be the crazy fit lady running around the nursing home.

And, if I get to spend the next forty years, fit and fabulous before I get to the nursing home, well, that would be pretty cool too!

That was part of my thinking when I started losing weight 4 years ago. I had a bad fall down the stairs and was in great pain. I was 39 and looking at my future. I felt 50, at least. I could see my future, and it was filled with pain and immobility.

One thought I had was "I want to be fitter at 50 than when I turn 40." It was a way to see the big picture.

There are two things keeping me going - one is Serena Williams' body.

The other is that when I lost a lot of weight the first time I was 16 years old and 220ish and I still LOOKED fat but I had this amazing rock hard body. I was seeing some guy at the time and we were kissing on the subway platform and he ran his hands down my sides and said damn, you must work out a lot.

I want to get back there - my husband has never known THAT me (I had already regained 20ish pounds and lost all my muscle tone by the time we met) and I want to be that me again.

Going to turn 50 this year and it just all clicked that I need to get myself as fit and healthy as possible before aging starts kicking my not so little butt.

I had told myself that when I hit 26, I was going to get in shape so I could enjoy the rest of my 20's thin and healthy. Now at age 32, I wondered what the **** happened and decided to get on it. I'm doing great but I was starting to waver then this morning I was looking through a friends Chadwicks catalog and I realized A) I love these clothes and B) As long as I keep going, I could fit into these clotes and look great. I know it seems trivial, but to be able to buy the newest fashions and finally, FINALLY buy and wear comfortable heels (jimmy choos) is worth Jillian torturing me (30DS)!

daisy5819 mentioned Kim Benson. I googled. I saw this and I adore it

Warming, TMI, lol...

Now that I am married, I am very motivated by the idea of having children one day... I do not know if it is a hormonal imbalance, PCOS, or something else, but I don't menstruate and hardly ever have. I do know that in the past when I have exercised and lost weight, it has helped me get my period. I've been working very hard for the last month and have been spotting for a few days (first sign of blood in 11 months). I don't really know what causes just spotting, but I'm hoping that my body is trying to menstruate and that it will get more normal in future months... It's not all about conceiving, it's also about being healthy enough to play with my kid(s) and live a long life for them.

I am also motivated by my sister-in-law tagging a bunch of fat and terrible photos of me on MySpace... I avoid pictures of myself and was blindsided by suddenly finding them on my computer screen. I almost died, so ugly.

While going through some things recently, I found the whole package of my wedding pictures, and started looking at them with hubby. He told me I should stick one on the fridge as a reminder, so I did. I chose one of me from the side, and then I took a new picture of me from the side, at my current weight.

That is my motivation. It's not just about getting down to a certain weight or a certain size again (but that will be nice too !). For me the motivation is thinking about how beautiful I felt that day, and about how happy I was. I loved getting my picture taken and not having to worry about hiding or disappearing behind something. I didn't feel weird that people were looking at me everywhere we went that day.

Not only my wedding day, but it reminds me of how my life was back then, when I was a more "normal" weight. I just felt happier with life, and was able to get out and do things and actually live.

I want that again. I want to be that happy, confident chick again

I was just wondering around the forums and saw this thread.

What finally motivated me was that I watched my Dad die. His last conversation with me was pretty much begging me to lose the weight that I had gained over the last 15 years or so. I promised him I would. He died of heart failure complicated by diabetes and finally kidney cancer. They could have all been prevented. It took a year after his death for me to wake up and see what my future held. And truthfully I have never felt so alive as I do now. Whenver I'm tempted to grab some quick junk to eat, I see my Daddy's beautiful blue eyes and it makes it easy to take the time to make something healthy.