My question to you all is....when did you decide that you were going to lose the weight? Did you have a "rock bottom" moment? Was it a photo? a rude comment?

I decided I needed to lose the weight when I went on vacation to Mexico a few months ago...I felt so uncomfortable in my bathing suit and horrible looking at myself in the summer outfits...I knew I needed to do something before summer because I would be miserable if I didnt. Hope to hear from you!

I didn't really have a rock bottom kind of moment exactly. I saw a horrible picture of me from New Years Eve (it's not even OF me, I'm just in it) and it hit me, I said "Holy crap am I really that big?!"

This is the picture:


And from there I had decided to lose weight but it took until the end of Feb for me to really go through with it!
I'm doing it for me: I am sick of not wearing shorts in the summer. I'm sick of feeling like I can't wear cute clothes. I'm sick of feeling run down and ugly. I want to be healthy for my son.
I am trying to surprise my boyfriend when he comes home too

I met my current boyfriend. I tried to take more current pictures of myself for FB, but couldn't get any where I didn't look really big. He's really into fitness and got me going to the gym. I had previously tried p90x to lose weight, but without a support system, I got no where. My boyfriend changed my perspective on so much.

A few things happened for me. I would feel fat next to my friends who don't have any children and they would make excuses for me. "you just had baby" "your body changes a lot after a kid" Its okay at first. But then a year later and they were still making those excuses for me? I also got engaged and when I went to buy the dress I had to buy a size 16. and I felt terrible about it. I am 21 and have always been a 9. So that was a slap in the face. And then the thing that really got me was an old student where I work came in to sign up his cousin and said "OMG YOU'RE NOT PREGNANT AGAIN ARE YOU" and that was just the biggest slap in the face.

In a way, I started to live a better lifestyle almost a year ago when I met my fiancée. I had gone through 3 years of horrible health problems and I was not getting better. Being on narcotics for 3 years also really screwed up my body and my mind. He described me as being "almost dead" when I first met him and in all honesty, he saved me.

I gained 18lbs when I moved in with him over the course of 6 months. I felt more comfortable with him and enjoyed the positive changes I was experiencing. This meant eating new foods I had never had before, eating out a lot, snacking at really really odd hours just because he felt hungry, etc.

In January, I realized that I needed to do something about my weight and body if I wanted to continue feeling better and have my health improve even more. My FI also had expressed concern about my weight because he wants me to be healthy and happy with who I am.

Over the course of the past couple months, I've made changes to my lifestyle which have made me feel things I haven't felt in a very very long time. I am stronger, happier, have more stamina, I am more active and I am more aware of the choices I make in regards to putting things in my mouth. You are what you eat and even tho I still don't make the best of choices, I have made improvements and will continue to do so.

I've seen horrible pictures of myself and I hated it!



I didnt realize how big I was until I saw this picture. Its terrible!

For me, it was a trip to Europe. I was very conscious of my size as everyone is smaller there and also observed the difference in eating habits. Generally, food was enjoyed not just shoveled in. I noticed a huge difference in ingredients and shopping habits. I've always known I need to lose weight, but Europe was really the push I needed to change my life.

Losing my job and needing to find a job interview outfit... and having to buy a size 20. That and getting diagnosed with PCOS and finding out that I weighed 226lbs all in one day.

My wake-up moment was looking at pictures taken during my sophomore year of college. I was having a great time in those pictures - hanging out with my friends, living life - but looking back at them made me feel huge. I committed to spending the summer eating well and going to the gym - and lost 25 pounds.

It's been a few years since then, and my new wake-up call is starting to think about getting married. I have a bunch of friends getting married this year, and I expect to be engaged some time this year - it's time to get serious about losing weight and really get down to where I want to be!

the "you'll die if you get pregnant" discussion from my ob/gyn at my last appointment when i told her about my plans in the future.

okay, so she didn't say that exactly (i think her exact comment was "i would like to see you between 160-175 before you get pregnant, because at your current weight the complications could be fatal to you or the baby") but that's what i heard.

i told my fiance about that appointment, and he told me that we could start trying for a baby as soon as i felt comfortable after hitting that weight. i'm 27 years old, and we'd been talking about waiting a few years after getting married. but he challenged me to lose it, and that was 3 weeks and 13lbs ago. woo! "gonna have a baby" is my motivation for working out

II was a college athlete, so working out twice a day and lifting weights daily I could pretty much eat whatever I wanted or more importantly as much as I wanted. Shortly after college my mom passed away from cancer so from the stress of that and poor eating habits I gained huge amounts of weight. I think my worse was 80 pounds in less than 3 months. My boyfriend helped me deal with my mom, and I knew he loved me so I just over time accepted being very over weight. I had that “fat and happy” point of view. In October 2010 I realized I was lying to myself about being happy, I was not happy with the way I looked. My “Rock Bottom” moment was in the shower one morning before work I felt so huge and literally trapped in my body. Something had to change. And so far I feel so much better. The scale does not show it to much but I have went down a pant size and lost 1.6% body fat.

I've been trying to lose weight since DD (she's 2) was born but it was always a time/money issue. This past summer she was in daycare for 2 months (normally I was a working at home mom) and then I started running in the mornings after taking her to daycare. I noticed I wasn't losing as quickly as I wanted to so I started working on my diet more. It's been a more gradual process than some and some days are better than others but I'm slowly widdling myself down.

This was the picture that made me realize that I needed to start dieting



I didnt realize I was THAT big. My stomach looked so big.

I went to a shop in town and had a nice chat with the woman working there. Went back a month later and she commented that I had gained some weight. Hearing those things from strangers means SO much more sometimes. I knew in the back of my mind that I had been eating too much and getting a little bigger, and that little comment cemented my fears.

I haven't been back to the shop; I vainly want to be as thin as I'm gonna be when I do.