Mine was my surgery yesterday. I was admitted into the hospital Wednesday then had surgery Thursday morning, a laprascopic Robotic assisted surgery where they tilt you almost upside down. It was going to be four hours long searching for endometriosis. Well things got complicated, before the surgery my doctor warned me because of the positioning I would be in and the fat around my stomach I had a good chance of my lungs collapsing during the duration.

Luckily that didn't happen, but for an hour and a half which consisted of my whole surgery since she found no endometriosis but did some biopsies just in case it was really tiny, they had to hold my neck fat down so that my Trachia wouldn't collapse. I woke up swollen and in pain, and thankful I woke up with no major issues.

I would say that was my "aha" moment. My recovery time is six weeks. Since I can't exercise I now watch what I put into my mouth more healthy things. When six weeks is up I will be exercising. I now want to loose all my weight because I now realize the risk of being as big as I am.

The surgery saved my life in a way.

So what was a big thing that made you realize you needed to loose weight?

I got a look at my reflection in a store window. I was appalled by what I saw!

Also, I was getting breathless when I had to walk across a parking lot or hunt something down in Wally Word. And, I have stress incontinence which I am sure would improve if I didn't have so much fat banging down on my bladder every time I sneeze. It is embarrassing to have to buy adult diapers. I always see someone I know.

I have lost somewhere between 15 - 20 lbs and already I notice a huge improvement in the breathlessness. I've been working my way into walking, too, so that may also be a factor.

My moment was a surgery as well-in May I had to have emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder because it was filled with gallstones. Then, one of the gallstones escaped during the first surgery and got stuck in my bile duct. So I had to have another surgery two days later to remove it. It was a horrible experience overall. All the while in the hospital I had to hear from every doctor that I needed to lose weight. Or that my surgeries would be more complicated because of my weight. I was already starting to lose weight before the surgery but I really wasn't committed to it.

At first I was mad-I just wanted to get better and didn't want to hear the same old lecture about my weight from every doctor I came into contact with. But then I realized-I had no one to blame but myself for putting me in that hospital room. I know that gallbladder removal surgery is pretty common but the moment came for me when I realized just what I was doing to my body. How for years I was mistreating it and it was starting to give up on me. That this wouldn't be the last surgery I would have thanks to being extremely overweight.

Something just finally clicked. I was a pretty "healthy" person up until that surgery. Good blood pressure, great cholesterol no health problems what so ever. Besides my weight. Then I finally realized that my weight had caught up to me. That if I didn't make a change I was going to continue to destroy my body. I just didn't want that for myself.

I had bilateral carpal tunnel surgery in April (BEST thing I ever did btw). They discovered I am having runs of PVC (wonky heart beats) before the surgery. My father just died of Congestive Heart Failure a month ago. My Mom is having heart problems. My cardiologist said that carrying extra weight is very taxing on the heart and can cause Congestive Heart Failure in some cases. With my family history of heart problems, this is nothing to mess around with.

Yeah, it's time to lose this weight. I've got too many people depending on me to keel over dead cause I won't take care of myself.

Mine wasn't a scare but more a realization. I had a total vaginal hysterectomy with rectocele and enterocele repair on 5/30/12. I have 4 kids so I knew that I was "done". With having the hysterectomy, I realized that I will no longer be sacrificing my body to have kids(I know that sounds reversed, like I should have already been taking care of my body but hindsight is 20/20). Anyway, now that no more babies are coming, it's time to take control and get my body healthy for me for the rest of my life. As soon as my 6 weeks was up, I started exercising. During my six weeks I started eating a healthy diet, which I have gotten better at but I'm still learning. And so my journey began!

My best friend and her mom were getting the lap band. Well I've always had someone to be fat with lol. So i wasnt alone, but what about after her surgery? Well I didnt want to be the only fat one left. So as shes getting closer to her surgery ive been dieting and exercising so we can be skinny best friends

Ps how do you guys get those little slider things with your weight on it?

I think you need a certain number of posts (so it might not let you yet), but go to User CP at the top, click Edit Signature on the left, then it should give you an option to add a ticker to your signature. Click on that and it will bring up the instructions and different style options. Alternately, you can get them from a few different sites. Mine is from a different site because I like having the BMI on it. If you google weight loss tickers, it should help...Lady Slim and Ticker Factory seem to be the most popular ones around here.

Thanks

You have to be a member for a certain number of days - 30, I think. and also have 20 posts. Then do what Hotaruchan said to do. Welcome to the forum!

Lin

A very close friend and I had a major fight that was triggered by her telling a mutual friend like I wasn't even there "we've got to do something about her stomach." Was close to severing ties with her, but she said she never meant to hurt me but knew how much my weight and stomach especially bothered me.

Over the past 10 odd years iv gotten so mad at people bringing up my weight and asking if I'm pregnant. I can do something about it and so I am. Plus my birthday's coming up in Sept and I want to have made significant progress by then and not go round the same mountain yet another year.

My first one was the fact that my feet always ached from standing up at work in flat shoes let alone in heels. And well, I couldn't fit into 90% of the clothes I loved. I was wearing skirts intended for the hips on my waist. I was in serious denial.
My most recent aha moment is about clothes again, I hate not being able to wear nice stuff in summer. I feel like I'm always covering my arms. I despise smock/baggy clothes. I refuse to be the fatty who just wears bin bag style clothes. And I don't want to be the one who wears excessively tight clothing.

I had several "aha" moments but none of them pushed me into weight loss, oddly enough. I just tried something one day and decided to stick with it.

- dark skin on inner thighs and neck; a sign of being possibly pre diabetic. Diabetes runs on both sides of my family, so that was scary. Both are gone now.

- Getting winded going up flights of stairs despite all the working out I did. Now I can run up flights of stairs without getting winded even if I'm carrying a lot of stuff!

- Pins and needle feeling in my feet randomly at times (I'm also guessing this was a pre diabetic thing too). Now also gone unless I sit the wrong way.

- Not fitting into desks, restaurant booths, etc.

Wow...I just realized that I answered someone's question and forgot to respond to the actual topic...I must have seen something shiny. In any case, coming to Japan and being surrounded by skinny people was bad...then one day during the first week of teaching 4th grade, a little girl came up to me, patted my stomach, said "pon pon!" (the sound of a drum) and informed me that I was much fatter than their last English teacher. I apparently gave her a really scary smile trying to keep from bursting into tears from everything building up (moving to a new country, being in the middle of nowhere, being expected to do my job with zero guidance after only half a week of training...). That was probably the straw that broke the camel's back...

Mine was when I went to the Dr. and the scale read 222.

I thought I was the weight I am now, then, so it was quite a shock.