My doctor. He told me my blood pressure and cholesterol were both high. That and I was having chest pains that would wake me up in the middle of the night. I knew I had to do something or I was a goner. I remember spending hours at my computer one night, writing a huge memo to my husband about important things, should I pass away. Where important papers were (my life insurance policy, our son's life insurance policy, etc.), how to do this, what to do about that, etc etc etc. That's how close I came to thinking I wasn't going to be around much longer. I felt bad every day. Tired, worn out, sick, run down. Plus I was just sick of
ME. I was always holed up in the house, I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything because I hated what I looked like and didn't want to be seen. So it was a combination of all those things, but my doctor was my kick in my butt. So I vowed to eat healthier, stop eating fried and fatty foods. He wanted to put me on cholesterol-lowering drugs. Even wrote me a prescription. But after reading the horror stories about those things, I refused to take them and decided to try and get my cholesterol down on my own. My triglycerides were also very high, up over 800. So I vowed to do it myself through diet and exercise so I wouldn't have to take the pills. I was also on meds for my blood pressure.
The weight loss was sort of an added bonus, that wasn't my initial reason for changing my diet. But
after I changed my diet, at my next doctor visit I had gone down 13 pounds. That was my incentive to keep going with it. I changed my eating habits completely and decided it would have to be a lifestyle change, so I made permanent changes I knew I could live with. And the weight just started coming off. Then I started counting calories. And it kept coming off. And here I am, almost to my goal weight