I completely hear where you are coming from. I don't know what course my life would've taken had I stayed obese. I do know that my life changed in every single way as I inched closed to being at a normal, healthy weight. I really can't explain it other than to say that I was free from that burden and therefor able to move on to bigger and better things. It was a big monkey off my back. A lot of people do not let weight hinder them, but it had been such a burden on me from childhood and I do believe it affected many aspects of my life- mostly just the confidence to accomplish certain goals. I can't say I would've been able to do a lot of things I've done over the past 6 years had I not let go of the weight at 22. It was probably the most freeing experience of my life. Liberating, even.

You know, I am pretty happy with the life I have created. I have a wonderful husband, beautiful, healthy daughter, a very fulfilling job as a nurse in the NICU, own my home, can afford vacations, have 2 darling doggies who I love to death. So all in all, I am content.

HOWEVER, I have fought this obesity every step of the way, have been every weight from 150-350 since I was a teenager, and it breaks my HEART how many miseries I have suffered because of it. The last 3 years or so have been the worst. I was always a fairly active fat person with pretty normal labs/BP at the doctor, didn't have any major mobility issues, etc. Then I ballooned up from ~280 up to 350 in the last 2-3 years, and OMG!!!!! BP going up, knees killing me, barely able to go to work let alone be active with my daughter, clean the house, etc. And I am only 39 years old!!!!!! I was feeling like a very obese 80 year old!!! I made the decision to really do this weight loss thing the right way, and I'm on my way back down. I haven't felt this good in a long time, and I've barely even scratched the surface yet. So I guess you could say I let it go on long enough and let it get bad enough that I scared the crap out of myself.

I hope getting that close to the edge of the cliff FINALLY got it through my head that I will not suffer this any longer. NEVER will I be like that again, and I'm going to lose the rest or die trying!!!!

I also admire the younger girls who are getting a handle on this now. It does nothing but get MUCH, MUCH, MUCH worse!!!! Trust me, you don't want to go there. You go, youngsters!!!!

I just want to support what Carter said. I don't know if it's the advantage of having the internet to share knowledge or what, but I am very encouraged to see the self-awareness that some of our younger members have...

Although, Carter...
Can I count myself as one of the 'younger folks' even if I'm older than you? (I'm 49) :devil:

I'm 47 and have ranged from 'fairly slender' to 'a bit fluffy' to 'plump' until about 7 years ago, when a series of back injuries and the accompanying lack of mobility started me down the slope to true obesity, and quitting smoking 1.5 years ago put the gain into hyperdrive. I didn't really feel "obese" until relatively recently, but the signs were there - short of breath, creeping blood pressure, sore knees and hips, etc... but the last straw was an impromptu finger prick at the Dr.'s and a somewhat elevated blood sugar. That was my "Oh CRAP!!!" moment. I started my weight loss journey within days and already feel worlds better after losing only 25 pounds. I sure do wish I had learned about "portion control" and 'emotional eating' issues when I was younger. The things that we take for granted.....

This is a great thread. :)

I've been trying to lose weight since I was a teenage (not that long ago... I'm 21), and I've always tried to do it because of vague reasons, like I didn't want to look fat, my friends were all skinny, etc.

Then this year I stepped on the scales and saw that I had passed the 200 lb mark. In fact, I'd gone to 207 lbs. That scared the crap out of me. I was considered obese and was frighteningly close to morbidly obese (a BMI of 40 or more - I realize BMI isn't always accurate, but I'm a chick with a regular frame, average muscle, etc.). That was my trigger. I thought, "****, I'm not going to be able to play with my kids I'll be so large." And I don't even have kids! I could see the future, and it was horrible.

I started that day trying to lose weight. I've tried before, but I haven't had this kind of determination. I changed my eating habits cold turkey (4 months in and it's still going great - so long as I treat myself once in a while!). I'm not really struggling at all yet, but I'm on the lookout.

Also, something another poster said came to mind. "Fear of running into old friends and having them wonder what had happened to me." Crap, that'd suck.

And to another poster who encouraged young folks to get a handle on our weight now, I have to say I agree. I thought to myself, how am I going to do this if I'm 50 and 400 lbs? (A weight I can easily see myself getting to). And then I realized if it got that bad, I might not make it to find out.

Thanks for bringing this up, OP. And thanks to others for their great insights.

I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, went on synthroid, and I shed close to 30 lbs (without any real effort) in a year and a half. I started questioning why I was comfortable being fat and wasn't putting any effort into it, since I finally could lose weight...and the REAL answer just p*ssed me off and freaked me out at the same time.

The weight is just another "wall" to keep people at a distance and to minimize unwanted attention. It did genuinely start because of the thyroid, but emotional eating pushed it over the edge.

I was letting a worthless POS and a bad event continue interfering with my life a decade later...and I'm not willing continue allowing that to happen.

For me, it was the last 20 pounds I put on after my second pregnancy. I spent about 6 years at about 230 and actually felt pretty good, no general aches and pains or real physical limitations. I actually exercised pretty regularly, I just wasn't careful about what I ate. During my pregnancy I ate well and kept up the exercise but after delivery I couldn't keep up with that and caring for a newborn, older child, household, etc. So I put myself on the back burner, ate a ton of crap and didn't exercise and gained 20 pounds. And those 20 pounds have brought a ton of issues-I'm constantly tired, sweating, always hot, never in the mood to go anywhere or do anything, and I've got a whole 1, yes 1 pair of pants that fit me that I wash and wear over and over because I refuse to buy another pair while I'm this size. I want to buy nice pants that don't have to stretch to kingdom come to fit me comfortably. I want to go a day without sweating while I'm walking from the house to the car. I want to be able to get in the floor and play with my 10 month old without having to rearrange my fat rolls. Basically I'm tired of feeling this way and it's very motivating.

It was my 2nd daughters approaching 1st birthday. Since I knew that she was my last child, and I had always said that once I was done having kids, I would get back into shape, I knew I had wasted enough time. I never wanted to be the fat mom - I'd settle for average!

Great thread, mrstanya.

Over the years, I had problems with emotional eating, habitual eating, and eating because I was hungry a lot (mainly because of trying to eat low-fat and high-carb, with disastrous results). Recently, my life has been more happy and stable than ever before, and I know now that many high-carb foods cause cravings. At 260 pounds, I was fortunate not to have any serious health effects yet, though I have a lot of heart disease and diabetes in my family so I was probably a time bomb. (I was also having bouts of knee pain.)

I knew from previous experience that any diet attempt would fail if I wasn't ready to commit. On Dec. 29, 2008, against all logic and experience, I decided that I was ready. I made it to Onederland on Sep. 28, 2009 and lost 77 pounds in my first year of this new lifestyle. The strangest thing about this dieting experience is how traumatic it *hasn't* been. (Maybe more about that in another post.)

I'm sort of an introvert. I rarely go out to the bars like other 22-year-olds do, but one of my closest friends was having a going away party since he was moving out of state. My fiancé wanted to go. So I agreed. We went to this bar that was packed, wall to wall with people. Everyone bumping into one another. I tried to stay out of everyone's way, but it's impossible when you're in a place that busy. Even if you weigh 120 lbs. So, while I was making my way through the crowd, coming back from the bathroom. Some guy turned around and said "Hold on dude, SOME FAT CHICK IS PUSHING ME!" Oh, so the five other people within the 3 feet we were in weren't pushing him? Just the fat chick. I felt devastated. I couldn't even do something as normal as go to the freaking bar with friends without being terrified that someone's going to make me feel like crap for being over weight. I decided I wanted to be able to socialize without being terrified of other people making fun of me. I mean, I'm 22. I'm an adult. I should be able to quit making excuses.

Ok, here I am thinking you're referring to ME as a youngster, and you're FORTY?!! You are NOT old!! I will be 36 next month and I feel like I'm doing this in the MIDDLE of my youth! ;) Seriously, this weight loss has brought back my youth and I am not old! Our metabolisms haven't shut down yet! Slower perhaps...but not shut down.

As for me, I had no trigger. I've been trying to get this weight off for 10 years as I saw it piling on. It's just that I had a few to things to learn before the weight would come off. I had to learn patience, above all else. I had to learn that weight loss was 80% diet and only 20% exercise, no matter how much you work out. I had to learn about calories, a message that was lost amidst all the low-fat, low-carb but eat-as-much-as-you-want diets. :rolleyes:

I'm always interested to read people talking about their "trigger moments," because for me there wasn't really a moment like that in terms of deciding to lose weight. It was the experience of trying out the LoseIt app on my iTouch, struggling to stay at 1600 cal/day for 2 weeks, and actually LOSING THREE POUNDS. (I know I sound like an advertisement, but since LoseIt is free I don't think anyone's going to pay me to do that. Also, it's not MELTING AWAY like all those blinky ads for acai berry juice promise, it's %*! work.)
:) It was that first realization that I could actually do it that started the, er, obsession as some of my acquaintances now regard it.

Up until that point I seriously didn't think it was possible for me to lose weight. I'd been heavy for 15 years even though I exercised and ate "healthy" (junk food was never in my house and I didn't eat out that much). And all sorts of newspaper and magazine articles and TV shows were telling me it was almost impossible to lose weight, some people are genetically programmed to be overweight, blah blah, and so I figured it was just my natural state.

I have been so much more successful ignoring magazines and TV on weight loss since then, and reading 3 Fat Chicks. The stories of people on here have been so inspirational, and all the tips and support have been just as helpful especially in the early days of desperate cravings. I think the weekend I discovered the site I literally went back and read all the archive pages of the Calorie Counting forum, and over the next weeks many of the other forums. I still don't understand why more media doesn't come HERE as a resource.

A few things did it for me. :) Let me share.

First, it was a guy I was very interested in two years ago, started talking to me on Facebook. I had gained maybe 30 lbs since two years ago. He sounded like he liked me and couldn't wait to see me. Well, as soon as he saw me once in real life, he stopped talking to me completely.

Another thing that triggered it, I was looking at my old pictures from maybe about 2 years ago, and my brother (who is trying to lose weight with me) was like "WOW, you look SO skinny." And I looked at him like... "What? I still look like this don't I? Have I really changed that much?" to which he answered "Do you want my to lie or be honest..."

Also remembering when I hit 150 lbs, thinking to my face "Don't worry, I'll never let myself go over this, if I do, I'll lose it." Remembering that when I was 180 lbs. And I thought, if I thought that 30 lbs ago, and didn't stick to it, I'll be over 200 lbs in no time, and won't do anything about it. So I decided to stop lying to myself that "I won't go over this, ever!" and just LOSE it, and become my ideal weight.

Part of what triggered me was seeing very unflattering vacation photos of myself. I've been lucky enough to do a lot of traveling, and it was pretty devastating to see those once in a lifetime photos ruined by my weight. Like me and dh in front of the Eiffel Tower. Beautiful memory, but not such beautiful pics. What a shame!

The biggest motivator probably is my husband's health. His whole family is diabetic and I feared he was on that path as well. Every greasy, fatty meal I fed him felt like I was literally killing him. I decided that if I didn't care about my own weight, I should at least try to cook healthier for him, because I didn't want to lose him. We have lost weight together ever since.