thanks MichelleLoses :) It feels good to learn something I probably should've learned long ago lol

Mine was when I had to try on bridesmaid dresses. I had been avoiding any clothing that showed skin for years. When I put on the dress and saw how fat my arms were I cringed and couldn't imagine having to walk in the church in front of people like that. I managed to lose 40 lbs by wedding time.

oh gosh marms I had the SAME experience....now i am in another wedding and MOH and do NOT want to feel like that again! I hate my arms!

Mine was when my doc recently prescribed blood pressure pills for me.

It's bad enough that I let myself get heavy, but to now be forced to take medication because of it? Ugh. That was my breaking point. I decided that I HAD to lose the weight.

I had also been having mild chest pains, so that coupled with the medication made me think that I was too close to having a heart attack or stroke. I then realized that nothing I'd EVER eaten was that good to justify dying for it.

I had been saying for years that I was going to lose weight. I'd start a diet and then quit after a couple weeks because it was not happening quickly enough. I was going to lose weight for my sister's wedding in '06, never happened. I was going to lose weight for my other sister's wedding in '08, never happened.

My rock bottom was this past summer right after turning 30. I went to NYC for my birthday with my sisters and mom and was miserable. All the photos from the trip I look terrible in, all the clothes I wore were ugly and frumpy. So about two weeks after I got home I joined Weight Watchers.

I hear you about the pictures! When I was on vacation I didnt want to take any! When we did take pictures I would get so depressed looking at them and it would ruin the night for me. I know i should be more concerned with health issues rather then my looks but I hadnt really experienced any health issues because of my weight as of yet...but if i did I would be scared to death. Luckily I am finally getting a hold of my weight again.

I didn't have a rock bottom moment really, although I was getting to the point where everyday living was getting to be too hard, where doing things such as tying my shoe, walking, and cleaning myself were getting to be too hard.

Chickadee, I hope things work out for you and I just wanted to share...a friend of mine and her husband had been trying for 13 years to conceive, with no luck. She had one disappointment after another when she thought she might be pregnant but found out she wasn't. Finally, after thirteen years, she got pregnant and now has a little girl who will turn two this year. Whenever I get cynical (which isn't often) and need a reminder that miracles sometimes happen, I think of her.

Jelma, your post reminds me of my last trip to NYC....I tried to go on the Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island but couldn't fit! It was humiliating, but nobody gave me a hard time or anything. It didn't motivate me to try to lose weight at the time, but it is one of my goals for this weight loss to someday experience that wooden roller coaster!

Rock bottom...

Yesterday night's binge, I was like "I need a forum, a community to talk about losing weight (I join a skin care forum and that helped me a lot but my time with them is done because I moved on from them; nice group though)" But I binge last night like pac-man.... and then a hot guy came to the house, and I felt disgusted by my looks.

The "before" pictures I've posted in the threads linked in my signature were posted and tagged on my sister-in-law's MySpace 2 years ago. As I stared at them and cried, I knew that was as low as it would get for me. The sad thing is those pictures were taken at about 25 pounds less than my highest weight... No wonder I avoided cameras at all cost!

Pictures can be so cruel...I always wonder do I really look like that or is it just because it is 2D that it looks worse..There was only about 2 years of my life where I didnt mind getting a picture of myself and I was at my lowest weight..I hope to get back to that and not feel terrified of the camera it can really ruin a good time!

I fell off the wagon a bit this weekend for my birthday celebration....i returned to my orginal post here for motivationt o get back on...dont want to go back to that feeling

There really wasn't a rock-bottom moment for me. I realized that I was in the upper end of plus sized clothing, and I didn't want to be forced to special order extended sizes.