Thanks IanG! I will keep that in mind...I don't feel so much like a clutz now. :D

One "straw", many "straws" ago, keeps coming back to my mind. It's "I'll show HIM" with a potent combination of "I've done it before", "I know I look hot thin", "This is the last decade of relative youth, so now is the time" and "It's time the vision I hold of me in my head matches what other people see".

My weight has yo-yo'd for most of my adult life. The last time I was at a healthy weight was over ten years ago. I haven't been obese the whole time, but I haven't been out of the "overweight" range for probably fifteen years.

I'm going to be 40 soon, and I don't want to be obese going into my 40s. I'm 6 pounds to move into the "overweight" category and then it's on to the healthy range. I'm going to give it my all, so that I can spend the rest of my life happy & healthy and set a good example for my children.

They have been running with me or riding their bikes while I run. It's been a fun family activity while I'm also getting into better shape.

So, I guess my age is my last straw.

My partner and I couldn't get pregnant and we'd been trying for years. After a few visits to our GPs, we were referred to a fertility clinic. It turns out that I have PCOS and we need their assistance. However, the only way I got get their assistance was to get myself down to a BMI of 32 (74kgs). I was 34 BMI (85kgs) at the time, so it wasn't a big loss, but something inside me clicked.

I thought to myself, 'What kind of mother do I want to be?' and decided that the can't be bothered getting off the couch because exercise will kill me; can't tie my shoe type wasn't me. So, I've taken up running to increase my stamina. Sure, I'll lose most of it while I'm pregnant, but I know that I can do it. The second time around will be easier. :)

My motto is: do the hard work earlier on and everything will be easier after that :)

I've had a few. The first big one was when I was at my highest, when I realized that I couldn't even fit into the largest jeans the plus size shops carried. :o

More recently, it was a miscarriage. :( I'd already lost 100 pounds at that point, but had been regaining when I found out I was pregnant. I lost the baby within the first trimester, and my grief raised a lot of questions, including what kind of parent would I be, especially if I let myself gain all the way back to my highest weight? I want to be a strong, active, healthy mom for a little one. I set a date to restart, and lost steadily until I became pregnant again about a year later.

My very first baby is due in two months. :preg: Once I deliver and eventually get the maternity weight off I plan on losing about 60 more pounds, and I'm keeping the healthy mom mantra as my motivation. :)

I started trying to lose weight because of pain in my knees and back. Now I'm a lot more motivated because of my husband being diagnosed with diabetes. I don't want to go through what he is going through with health because of morbid obesity.

For me it was moving back to my hometown last October. I had moved to Chattanooga about 5 years before for a job promotion. I finally was able to get another promotion back to Knoxville, where I am from. After I moved back, I realized that NOTHING in my life had changed in the last five years I had been gone. Everyone else had gotten married, had children, or had progressed someway in life, yet here I was five years later and nothing had changed. I was also 31 and started having a mini mid-life crisis about life passing me by.

I think a lot of the reason other things haven't changed in my life was because I let my weight hold me back. So I decided while I may not have control over a lot of things, I could change my weight. So I joined a Y and took a Zumba class. I kept with it and made some great friends so now I love going to the gym (and I never thought I would say that).

I have wanted (half-heartedly) to lose weight for a few years. By the final straw? It was a week ago.

I was walking my dog around my apartment complex and stopped to visit with some gathered neighbors. There was a guy there that hadn't seen my dog before. He commented on my dog's weight (he is chubby, but not overweight) and said he was fat...just like his owner. Most people laughed, albeit awkwardly. I was hurt. I call myself fat, I've been called names online, but never to my face and never so casually.

Ludo, what an a$&! People are such jerks sometimes.

Kenda

Lots and lots of straws...
 

I can't say it's one thing this time around. I've been half-heartedly trying to stop the steady rise from my most recent low of 175. Despite being suddenly single at 38 years old, I've not been able to find the motivation and that's landed me just a few pounds away from my all-time high of 245.

One straw was the amount of time I spent trying to find the right combination of clothes from the few left that still fit me. Some are tight on the bottom and can only be worn with a tent on top. Some are baggy enough on the bottom to be worn with my tighter tops. I badly need new clothes but I can't afford them. So necessity was my first straw.

Then there was a fat joke. Now, I've battled my weight from the time I was a pre-teen, so as you can imagine, I've heard every fat joke you can think of. I've had perfect strangers make nasty comments. I've had relatives try to humiliate me. My ex-husband told me how unattractive he found me when I was fat. I've developed a pretty thick skin. I'm pretty good, if I do say so myself, at cutting down jerks like that to size.

But this left me like a deer in the headlights. There's a guy I've been crazy about for quite some time. Even though nothing can come of it for a great many reasons, I'd still like to think he might be attracted to me. I'm human, what can I say? Everyone wants to be wanted. Anyway, we we're joking around like we do when we're together, and he tells this story about he and his friends getting a huge laugh at a fat joke. It wasn't directed at me or anyone I know. It wasn't like he was the one that came up with the joke. But it was the fact that he thought it was so side splittingly funny that made me feel like he must see me as a big fat joke too. He sat there laughing and I just looked at him. I was absolutely gutted.

Last but not least was a picture my daughter took of me yesterday. I know I am fat, but somehow seeing yourself in the mirror never seems to drive home reality the same way a picture does. I think I actually gasped when she showed it to me.

So here I am, ready to try again. Here's hoping I can remember how I feel at this moment when I'm ready to reach for a doughnut.

We were able to adopt after a long road a couple of years ago. My daughter is 3, I will be 60, she will be 15. So things were percolating. Then I tried on a suit jacket I hadn't worn in a year. I couldn't close it by a couple of inches.

Then a couple of days after that I was at a concert and among the heaviest there. It just felt so absurd. I know I have at least as much will power as the other people there and the ability to make good food decisions.

I can't explain it but I KNEW with absolute certainty at that concert I would lose weight and be healthy the rest of my life. Just a matter of time. I would replace the unhealthy with healthy. I feel fantastic now although still far from ultimate goal. But now the feeling good is the motivation to keep going.

My son died on August 1st. That whole time is still a blur. It is still so very hard. At some point I started eating for comfort. I ate and ate. I have ate for comfort in the past. This time it did not help at all. This was shocking to me. One night I was stuffing myself, not even hungry, and I just stopped.
Also my daughter has been afraid she will loose me too, so I want to be around for her. Life really is short.

I am so sorry for your loss. You are incredibly courageous to be taking such a positive step for yourself and your daughter.

1. Went over 200, 2. Had just a handful of clothes that fit me, 3. Broke a chair, 4. blood pressure was starting to go up, 5. Witnessed Dad injecting himself insulin, I hate needles but knew that would be my fate too. 6. I didn't want to be the fat mom at the pool one more summer. 7. Tired of being the fat sister in law. 8. Daughter looks just like me except she is skinny and I was not. I wanted to set a good example for her and for my son.

I am so sorry for your loss.

Kenda