Another forum asked: "what made you WANT to lose weight?"

THIS IS WHAT I ANSWERED:

Well a few things.  Like someone mentioned before, i knew i needed to lose weight, but i seriously bought into that whole "you're not THAT fat" mentality. Then a few things happened:

1. Just bought a house, so I'm broke. I have a TON of clothes i cannot wear.  Since I'm broke i can't go buy clothes that fit, so now i need to lose weight and use my massive wardrobe.

2.  After I left HS i slowly became a " I do not like to take pictures" person.  After realizing i had barely any pictures of me and my 3 yr old son TOGETHER, i freaked out.  The more pictures i took and forced myself to KEEP, I realized that me FEELING fat, was not just a "feeling" it was a reality.

3.  Finally, i got tired of thin people giving me weight loss advice.  I know what I have to do.  i have been on a million diets, know healthy eating habits and like healthy foods, constantly read fitness magazines, books and newsletters.  i KNOW more then them! I need to watch my calories, exercise and be consistent, yada, yada.  I do not need anyone else giving me rudimentary diet and fitness advice; especially from those people who have NEVER had a weight/emotional/stress eating problem.

Wheewwwwwwwwwwwwww! It felt good to vent. Thanks for posting the question Missxdior!

WHAT'S YOUR ANSWER???

1. Having never really weighed less than I do now (even as a tennager) I wanted to see what being smaller felt like. Why not? I was maintaining for years so I figured how hard could it be to lose a little? I don't have a pair of skinny pants in the closet but I will (and they will fit!)

2. My mother is WAY overweight, you can tell just by looking at her. And she only weighs 20-30 lbs more than I do (she's shorter and has a smaller frame... but that's still scary for me) I love my mother, and she has some health problems that make it hard for her to lose but I'm only 20 years old and I could see myself slowly creeping up 10, 20, 30 lbs etc. I don't want to look like her. :/

3. My sister and a good friend have been losing weight recently. I know it's a dumb reason, but it's a motivator for me.

4. My fiance needs to lose weight to be healthy (and so do I). So I'm doing this with him for both of us.  (Plus I want to look good for my wedding!)

I have several reasons to lose weight:

1.  I want to be able to enjoy myself without getting winded, tired, injured.

2. I want to be able to do things better: golf, running, swimming, sex ...

3. I want to get off of blood pressure meds.

4. I want to lower my life insurance rates.

5. I want to live longer.

6. I want to feel good about myself.

7. I want my wife to have trouble keeping her hands off of me.

Awesome answers you guys. Thanks for sharing.

Lilad, i know you will look wonderful on your wedding day, congratulations!

Dan, I feel you completely on the life insurance, lol.  If nothing else that is a great motivator!  oh and of course -- Here's to looking great naked! Hooray!

I know i was a bit "witchy" in my post but dang i just had a lot bottled up.

My top 5 reasons for wanting to lose weight

5. I want to look better.

4. I want more energy.

3. I need new clothes and I want to buy them in a smaller size.

2. I need to keep up with my husband, who's losing weight after gastric bypass.

And the number one reason...

1. My weight puts me at risk for heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes -- and I don't want to die!

1.  Family history of diabeties, heart disease, and cancer

2. I want to look and feel better

3. I want to live a long healthy life so I can be there for my kids and grandkids (someday).

4. I am in the prime of my life and should not be overweight

5. I want to treat my body as God intended it to be treated - with healthy wholesome foods, and exercise.

6.  I want to teach my kids the right way to eat and live a healthy life.  I am their example now, and I need to step up my game.

7.  I want to have a strong healthy marriage with a good sex life.

1.) Potential health issues

2.) I want to play intermural sports during my senior year, and losing weight will help me achieve that goal.

3.) I've always wanted to... it has been a goal since I quit baseball.

In no particular order:

1. I'm returning to college in January after 15 years. It's one thing to be the 40 year old woman in class with the 20 year olds. It's another to be the 40 year old fat woman in class with the 20 year olds. Shallow? Maybe, but it's a serious motivator for me.

2. I'm single for the first time since I was 19, but my self-consciousness and bad body image keep me from really wanting to get out and explore my opportunities.

3. I want to wear fun clothes. I want to not have to go to the plus sizes section, where everything always seems so matronly and frumpy.

4. I want to be healthier. I'm healthy and have been fortunate in that, but how long can it really last? Carrying an extra 80 pounds (50 now) around certainly shortens that.

5. I want to feel good about myself when I look in the mirror. Lately I've been feeling a lot better, but I know that I can accomplish even more as long as I keep working.

6. I'm building a new life for myself and being fit and slim are part of what I want for that new life.

Simple - I want a baby.

I'm not ovulating because I am overweight.

I can't get fertility treatment because I am overweight.

Everything else (to start running again, be fitter, be able to buy nice clothes etc) is just secondary.

1. I'm tired of hating the mirror and being careful about where my clothes fit me tightly

2. I want to be healthy when I start graduate school

3. Exercise is helping lower my stress levels

4. Exercise/eating right seems to help my acne problem

• I feel like an active outdoorsy person but I'm too fat to be that person..

She's in her somewhere.. although perhaps I ate her.. some days I feel like I could eat my weight in food.

• I hate feeling like this and don't understand how anyone I think is attractive could want to be with me..

The reason I wanted to lose weight was because I had a hard time tying my shoes when I bent over, my thighs rubbed together and chaffed, and I had a lot of lower back pain. That was when I weighted 220lbs, I lost 75lbs and kept it off for almost 2 years. I am back again weighing in at 200lbs, I am starting to get the lower back pain again, the thighs rubbing together, I cannot run anymore without having a hard time, lack of stamina, and my feet are always hurting because I gained the weight too quickly.

What I realized is that losing weight was the hardest thing I ever did, but when I reached my goal I had an even harder time maintaining it and being consistent with healthy eating and exercising.

You have to tell yourself it isnt a diet, it is a healthy lifestyle change that you have to stick with in order to lose or maintain the weight. Have to change the way you think about food. Now my bad habits returned, I am binging again, and I stopped excercising.

But I am determined to lose the weight again, I had to want it enough to actually want to do it.

Trust me ELFINPICKLE I felt like you, you feel like the person you are on the inside is not who you are on the inside, but when i was small I was trapped with a fat mindset meaning that no matter how much weight I lost I still felt fat and thought I could lose more and I became obsessed. It is alot of mind work and you need to change that mindset.

Thank you all for being supportive and I happy that I am not alone in my weight lost journey.

Hi there. I am new here. I just start calorie counting on Monday. I am currently 226 lbs @ 28 yrs old with 2 small children.

~I think that in some way shape or form, I feel like I want to lose weight for all of your reasons.  Mainly, my Dad died when I was 13 at 48 yrs old of heart disease and I am now having panic attacks because I think I am having heart issues.

~I also feel like I am that "cool girl" stuck in a fat girls body. 

I have done great so far but this is only the first week.

My descent into the overeating and lackluster attitude about myself began during the pregnancy years. I have two wonderful children and the youngest is 8 years old so I can no longer blame the weight gain on "Baby weight."  I've decided for the umpteenth time that I need to lose weight.

I want this time to be different since I feel that health issues are creeping in.

I don't want knee replacement surgery.

I don't want diabetes.

I don't want to be crippled or dead before grandchildren come around.

I'm hoping that this time I can stick to my guns.

I became diabetic and I am sick of looking the way I look.  I want to be thin again and this time forever.  Every time I lost weight before I got pregnant and there went that.  Now there is no chance of that LOL.  I am hoping that if I get down to my goal weight of 111 pounds from 190.5 that I will no longer be diabetic or at the least only have to take the oral medications rather than the insulin and the oral meds. 

Manboobs. Gotta be the manboobs.

I mean, I don't need a training bra or anything, but there was enough there for me to look in the mirror and go "Damn... manboobs!"

So yeah. Manboobs.

Easy question to answer. 1. I don't want my kids to suffer the same fate as I. 2. I want to be there for them...by running, playing, exemplifying a healthy lifestyle, and 3. I don't want to die. Not yet. I'm just 37 

I want to fit in the clothes I own.

I want to look like I can run up 5 flights of stairs without getting winded, not just be able to do it.

I'm sick of being the fat kid.

I don't want diabetes like the rest of my family.

I want to be healthy-sized when I go to college.

Well, I have a lot of reasons to loose weight! I've gone back and forth between healthy and fatty since I was a child.

-I have asthma and carrying around the extra weight does not help me breathe easier.

-I'm getting married this year and want to look fan-tab-ulous for my wedding!

-I want to have children in the next few years and want to be healthy before I get prego

-I'm tired of be envious of thinner people!

-I want to be able to take pictures without telling the person holding the camera to just get my face and keep my rolls out of it!

It's not so much about the numbers or how I look, of course, that would be a nice boost of self confidence. I really just want to be healthy.

What a great thread!

It may sound shallow, but I want to look better. I hate what I see in the mirror right now

I've done it before, so I KNOW I can do it. I just need to get in the habit again

I want to be able to exercise and not get so incredibly winded. It's actually painful for me to jog/swim laps right now because of my athsma

My number one reason is that I want to be healthier. My family has a history of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, strokes and many other weight-related problems. I don't ever want to have a chronic condition like that. Keeping your weight off is a really easy way of preventing those problem

I started on a diet back in April, my cousin got married at the end of August, and I didnt want to be the "fat Girl" at the wedding. I lost 35lbs. Then I gained 15.

I got engaged July 19, and promptly got a dress. Now I need to make sure I will have room to breathe in it.My fiance has recently started trying to get healthy (he is ever so slightly obese) and is working on getting his weight under control. We are both doing this for the wedding.

I stared out at 185lbs, and am down to 141.8 (as of this morning). The last time I was at this weight, was when I was overweight while growing up. So now I am trying to lose weight and be a healthy weight. My goal is 130.

I started back trying to lose weight after I realised all the time and money and effort Ihad put into losing that 35lbs was wasted cuz I had gone back up. I didnt want to be that kind of failure, and I dont want to yoyo. With the wedding coming up its not just about the dress, its the 2week tropical honeymoon where I will be in a bikini or less the entire time, and I dont want to be ashamed of my body. I dont want to hide behind bulky coverups or not want my husband to look at me naked.

I am doing this because I feel fat. I feel as though I have lumps and bumbs and cellulite everywhere. I'm ashamed of my body. I feel as though people either look right through me (the way they ignore fat people) or that if they notice me, all they see are my love handles. I would rather not be seen than be seen in that way. I dont want to go on feeling like this. I want to be proud of my body and who I am. I dont want to try to blend into the wall because I'm scared people might actually notice me.

I'm losing weight because I have to. I cant go one being this way. My fiance hates it when I try to tell him how I feel about myself. He thinks I am beautiful, but I mean, he also met me when I was at my heaviest. I want to do this so I can be comfertable in my own skin around the man who I plan on spending the rest of my life with.