Ok this is it; I need to lose! When did you decide?

So I've always been whining about how I've put on weight...and I always tried to lose the weight, but it was always a half assed attempt. I was always quite confused with the food system here so I never bothered much looking up food stuff.

But then I found a website that just shows the nutritional value charts for the place I work at, since I started working there little over three weeks and it's a restaurant. I had put on 2 pounds since starting, and while I am on my feet 4 hours a day nonstop monday through friday; I still put the weight on.

I searched, only to find out that the LUNCH I had yesterday, amounted to my whole 1200 calories for the day D: that made me feel a bit sick inside. So I went and started looking up everything I've eaten in the past month... it was like suddenly being enlightened since I could surf through it so easily.... a burrito from Chipotle has 3000 calories in it..and I had it for dinner at least twice a month...while not really having any exercise.

No WONDER my body's been screaming at me that I feel sick most of the time, and my knees have been giving in at work @_@~  It's time to lose the weight. It was 30 pounds in less than 7 months. That kind of weight gain on any figure is detrimental, especially on the 5'3" figure that I am. It's not about being skinny due to aesthetics anymore, but my own health.. D:

So what was it that suddenly made you realize you had to lose the weight? And lose it NOW?

sore knees, high blood pressure reading for the first time in my life, and realizing that I was about to "outgrow" my still fairly new bras

Saw some pictures of my boyfriend and I from the last time he was here. I looked puffy and gross compared to him. Realized I didn't wanna be the unhealthy one in our relationship, and quickly made some changes.

Pictures from a wedding I went to last summer, and shopping for that wedding and not being able to fit into size 16 dress pants :( in a size 11 jeans now though :)

Getting older and realizing those health concerns you hear about could actually start happening to me.  YIKES!

But mostly realizing that I only have this ONE body that God gave me (and HE probably has plans for the use of it...LOL) I don't want to cut my time short here on earth and I don't want to disgrace God by abusing this temple.

I also want to be here to see my two sons (23 + 25) grow even older.  My husband and I have grand plans to grow OLD together...and I don't really think that will be much fun if I'm old, fat and broken down.

I just want to be healthy and fit for as long as I can.  And I've got a long way to go before I can call myself either of those. 

Actually when I found this site....I have been looking for something that would work...you know forever and not just 3 weeks.  I just didn't want to set myself up to fail again.

My husband and I were shopping around for life insurance policies, and we had to take surveys and exams for qualification.  My bloodwork was okay, but when I discovered that all I had to do was loose 10 pounds to not only reduce my premium by 15%, but reduce my chances for heart disease by 25%, I decided "hey, for that I can try to loose 10 lbs!!"

And as it turned out, I got so used to eating better and exercising, that I've kept it up, and I feel great!  (It's especially cool to be able to keep up with my 6 year in a game of tag and not feel winded!)

Had a health scare and the dr told me to cut out some junk food from my diet and I decided to change my entire lifestyle. = )

stepped on the scale and saw I had gained 10 pounds in a month. 

Also, saw my dad wailing in pain with terrible arthritis, bursitis, cellulitis and slipped discs growing up.  His blood pressure and all of that was always good as was mine but I didn't want to burn out my joints like that.

lost 110 pounds and now the arthriris in my ankle hardly acts up and I am Crazy healthy!!!  :)

nnylyma; Wow, congratulations!!! I only have 40 pounds to lose. But me being 5'3", meaning extremely short, I look like a sack of potatoes with those extra 40 pounds D: 

morgaine,  don't feel like potatoes, I feel your pain.  I am short too, only 5'1".  You will get where you want to be before you even know it  :)

xD you'd be surprised at how often I feel that way. I really, really want to get better and lose the weight.. I hate feeling like I am about to die if I walk 4 blocks towards the library. @_@~

Problem is.. I'm not really sure where to start! because there's so much info here I want to take it all in at once, then it boggles my mind and I get so confused.

I also hate the gym, so the deal of incorporating exercise in is really, really hard for me D:

ok. well, for me it was a combination of factors, that have all come together to result in my being determined to shrink (roughly 80# altogether), and just live my life in a more conscious way.

1) i am overweight. even not looking in a mirror, i know i'm fat, but when i see reflections of myself what i see is disconnected to how i see me in my head. this leads to a state of cognitive dissonance, and i am tired of living here.

2) i saw a photo of myself recently, standing next to a woman who (to me) has a body i would never imagine myself walking around in--and except that we are shaped differently, she's only a little bigger than i am. i looked like a victim of sleep deprivation (well, i am a grad student...), forced to wear an ill-fitting mask and costume of myself, after it had been soaked in water for a week. truly, i almost cried. i have never been photogenic, but this was something altogether different. i suddenly saw the future, and it was bleak.

3) i am finishing a Master of Psychology in roughly a month, and i desperately need a j-o-b. as a psychologist, i know for a fact that people discriminate against the more rounded members of society. even heavy people do it to others. it is not even conscious, most of the time...but the majority of people make some erroneous assumptions regarding fat people: we are all lazy; we have no self-control; we are weak-willed; we have poor impulse-control; & etc. when you factor in the reality that we are what is known as "a bad risk" to insurance companies, and therefore any half-way decent HR staffer knows that fat people (in general) have more health problems, and are more likely to a) be late, and b) call in sick, i am making what will already be a difficult task much harder than it needs to be. if i do not slim down at least some, the odds of my finding gainful employment as quickly as i need to are nil.

4) i'm tired of being the funny one, and if i hear that crap about having such a pretty face one more time...

5) i recently quit smoking, and am finding a strong desire to give a crap about myself. research shows that quitting smoking (ending nicotine addiction) is harder than quitting mainlining heroin. a lot of the factors are societal, but at the very least, they are equally difficult to beat. finding the strength to do that has made me more aware of my power. i believe in destiny...but i believe we have (relative to our societal/cultural/financial freedom) a great deal of control over the journey to our destination, the trick is being cognizant of it.

it's funny. as a pre-teen i was hospitalized with annorexia. the image of me i had in my head was nearly exactly what i look like now. unreal.

so there you have it.

got tired of listening to dw flap, tried a few things that weren't as bad as i thought... thought i'd try some.

morgaine, all you can do is try to make good choices each day.  As for exercise, i hated it too at first.  I did  notteven start until about a year after i started eating different.  And when I started excercising I wasn't going to the gym, I was taking long walks outside 2-3 times a week and doing push-ups and sit-ups during the commercials of my favorite 1 hour drama. 

I want to tell you that if you can keep at it for a while it will get easier and you will determine what works best for you.  I think if I had tried to shift 180 degrees at first I would not have been successful.  Doing things one stage at a time made to transition to healthier living very easy and less scary.  Over time your body will love the good food, you will not mind the feeling of being a little hungry sometimes, and you will make good choices without even thinking about it.

Try to remember that life long good health is part mental. You should let your body find it's balance disreguarding what you belive would be the "perfect" weight or pant size and love it and nourish it at that size and weight.

I saw this lady at work, go down dramatically in size. She was seeing a nutrients. Seeing the dramatic weight loss that she experienced from eating healthy, gave me the ultimate motivation. I am not over weight, but that is not to say that I am happy with my weight. To see someone loose such a dramatic amount, when I have such a little amount to loose made me realize how I had no excuse!!! so I got on with it.

i've been talking about loosing weight forever, but not really done anything serious, but I saw a pic. of me, my very skinny mother in law and my then-very pregnant sister and I, I look about as pregnant as my sister. That combined with the fact that I had been feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. I moved awkwardly and got winded so easily, had trouble sleeping cus I was never comfortable, add onto the top of that I am set to graduate college and move to a new place, and yes, people do discriminate against the larger set folk.  so there were alot of factors that have been building up, but i'm taking care of it! YAY

The biggest thing I like about CC is that the people here are so very couragous. It takes alot of time, willpower, and just plain guts to say "I am overweight, I need to do somthing about this. and I need help." Thats why I really like it here, You guys are awesome! keep it up!

After having 2 kids a year apart I weighed 195 and could not keep up. My metabolism was low, I was tired all the time. I've always been quite athletic, but the extra weight was to hard on my body. ( Knee, neck and back problems galore). Now I am 148 with a 3, 4 and 12  year old that I can play with and actually keep up to. Plus I work on my feet all day and it feels great!

I was looking at pictures of myself from Christmas and realised how "puffy" ( yes, a good way to put it, like a stuffed animal) I looked especially compared to my sister and to my husband. That same week a guy at work asked me if I was expecting....... (hint: I'M NOT) I felt so awful that night I decided it was time to get serious...... it is good to remember though, it keeps me away from the danish!

When I went to the doctors office and the scales said 370lbs, was when I said this is it!! I weighed around 280 in 2001-2002ish and 170-180 in 1995, and 150ish right out of high school in 1990. I haven't been able to wiegh myself since I lost the first 12 (3-19) I think. I dont go to the doctor again until 4-16 and my scales don't go that high, they only go up to 330. I just step on them every couple of days just to see if they have anything else to say except "EEE", LOL.

When I hit 300. Not 300 with all my clothes on in the middle of the day at the doctors but in the morning buck naked(sorry try not to think about that) no excuses. Fortunately, I found this website about the same time. Just shooting for 195 at this point. I think I can, I think I can.