What got you started?

Just a curious thought:

What was your motivation, urge, need, etc. for wanting to count calories and lose weight?

For me, I want to fit into my old jeans again. They are really comfy and I miss them .

:(

But also it is a visual thing. I don't like seeing my belly as large as it is.

I'm a grandma and I am very overweight. Neither my family or myself mind what I look like, I am fairly healthy - no diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure - and I love food. BUT I want to go hang gliding and on the big rides at an adventure park with my grandchildren. Since I can't see me doing that at the weight I am I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and accept that I have to lose weight. I've got 15 months until we all go on the BIG holiday so I've got my work cut out for me - especially as exercise is hard because I have a crippled leg. But I WILL succeed. So that is my motivation - I want to behave like a kid!!!!

In December I was climbing the slanted tower of Pisa in Italy and I was sooooooo out of breath by the time I reached the top. It was embarrassing, I was getting passed by pensioners. It still took me till end of March to really get serious but it was on that bleeping tower I realized just how bad I had gotten.

1) After finding out my family has a history of high cholesterol

2) Wanting to become a more fit person & looking good!

3) Get emotional eating under control (when stressed out, don't go straight for food)

4) Being fit enough to play 3 straight rounds of DDR on heavy again.

When I hit my highest weight I tipped over into the "obese" BMI. The day I found that out was the day I started.

Original Post by jamminatorr:

When I hit my highest weight I tipped over into the "obese" BMI. The day I found that out was the day I started.

 Same here! i originally lost the weight before and its crept back up on me!

1.  When every time I went to eat something I got a dirty look.

2.  Comments from family members saying 'should you really have that'

3.  Wearing a pashmina all the time to hide my body

4.  Not fitting in my summer clothes

5.  Seeing myself naked one day  - really stared at what I was looking at.

All that made me want to lose weight.

What actually got it started - was in June my husband was reading an FHM magazine and it says "healthy eating for 4 weeks will change the way you look" and it listed a very yummy very easy 'diet'.  So we decided to try it.  And I came back to this site to  really start watching what i was eating.

I'm on day 25 and seeing results... !  

I have to tell myself every day - its not a race its a marathon. Read that on here somewhere and I say it daily.  

mum and one of my doctors commented on me looking all bloaty...no one else seems to agree...but..eh, it's an excuse.

3 Christmases ago, I went to a holiday party in a little black dress.. I thought I looked great...  My now fiance said I did and I believed him... THEN the pictures came back and I didn't even recognize myself.  I am only 5'2 but I weighed 165!  I have been with calorie count on and off since.  Then I got to 135 and felt good and quit.. then I had to have knee surgery last year and came back here after.. I am now 127 and want to see 120 by the end of August.  You are right.. It is a marathon, not a sprint, and I LOVE that I eat healthy now!  But that picture (I still have it somewhere, I actually ordered it from the photographer to remind me) started it all!

hmm for me

- my summer clothes from last year didn't fit anymore (and last year the year's before didn't fit, but i guess it didn't bother me as much then)

- i realized i was starting to get back fat - rolls on my back, eww.

- we got a wii fit, and it was the first time id been on a scale in a long time and my little wii person was obese! i knew i was overweight, but that was the first time i realized i was obese and really needed to do something about it

wanting to feel better about myself and being broke up with by my fiance. Turns out it's a lot of fun to be healthy.

1. My old skirt I want to fit into again

2. Birthday party pictures (next to my skinny friend)

3. My uniform was getting tight and it is 3 sizes bigger then I needed it to be when I joined Emirates year and a half ago.

4. People talking to me as if I was fat (I am not)

5. I am 24 years old, my mum 60. How come I nearly weigh the same?

6. The way I look like in the gym mirrors (!)

7. Urge to show everyone back home that I look great :-)

Feel me better and be better

Go to shopping and be able to try more different styles of clothes no just the "ugly ones" or the huges ones.

 to like me the person that I'm looking in the mirror.

being more Healthy

Change forever the bad habits in my life and went go old being an active older woman and fit.

Being a good example for my girl

and finally this september celebrate my 25 birthday and look wonderful.

I want to see what I really look like under all this fat.

I'm tired of people saying, "if you lost the weight you would have the perfect body." (compliment/insult?)

My boyfriend brought it up but not in a mean way, more of a concerned health way. We are counting calories together!

No one including myself has seen me healthy.

I always get in shape during summer... then lose it in the fall and winter.  Plus, my friends are all in excellent shape.  Hopefully, I can stick to it when the school year starts up again and not quit like I've done the last couple years.

I sing with a rock band and wanted to feel more confident on stage.  There is no where to hide up there....everyone is just staring at you.

In March 2006 I saw pictures of me on my 28th birthday and did not like it at all,  I went to my doctor and was diagnosed with PCOS(poly-cystic ovarian syndrome) and borderline diabetic!!I didn't like where that was going. I'm still single and I would like to be married with children someday and I knew it would be almost impossible if I kept living the very unhealthy lifestyle I was living. Now I'm almost 50lbs lighter way more active and loving it!!

I weighed 340 pounds when I decided to lose it literally and figuratively.  I got tired of being tired and being trapped in a body that couldn't do anything my mind percieved.  That was just depressing and frustrating because as the matra goes, "the mind was willing but the body wasn't able".  That was less than two years ago and I am still not where I want to be.  Through all the hard work, I am still considered morbidly obese by societal standards at 5'4' and 223.4 pounds as of today.  Still, any horrible day in my life now is so much better at this weight than any good day I was 340 pounds.  The mind is still willing to do somethings that the body cannot.  But with each day that list becomes smaller and smaller....

my motivation is my size 2 jeans that i used to fit in not nearly a year back. I lost control of my weight, but im getting it back.

i also dont want to be that fat friend out of my group of friends.

shallow? maybe. but w/e

I've always had a problem with my size, and i think it's mainly because my dad is really big (read extremely obese) and I swore I never wanted to be like that.  I've continued to get larger since I stopped playing competitive sports but I've never really felt compelled to do anything about it.  Then, about 6 weeks ago I was out with my friends and his fiance was taking pictured of the group of us, and when she was showing them to me later in the evening I was appalled at what I saw.  I felt like I was looking at a slightly shorter, slightly smaller version of my father and it scared me..... a LOT!  I'm not one to get emotional about much, if anything, but seeing those pictures of myself made me want to cry.  It took me another week to figure out what I was going to do about it, and in my search for an answer to my problem I found this site, and it has honestly been a godsend!  I just hope I can keep with it and make this the lifestyle change that I know I need and one that I can keep forever!