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.

what finally changed me from "wanting" to "doing" was when i hurt my back about 3 months ago.... while i was recovering i was getting really bad hip pain from the way i was sitting..... this had been happening on and off for about 6 months..... it was then when i was all laid up that i thought about it...... i didn't want to be a gimp with a bad hip and knee's and die young from a heart attack..... that and i had bought all the gear to go on a hiking trip but am in no where near good enough shape to do it...... so i decided to change my ways, eat better and work out more.... and i have lost about 34 lbs so far.... my hip hasn't twinged in the last 2 months, and my knees haven't been bugging me at all....

thats my story

I can't even remember what it was that made me start trying again.  I've tried to loose weight several times...succeding..but then gaining it back quickly. 

The cool thing is that I will always remember the day I signed up for this site. I was looking up the calorie info on a banana...I had been writing down my calorie intake on paper with numbers I was mostly guessing on...planning on staying below 1500(completely arbitrary number I chose then...even though it was pretty close to what I needed).  I was way off on pretty much everything I was writing down and loved that it was so easy to look up stuff here.  Then I slowly started discovering all the other cool stuff that's here.

 I think CC is what I really needed for it to stick. 

WOoo!

the combination of about 100 things from being not fit enough for a long mountain hike to just feeling not so pretty

 I decided finally that enough was enough!  I did not want an early grave. I also decided that I was commiting suicide slowly, unconciously going into a cycle of destruction. I also realized that I could not keep up the lifestyle and still be here for my family. I also came to the conclusion that, if I wanted to be a well rounded person, all areas need to be in order, including my body.

I had never really been overweight until highschool ended and I decided to move to a new city with my dad and brother. I knew absolutely no one in the city, winter started setting in and it was absolutley frigid, like -30c on some days. I had never really liked exercise and so I stayed mostly at home, and ate out of boredom until I gained 20-25 lbs.

I started getting excited when a couple of friends made a trip out to come see me and a couple other people that had also moved to the city, they were attending the university, one of the guys I had always really liked and had hooked up with a couple of times. I was practically in love with him.

It became a battle to pull my jeans on as I had gained around 3 inches on my hips. To tell the truth I think I was really in denial about how different I looked. Anyways, when my (skinny blond) girlfriends came out we spent the weekend partying, until my best friend, lets call her K turned to me and asked me if I minded if she hooked up with the guy I liked. She of course knew about how I felt about him, but I don't think that mattered to her. I was sort of shocked and told her that it wasn't really my decision and that she could if it really meant that much to her, even though it broke my heart to say it. It was my other friend, Ss' birthday that night and she was busy dancing with a guy she met, and K was busy making out with the guy I liked. I tried not to let it bother me. K ordered a table full of 25 cent beers and started downing them. Later on, somewhere on the dance floor K accidentally spilled a drink on S. S asked her "why did you pour your drink on me?" and K stupidly responded by pouring the rest of her beer on S, (the birthday girl). So S retaliated and poured her drink right back on K.

Thats when K, drunk and raging tipped the table full of 25cent beers, and got thrown out of the club, without her coat in to -28c weather. Me and S, went to coat check and got all of our things and left to go meet her outside where she was somehow finding a way to blame us for what happened. We got into a cab and I was sitting between them. They started fighting over top of me and the cab driver kicked us out. Thats when we noticed we didn't have Ss' wallet, a coach wallet with all her bday money in it.

So we made our way to the train, where they continued fighting with eachother, spitting hitting biting punching. Even crackheads were trying to get them to shut up! One even threatened to beat the **** out of K, and I had to try and convince her that she wasn't normally like that, and she's usually a pretty nice girl. K, got in Ss' face and S ended up biting her nose and making teeth marks. Little did we know we were on the wrong train. K ended up running off into the night, even though we tried to keep her on the train. I only had my debit, it was 2 in the morning S had no money. And we were stuck, had to get off the train in freezing weather, no idea where we were and no way to get home. No one to call. K was the only one with money. She took a cab back to the university and stayed with the guys.

We called the police and they took us to my dads place. S got on a plane the next morning after the worst birthday of her life. When I called K the next day to make sure she got back safely all she could say (rudely and sarcastically) "Yah, a 30 dollar cab ride later." ...What I would have given for a 30 dollar cab ride....

Any ways after everyone went home, I was too miserable and depressed to go back to work, I just slept on the couch for a week straight blaming my bad luck with men on my weight and my looks. Well I decided that I was going to become accountible for myself, how I looked and how I felt. I got a new job at a gym, I walked 45 minutes uphill in the snow everyday and worked out. A year and a half later, I'm 25 pounds lighter, less than what I weighed in highschool, I'm constantly getting catcalls from men, and I have a boyfriend who has been there since almost the beginning of my journey. He loved me then, but he REALLY REALLY loves me now. ;) I learned how to respect my body, and thus gained a great amount of self-respect which is reflected in the people around me. It changed me spiritually and morally. I make my decisions based on what I think a person I respect would do, with honesty and Integrity, and I will never allow someone else to make me feel like less than what I am. I saw all that was wrong with people, in that one ex-friend, and I promised that I would never do that to someone else. So in a way I have her to thank for my transformation... can't wait for her to see me now.

I grew up as a fat child in a household where bread, candy, potato chips, cookies, butter, cheese and sugary sodas abound and exercise meant taking a leisurely walk around the block every other week. My father took extra care to inform me that I was fat and as such, a failure and a disgrace, although he made no active attempt to educate me about healthier options (save the occasional joke about my size at family gatherings).

Having never exercised I was a clumsy and insecure child who lived in her imagination. I matured into a fat nerd (5'4", 159 lbs) who detested the mere idea of moving her body and "loved food like it was an actual person" (I admit to stealing that expression, but it describes me so well). It wasn't until I moved out on my on at age 16 and unconsciously  made minor, barely noticeable changes to my diet that the pounds started coming off. During a period of four years I dropped down to 130 lbs without any active effort, but my body image and self-esteem did not rise proportionately.

I'd been paying attention to my diet for years, eating only whole grains, fresh vegetables and fruit, cutting all sugar, all salt, added fat and animal products. In the summer of 2007 I went through a brief period of orthorexia, where my life mainly revolved around eating brown rice and learning about the benefits of different types of seaweed..

But it wasn't until this April that I finally woke up. I'd bought a skirt online and was trying it on and only barely got it dragged over my hips. The zipper did close around my waist, but the fit was all wrong even though the skirt was my usual size 8. I wasn't comfortable with the idea of going one size up, so I stormed to the nearest gym, bought a membership for the entire year and hit the elliptical trainer the very same evening.

In retrospect it's hilarious. Turns out that the skirt I bought was italian, so it was actually a European size 4, way too small for me. I'm still amazed I can squeeze into it, the fabric does not stretch one single bit. I hadn't gained a dress size, if anything I had shrunk! Alas, the realization came too late: I was already addicted to exercise.

My father died at the age of 55 of heart desease in January.  Well it was the procedure that killed him really.  They couldn't do the angeoplasty because his artieries were to thin. But, they thought they could go in and put in shunts so that he could at least breath better when  he was trying to sleep.  They were only suppose to do one.  They got that one done and thought they could do a second.  As they were putting the shunt in place a large blood clot came through the main valve and that was all she wrote.  Apparently the doctor knocked it loose while he was putting in the second shunt.

Then in may my husband had an accident with the industrial glue at work.  The thing blew up in his face and he got some of it in his eye.  When he got on the scale at the eye doctors, they said he weighed 315 lbs.  He freaked. 

So we bought a scale.  I got on it and weighed nearly 200 lbs and it was my turn to freak.  Even pregnate with a nearly 10 lb baby I never weighed that much.  With Daddy dieing I decided the weight had to go.   So we both have been trying to lose weight since June 1st.  Ive lost nine lbs.  He has lost 4.  He isn't happy but we are working on figuring out whats going on with him.

My weight has been increasing each year for the last 10 years.  I used to be very active and could eat anything anytime.  Then with my career I found myself at an office desk or behind the wheel of a car... can't eat everything in sight anymore.

Last year I watched a customer count calories and drop from 220lbs to 160lbs and she looked great, had all the confidence in the world, and I was very envious (and proud of her) She gave me her old calore book and I started and lost 20lbs. 

But with some problems last year, I stopped, began eating a lot of comfort food, and gained back 25 lbs. :(

A great co-worker found this site and shared it with me, and I can't thank her enough!  I am back on track, down 9lbs in less than 2 months, and love the fact that I can do this online!  Trying to write it all down in a book and look it up in another book was hard to do daily, but this site is fabulous!!

Best wishes to everyone with their 'marathon'!!

I wanted to run faster and without injury.  I was emtionally ready to take on the long journey vs. finding the quick fix.  I am only losing 0.5lb/week, but that is fine - it is progress.

For me, I've never really taken good care of my body and I think my self esteem was pretty low because of it. I was an OK weight, a little heavy, but I was eating junk all the time and never exercised. For me the factor was my mom offering to go on a diet with me- it made it OK for me to care about my weight. Oh, and I want to go back to college skinny enough to wear a bikini like all the other girls there! Freshman year I was too self conscious to wear a bathing suit and go to the beach with my suitemates, and that sucked..

For me it was my health...I was having trouble swallowing food...and would choke all the time...so when I saw the weight on the scale I said I needed to make a change...and I did.

I had lost about 50 lbs 4 years ago on my own. I was slowly gaining it back, and falling back into poor eating habits. It was getting to the point where I had almost gained 50% of the weight back, so I knew I had to make a decision.

But honestly, what really got me to start is that I was looking through Firefox addons and I saw the one that puts the Eat Meter on your browser, and that looked pretty cool, so I thought I'd give it a shot. This was at the beginning of July, and so far it is working out great!

I recently went back home for the first time in a decade.  I really didn't want to be fat when I went, but I never got the motivation to get started.

That is, until I saw a picture of myself next to my skinny sister playing in the ocean.  All this time I thought I was "just a bit overweight" but the woman in that picture was fat!  That did it.  When I found CC (happily by accident) I discovered that I also wanted to be healthy and eat healthy, but that motivation wasn't realized until after I started CC and started really thinking about what I was doing.

Safiyah

When my exboyfriend gave me a hug and I felt huge. That made me remember that I loved my body a few years back.

My husband surprised me on our 9th anniversary with the news that for our 10th we would be going to Cancun.  I imagined myself spending a lot of time in a bathing suit and wanted to look a bit better before then.

Well I knew I had gained quite a bit of weight when I quit smoking, but I had no idea how much.  Then I went from a medical secretary position to a regular office position and couldn't wear scrubs anymore.  I went to the store to buy new clothes and nothing fit!  I had to go to a big girl's store for the first time in my life!  I knew that I needed to make changes, but was still going about it all wrong.  Finally when my husband and I applied for life insurance and they did a physical, I had to be weighed and it came out as 200 pounds!  That's when I finally started working at it,

I'm going to Maui on September 5th with my boyfriend. I just wanna have a flat tummy and finally be 100% comfortable in a swimsuit..

These threads pop up every so often and I just LOVE them.  I call it my 'light-bulb moment'.  It is so inspirational to hear what got people started.  Here is my story.

I had my 'light bulb' moment January 2007, I weighed 115kg, or 253lb.  On November 24th 2006 my doctor told me that I had cancer, a rare form of tumor which grows in the stomach, and I was booked in for surgery the next week.  That night when I got home, my Mum rang me asking if I could talk to Dad, he had fallen while going for a walk the week before and he had had increasing neck pain over the week. It turned out that Dad had broken his neck.  Dad’s condition went from bad to worse, and within 3 days he was ventilated in ICU and not expected to live.  I had my surgery on Friday, and flew down to visit Dad on Monday.  He had been in a coma for 4 days, not responsive to anything, until I came down.  The first thing he remembered was me yabbering away to him telling him he needed to live.  And he did! 18 months later he is back at work, with no residual problems.  He is a walking miracle. 

Which leads me back to my story.  I had two tumors in my stomach, one which was malignant, the other they thought was not.  They only removed one tumor.  Then the Dr rang me to tell me that they were afraid that they may have removed the wrong tumor.  Just what I needed to hear.  Unfortunately they could not do the gastroscopy until March because I had too many anesthetics in such a short time. Which brings me to January 2007.  I was feeling very sorry for myself.  What is the point of watching what I eat if I am going to die in 6 months anyway?  After I sat down and listened to what I was saying to myself, and thought that how pathetic I was being.  I should get as healthy as possible to make the most of the time I had left.  That day I joined the gym, and vowed to follow a healthy diet.  In March, the gastroscopy showed that they had removed the correct tumor, and repeat pathology showed that the tumor was only in the very early stages of cancer, it had been completely removed, and I was cancer free!

So here I was, had been given my life back, what should I do with it? And thus, the new "me" has worked to become as healthy and fit as possible.  To date, I have lost 30kg, or 63lb.  It is remarkable that I have been able to keep it up.  I have never been able to stick to a diet, I always cheated, often within the first day, so I am really proud of myself.  I would like to get down to at least 65kg, and I am going to do it.

Hi, my journey started on July 30th 2007.  That was the day my doctor told me I was a Type 2 Diabetic.  I knew I had several of the risk factors but I was shocked when I got the news.  Looking back I now know I had symptoms that were not just related to my weight slowing me down. 

If I wanted to live a long and good life, I was going to have to make some serious changes.  My first two challenges were weight and smoking.  I knew that if I was going to succeed, I was going to have to make a life style changes not simply diet and stop smoking.  After all I had done that countless times before with no lasting success.  The third change was becoming active.  My dedication to the couch had to come to an end.

Well a year has passed and I am pleased to report that I have been extremely happy with my progress so far.   I have lost over 90# from my July starting weigh (over 107# if you use the  highest weight recorded in the doctor's office), stopped smoking over 350 days ago, had a running time of 1h 42min for a 1/2 marathon and a running time of 3h 53 minutes for 40.5 km.  I also went water-skiing for the first time in my life.

 The secret to my success so far as been to learn everything I can about diabetes, incorporate changes into my life style, join CC, log my progress and activities daily and adopt the mantra "No Excuses, No Excuses"  The last one proved to be the most difficult but also the most motivating.

My goals now are to keep within 5# of my goal weight, continue to log my progress and activities on CC and run a full marathon in October 2008.