What was your trigger?

This is a great thread!

I've been overweight all my adult life, although I was very thin until I had my first child at 18. I'm a stress eater, and my life was one big ball of stress. Finally, a few years ago, my middle daughter got married, and I saw pictures of myself at her wedding--it was just embarrassing. About that time, I was diagnosed with diabetes (blood glucose readings of over 600) and high blood pressure. THEN my mother and my ex-husband had strokes. So I scratched my head, got my brain moving a bit, and realized I'd be next if I didn't DO something.

It was still a very slow process actually getting started losing weight. The meds I was taking for the diabetes actually made me gain weight, and the wild fluctuations in my blood sugar made it very hard to lose. Finally, I found a book called Reversing Diabetes by Julian Whitaker, and it changed my life. It told me that the standard diabetic diet would not work--it certainly hadn't for me--and that the diet and the meds could kill me. I'm a trained researcher, so I verified everything I read and finally made the scariest decision of my life: I turned my back on my doctor's advice and followed the diet in the book. Within three weeks, I was off my meds and losing weight. I lost 45 pounds in 5 months and got completely off all my meds, all without telling my doc (I don't recommend this approach to others :p ). When I finally told him, he told me to keep doing whatever I was doing because it was working.

However, shortly after that, my husband had a stroke and brain surgery, I got sick and eventually had congestive heart failure, and my daughter's house burned down; she and her family lost everything. That old stress eating reared its ugly head, and I regained 30.5 pounds.

Then, as I was cleaning out a closet, I came across "The Book" again, and here I am--1.5 pounds lighter already and getting back on track :)
 
I've had many triggers along the way but this time around it was something a friend said to me. She had recently lost a lot of weight and I told her I wanted to get down to 140 for my wedding in August. She told me straight out I could never do it - that I couldn't stay motivated and wouldn't be as strict as I would need to be. So I am going to prove her wrong and get down to 140 and I can't wait to see the look on her face when I get there!
 
Turning 30. Yikes. I didn't want to wake up on my 30th birthday and feel as bad about my body as I did all throughout my 20's (and teens...and adolescence...).
 
I never really had a trigger....

I always accepted that I was "fat" and their was "nothing" I could do about it.......

One day , my sister asked me to go with her to a boxing class....I went and actually enjoyed the sleep I got afterwards...I slept great and felt really good.....I continued to go to the boxing classes , just because I enjoyed the good feeling I got after ........and I never dieted and weight loss never even entered my mind...


A month after doing the class , I weighed myself and saw I had lost 10kg/s without even "trying" to diet...I was amazed that I actually had lost soo much weight!.....that was probably my trigger , I thought to myself " Damn...If I could loose 10KG/s...I can lose 50!"

and it took me about 10months -12months to go down to my lowest weight of 80KG/s from 135KG/s. I have put on about 10KG/s over the past year , but im sure its muscle as my body fat hasent really risen that much and I have been doing weight training at the gym , sitting at 15% bf atm using calipers.

Although , I find it IMPOSSIBLE to keep a constant weight ...I will always go up and down by like 5 kg/s...as soon as I hit over 90kg Im eating strict and I go back down to 85kg.....once I hit 85KG/s I relax my diet a bit....but over time it stays within that area.

still after my six pack though!
 
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my motivation began with a photo as well.. our mental images of ourselves is nothing like how we really appear! so a nice unrehearsed shot of you opening a Christmas gift can really make one aware.

i was a thin child but ever since my teens I've been very hyper aware/self conscious/uncomfortable with my body. growing up, any change in weight was met with criticism. like "you are getting TOO THIN are you ok? are you anorexic? are you doing drugs?" uh no I'm just tired of being chubby THANKS.

well now I'm on my own so i don't have to live with perceptive confusion. i know i want to be thin and how thin i want to be.

my motivation stays consistent because i will forever remain sensitive and shy about my body and will be until the fat is gone. i don't want to feel this way forever. i want confidence and to feel good about myself and maybe even look cute to someone. and number one, to be super healthy!

so thats what keeps me going. also my bfriend im so so so lucky to have him.

I've recently become stricter on my eating (it's really holding back the weight loss, i didnt seem to realize how bad i've been) i hope i see a change I've been stuck at the same weight for months! i wish i could just go to a boot camp or something to get ma ass kicked.
 
Well my trigger was a simple one really, my husband died.

I had always been big but always active and exercised but never seemed able to shift the weight, after I met my husband who loved me completely for who I was, I just sort of accepted I would never be slim. The diets I tried just didn't seem to do much and even the nurse said it was probably just my contraception. Then on valentines day 2008 my world fell apart when my husband died suddenly. In the weeks that followed I lost weight so I trotted off to the doctor to see why I hadn't been able to do it before. blood tests showed that I have PCOS and insulin resistance and had developed type 2 diabetes as a result. Once I understood how these conditions affect my body and metabolism and how I had to adjust my eating patterns (I was always a 3 meals a day, if you diet eat no snacks sort of girl. now I'm an eat 6 times a day small portions girl and my body thrives on that) I also threw in a large dose of extra exercise which also helped with the whole grief/bereavement thing and so far I have lost 76 lbs with 40/45 to go. My PCOS symptoms are a little better but my diabetes is completely controlled simply by my lifestyle ( my diabetic nurse calls me her 'special' patient, I think its a compliment?) I am purposely taking it slowly as I realise I am also adjusting to a new life as well as a new body, although my confidence has taken a beating so that is taking a little longer to surface, I'm sure it will in the end.
 
This most recent trigger?? lol

I had my son April 3rd, 2009. I had to have him one month early due to low amniotic fluid. I gained 96 pounds during my pregnancy with him and didn't even go full term. Well, I went to the store in early May 2009 and thought I would treat myself to a nice outfit because I didn't buy anything for myself during my pregnancy. Well I was grabbing XL/1X shirts and size 14/16 jeans. I went to the dressing room and NOTHING fit!!! My boyfriend kept telling me to come out so he could see the outfits and it was so embarrassing to say nothing fit me. (even though we have been together for so long, it doesn't matter though, still embarrassing) I asked him if he could get me some bigger sizes. So he brought me a 2X shirt and size 18 jeans, DIDN'T FIT!!! I was mortified to ask him for bigger sizes. He brought me a 3X shirt and size 20 jeans. The 3X shirt was tight, and the jeans I could barely button! I couldn't even get them unbottoned! I thought I was going to have to break the button off, that's how tight they were. Sooooo........yup. That was my trigger. Now I can fit a size 12 jeans and XL/1X shirt. It all depends on the brands. I'm still pushing towards my goal.
 
College coming up, didn't want to be the fat guy there. I've lost a considerable amount so far, enough that I'm not "that fat guy" but I've still got a ways to go and all these parties are definitely not helping. :p
 
I've been on this for two years now. Two years ago, I reached a crisis point because I had been exercising and I wasn't losing weight -- and I was exercising twice a day.

I had been seeing a nutritionist, I had a personal trainer, and nothing seemed to be working. I knew I had to change my life around. I started slowly. And then I figured I needed to attack the weight thing because I had PCOS and I knew that this extra weight was unsustainable for my body.

But, I think the PCOS wasn't "real" enough. I started slowly, working with a therapist, to figure out my thought patterns on food and diets. I then started to make little changes like adding more fruit and vegetables to my diet. My endo wanted me to take Meridia to help with the weightloss. Meridia works. But I wasn't ready to make the full life change. I didn't want to be on the pill either. But during the time that I was on it, I realized that my body was ready to lose weight -- it could lose weight, it was a question of eating less calories, there was no other "magic" to it.

Recently I was hospitalized for my pancreas, and after seeing doctors and doing my own research, I know that the only way to get better is to change my diet and that's what I've been doing now for a little while.

I know that I wasn't going to change my diet in order to be more attractive -- I wish that was enough for me. But I'm stubborn and I wanted people to love me for who I am, not for what I look like.

Now that the health issues are more serious, it's the one driving factor and motivator that has actually worked better than the exercising or the Meridia.

I guess to sum it up it took a serious medical issue to make this "real" for me and to make me see that my body can only take so much before it's going to wear out.
 
Mine was because of this girl I liked. Nothing has come about from it but, I do get a lot more attention from girls now that I weigh 174lbs rather than 246lbs
 
I knew I was slightly overweight, I didn't bother to exercise or take care of my food. All I ever did was cut down on rice but I still pile on junk food and munching them. I stole chocolate from the fridge occasionally.

I thought I looked fine until one day I measured myself with the tape and discovered I really don't like the numbers I saw. At the same time, I weight myself and I couldn't believe I was that fat.

My grandma also commented on my weight and I was sad but then I take it as a challenge to prove to her that I can do it.

One of my biggest inspiration was watching "the biggest loser". It made me appreciate my body more and be thankful that I'm still averagely okay but at the same time, it made me realize, if they can do it, so can I.
 
we'll for one, i noticed a lot of people around me losing weight, i didn't want to be the last fat person :|. another thing was my clothes were getting too tight and i really wasnt being the person i wanted to be. i tried losing weight 3 years ago but i gave up and was unmotivated and really didnt know how to loose weight effectively. i did give up soda that year for sure.

one day after being unhappy with myself i searched up how to loose weight on google and soon found out that you could control your weight just with controlling your food intake and accelerate it with exercise. after that i just started counting calories and being more active. and ive been doing that for a couple of months and i've lost more than 50 pounds :D and cant wait to reach my goal.
 
I have always been overweight. Not exactly super obese but always bigger than I should be. It has always bothered me but I guess I thought that this was just the way that I was meant to be.

Last year my mom was diagnosed with colon cancer, a friend of mine (who was just 35) died of cancer.

So after all of this I decided that I didn't want to have to deal with cancer and I thought the best way to deal with it would to be a healthier person. I started eating well and I bought a treadmill and slowly worked up to working out 5 days a week. I'm 20 lbs down at this point and have a long way to go but for the first time I'm taking care of myself first and foremost.

I have a healthier mindset and the exercise helps considerably with my depression. My husband and I are at an incredibly strong point in our marriage now too. He's even started asking me how to lose weight!
 
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Ever since I was about 10 or so I've been big (I went from super skinny little kid to overweight). I really started to balloon after high school (depression and shutting myself inside).

My biggest I have ever been was around 280 (I think -- never actually weighed myself, but it was big). I had tried dieting just before and lost some weight on atkins, but sky rocketed in weight after going off it (I didn't really know what I was doing. I followed the atkins program by my understanding of it. It was just encouraging bad habits though and making me crave sweet food like you would not believe).

I had ended up losing about 20 lbs when I moved out of my parents. I wasn't trying to diet, it just happened (tons of soda a day to hardly any).

So I started to try to diet for real. I ended up reading up on weightloss and learning all I could and it went well, but then it stopped and I gained the weight back (I was doing strength training at this time, so it was a good amount of muscle too, but fat also, though some peopel didn't even realize I had gained weight and were still asking if I had lost weight). My re-trigger is that I am just not happy with my life and a lot of it comes from being over weight.

I don't do things I would like to because my weight embarrasses me. I just hate myself for being fat in ways I can't express. I don't even really have any other fat friends, so its so tough to be around people. I can't wear nice clothes. I haven't had a girlfriend in so long its embarrassing (probably the biggest factor, Im lonely to the point of being sick sometimes and I just can't feel confident with how I look).

It wasn't any one thing, but lots of things contributed.
 
I gained weight after moving to America (from Britain) and getting addicted to an online game: Runescape. after a year or so of depression and addiction to the game, I was nearly 260 lbs at 5 foot 10. I was obese, disgusting, and I started to develop heart problems.

January 7th, 2007, I decided to try to lose weight again. It was just after the New Year, so it was sort of my resolution. I took pictures of myself topless so I could compare them with later pictures. This action led me to believe there WOULD be later pictures, and made me want to succeed.

I began walking excessively, eating way too little, and with no real knowledge of how to lose weight. I ended up hitting a plateau, and googled a weight-loss forum to get some help. This was the one I ended up going on, and have stuck with it since. The information in the stickies on this site is invaluable, and after correcting my mistakes I was back on the down in weight.

It sort of snowballed and the next thing I know I'm skinny, 6 foot 3, with a prominent jawline and women thriving for my attention. It was such a big change for me and took a lot of getting used to; but it motivated me to tone up my body and continue working on it.

I'm still in the process of building and cutting to get my ideal body, but I've come farther than I ever expected that one night I took a picture of myself in hopes of losing weight. I'm 100 lbs down in weight, probably more in fat seeing as I grew a lot.

It's changed my personality completely. Some of it is for the better, some for the worse, but ultimately I'm more happy and I feel like I have a whole new future ahead of me.
 
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As a kid, from the age of 1-11 i was scrawny, I weighed about 100-1005lb. In the next 5-6 i gained about 40lbs. I had no friends at school,so I was a sad kid who was going to food for comfort. My only friend was the gym teacher who encouraged me to take sports in highschool. When I reached high school, I've made some really good friends. In my 4 yrs of highschool I've managed to not gain(or lose) any weight. Now I'm 19yrs( a month and a half from being 20!!).
In my family, all brothers are skinny, and my parents are overweight(my mom is because she had 8 kids..soo yea, and my dad is from poor nutrition and lack of excersize).

So my trigger is scared of turning 20 and being 5-10lbs overweight. So my plan is to lose 10-20lbs before my 20th bday. My goal-weight is to 115lbs. Also, I'm trying to be a Physical Education teacher(cuz I've always loved gym class).. and it'll help me if I'm lighter.
 
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I was playing drums in a band in a packed dive bar in the heat of the summer and wanted to take off my shirt because it was so hot, but alas, I had these embarassing love handles and A-cup sized moobs. So I ended up suffering through the sweltering heat. At that point, epiphany struck me. I decided that if I can't take off my shirt on stage, I needed to do something about it. It was a rude awakening needless to say.
 
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