Many things...
 

1. Finding out I had a family history of diabetes, and knowing that I hate needles. That is one nasty disease!

2. Getting photos back where I didn't recognize myself. I felt like there was the real me lost somewhere in a blow-up doll with my face on it.

3. Having to buy a size 16 dress. How depressing!

4. Two words: double chin.

5. Having a woman come into our office touting Atkins. She said I could eat butter, cheese, nuts and meat. No frankenfoods, no fat-free nastiness and no ricecakes. I thought, that may be the first "diet" I can do!

Six months later, it is still working!

my kick in the a$$ was that i realized that I would let my husband touch me, or look at me. hell, i didn't even want to look at me. Our marraige started to go downhill. and instead of telling him the truth on why i didn't want him near me, i made up excuses that just escaladed. in short, i just stopped loving myself.

Strangely enough...it was a visit to the eye doctor...who said I needed reading glasses.
This was a kind of kick start for me with a lot of things...got a new haircut, got rid of the gray, and decided to get rid of the 30-40 pounds I keep losing...and then gaining back.
It was a kind of wakeup call about how time marches on, I guess.

Mine was a kick-start event. Last July 2002, I went to the local department store to get some new clothes for work. Well the size I remembered that fit me NO LONGER fit me! I knew I had to do something drastic and after years of low-fat/low-cal eating, low-carb eating was drastic!

I had been thinking about losing weight for over 2 years. I would think about it and make a goal date to start but it never happened--the weight just piled on in those 2 years until my birthday party at my sister's this year. Everthing went fine--ate tons of carbs and really enjoyed myself. When my brother in law e-mailed me the pictures I was shocked. On the couch was this person I did not know. She was big and very bloated looking. She was looked tired and OLD. From that day on I searched for a diet to go on and have stuck with it so far. That picture will definately be my before picture.
angie

when a collegue laughed infont of other collegues ans said that it looked as if I has three bellies instead of one. I now, thank him, because I did not realice how fat I was becoming.

I went to the doctor in June, and my blood pressure was so
high that she kept asking me if I'd been skipping taking my
medication.

I went back last week, and my BP was 113/80. I'm
still on medication, but it hasn't been that low in almost
10 years.

OK - my MIL is visiting and she takes a teeny tiny portion of dinner , looks at my plate and loudly says to my 4 year old - "see Emma this is the amount a lady should be eating"!!!

She is 5 foot 9 and 110 lbs (borderline anorexic and as neurotic as they come) and has never had a weight problem in her life other being underweight! She is the ultimate bitch... i havent seen her since I started this WOE. She is coming back this week to visit again and I do not want to discuss my diet or weight loss with her at all - as she makes me cringe!!!! She is the such a complete snob!

AT least when I was fat and now thinner I was happy - but she is the mosct miserable vain old lady I know. Anyone that still wears leapord skin leggings well into their 60s has no class as far as I am concered!

Well now thats off my chest I feel better !!!
Claire

Claire!
 

Claire,
You have got to let us know how the visit went! I would love to hear you MIL comments (if she brings it up) about how wonderful you are doing.

Cody

I had wanted to lose weight for a long time. But one day while I was in the ladies room at work I got a shot of my butt in the full length mirror! I was shocked at how wide and "flat" it was! My gosh... it was my mothers butt!!!! That day at lunch I was in Target and saw Dr. Atkins book. I bought it and I have not looked back. Although I have only lost 24 pounds in four months I feel so much better. Last weekend my daughter asked me if I was going to stay on Atkins forever. I cannot imagine going back to my old eating habits. One of my co-workers (who is about the size I was) told me last Friday that she is so proud of me for being able to stick to my diet! I told her that I cannot believe how easy Atkins is (we are having this discussion in the breakroom that has a table loaded with homemade coffee cakes and breads!) I told her that I don't even have a desire to have any of the food that was on that table. She found it hard to believe. Before Atkins I was a total sugar freak. I don't know what has come over me (Atkins! of course) but my cravings for sweets and breads are gone. My heart palpatations are almost nonexistant (except for the week before TOM, must be hormones) and I feel so much better from the inside out! I had someone at work call me skinny! I am 44 pounds away from goal but you can definitely see it. Dh has even called me "Minnie"!

Claire, that comment by your MIL really horrified me. Not just her cruelty to you, but good golly, a young girl doesn't need to hear a message like that, especially from her own grandmother. Grandmas are supposed to cherish and nurture kids, not make them feel bad about normal eating!

I hope you had a talk with your daughter about how wrong that was and how a true lady eats until she's not hungry anymore. And I hope the MIL's next visit isn't too traumatic. She sounds like a real piece of work. If she pressures you to talk about your weight loss plan, you could get your own back by just saying over and over how HEALTHY it is and how HEALTHY you feel, and how much better it is than some awful starvation diet, while giving her unhealthy figure enough skeptical looks to get the point across. I guess I'm a petty person because that's what I'd do! :)

Back on topic, my kick-start event was pretty mundane compared to the stories here. A coworker told me that he was planning to do Atkins, and talked to me a lot about how it worked. He got me thinking about how badly I had let myself go, which I didn't think about that often. (Lots of denial going on.) I thought it would be easier to do the plan if I was doing it with someone else who I saw every day. So I started on the same day as he did.

Well, I always had known how fat I was. My problem was I just didn't know what to do about it. I didn't want to attempt to lose weight improperly on a plan I knew I couldn't maintain, because I was scared of getting into that yo-yo dieting mode and ruining my metabolism/ability to lose weight.

My cousin who is very obese had lost 40 pounds just by cutting out all refined carbohydrate. She told me how I could do it to, I could lose weight. Me, lose weight? For the first time ever, I felt a low carb plan is something I could stick with and make work, so I started doing the research on atkins. I read everything on their website, the science behind it, plus pro and anti atkins material available on the web. My conclusion was, I was convinced atkins worked (the science re: insulin and processed food just made so much sense) and most anti-atkins groups were motivated by monetary greed (grain or weight loss industry agents). After I decided the insulin connection was the foundation of weight gain, and the diet was healthy and sustainable, I began a strict induction immediately.

That was over 6 months and 90 pounds ago :). The weight came off so fast I couldn't (and still can't) believe it. I couldn't believe the shakiness and ravenous hunger I had lived with all my life were just gone. I had cut my calories more than in half, and my body was still not protesting! It was as if LC caused my body to make a seamless transition to using body fat in absence of adequate dietary intake. The weight was and is just melting off, as if the refined carbs were some kind of allergen exclusively causing the weight gain.

LC really was a lifesaver, it gave me a chance for a normal healthy future.

Well, I woke up this morning and ended up going back to bed in tears.. frustrated and ready to give up... but then I came here... and of course, I'm back on track and know I can do this now...

My moment? Well, I'd been on Atkins before as prescribed my my reproductive endocrinologist (I couldn't conceive a much wanted baby)... he told me the his insulin in my body was causing my ovaries to swell... (I actually saw them on a u/s). I SO wanted another baby... so we did Atkins.. I lost 26lbs. I was happy.. and then I conceived. The obgyn I saw said it wasn't right to do low-carb while pg.. so I ate.. and as soon as I added back the breads and pastas, I started craving.. and the cravings took over.
After having my little blessing, I realised I was back to the SAME weight I was when I STARTED Atkins the first time... I just got SO depressed. I tried it half-heartedly last winter... didn't get anywhere... just more frustrated.
Then this summer.. well, I never once went in a pool...not once. I sat on the deck and watched everyone else get cool and splash and have fun... and I realised I was missing out on life... I wasn't getting to play with my kids (that I did so much fertility work to get in the first place), I wasn't happy. SO... I decided on August 25th that I was starting again. That was it....

With the exception of this morning, I have been feeling really good with it... and I've lost 15 lbs so far. I need to lose 10 more to make my goal for Thanksgiving (canadian)... and for the first time in my life, that seems plausible.

Incidentally, when I lost the weight the first time I got down to 181 when I found out I was pregnant... so.. in 10 more pounds I will be the lightest I've been in 12 years... I can't imagine how that will feel!

Blessings and thank you to everyone for sharing.. it put me back on track today.. THANK YOU!

My endo said if i didn't eat this way, i will be back to see him with diabete's like my parents within two years. Don't like needles, so i'm going with low carbing.

Several things did it for me

1. I found an old box with mementos in it, including the pair of shorts I was wearing the day I met dh. Of course I had originally put them in the box because I couldn't wear them anymore. But, I decided to try them on just to see and I got them up just above my knees and that was it. I suddenly realized that in just 8 years I'd gone up 4 (probably closer to 5) sizes. I'll probably never wear those shorts again since that was before I was 30, but at least I won't be so many sizes larger either!

2. I'm terrible about putting photos in the album. I had a real pile going and decided enough was enough. I went through them to put them in order. The first ones were of our first vacation as a married couple -- 7 years ago. And there I was looking slender. The more recent ones showed the new, overweight me. I couldn't believe how much I'd changed.

3. My dh is so lanky. He's 6' 4.5" tall and weighs 165 pounds. I suddenly realized that I weighed more than him. He said he didn't care and that he loved me just the way I am no matter what. But *I* cared.

I feel so much better. I wish dh could do Atkins but the LAST thing he needs is to lose weight. In fact, he needs to gain it but nothing seems to make him gain weight (including eating 3 or 4 bagels with cream cheese every morning for breakfast, super-sized fast food meals for lunch, and everything in site for supper!!). I am beginning to thing there's something wrong with his metabolism or something. I know he'd feel so much better without all those carbs he eats (plus it makes me sick watching him eat them LOL!!)

Julie