A couple of weeks ago, Hilary at Tiny Glow asked the question, “How did you finally jump into weight loss?” In my comment there (which was more like a novella than a comment) I described some of what motivated me to finally make this commitment and I’ve been wanting to copy (and add to) those thoughts here on my blog.

The start to my journey was a long time in the making. I had several “false starts” along the way where I wanted to do it, made a crappy attempt and gave up after a week or two. Most people who’ve been successful at losing weight can tell you when their “a-ha!” moment was; I had several.

  • Watching the story of Renee Williams, the “half-ton mom” on TLC really got to me. She finally got the help she so desperately needed; after begging for years and then tragically (ironically) died anyway from a heart attack. I was nowhere near her size, but could have gotten there had I not made a change. Would I someday be bedridden? Would I someday have to be cut out from my home?

  • Then I saw Robert, a contestant on Hell’s Kitchen, who was also obese and had to leave the show because he was having heart trouble. The timing was unbelievable, because I,too had been having chest pains for a few days prior to watching that episode. After watching it though I was scared enough to go to the hospital and get checked out. They told me I had Pleurisy. Even with all that in mind and knowing that my mother is a diabetic w/heart problems and my grandfather DIED from a heart attack, I STILL wasn’t ready to take the plunge. Or I was ready, but I hadn’t DECIDED. Would I become a diabetic myself? Was I already a diabetic and didn’t know it?

  • Then I realized my 35th birthday was fast approaching and I still hadn’t even accomplished all the things I had hoped to have had accomplished before my 30TH birthday! My weight was holding me back – and I knew it. Would I let another 5 years go by without making a change? or a decade?

  • Then my sister began dieting and working out and a funny thing happened. She was losing weight! I started to see her collar bone and facial definition that I hadn’t seen in her for a long time. She was transforming before my eyes and I started to wonder “what would *I* look like without this weight?”. So at this point I knew I wanted to “diet” but which one? What kind of exercise would I do? How could I balance that with a full time job and 2 children? I had a lot of questions.

  • So, I did what I always do when I have more questions than answers – I hit the net. What I found were a plethora of blogs and articles with more than enough answers for my questions, but even more importantly than that, were the people behind them. People who had started at twice my weight and now weigh less than me. People who had more kids than I do and lost 100 more pounds than I need to lose. People who also worked full time but didn’t let that stop them from making the commitment. People who had health conditions and still lost hundreds of pounds. People who used to be inactive (like me) actually become ATHLETES. People whose stories were so inspiring that, for once in my life, I actually felt motivated to *DO* it instead of *WISH* I were doing it. I just thought, if these people can do it, I have no more excuses. And that was when I decided to do it.

Did you have an “A-ha!” moment (or several, like me)? I’d love to hear what motivated others to finally make the commitment.