Please share your turning moment u decided to really wanted or need to lose weight

I was reading a few stories about reasons people decided to have WLS.. My jouney started many years ago to do weight loss surgery .. I remember I was enrolled in a emt academy and I was 295 lbs as i recalled and we had to stand up before our class of 60 people and give a spill aboit why we wanted to be a emt and then it was the class turn to give u their first impression of u .. I was the oldest and by far the fattest in the academy..of 60..I was told I would probally not make it due to my age and weight.. I was told I Had a pretty face but I was hiding behind my weight. they all were being brutelly honest with me.. Their was a point to this exercise.. we had a psychologist as one of our instructor.. This academy was a turning point in my life..there I would be requred to run do exercise and do the police academy cource..(exercise cource) I remember the day I tried to scale the 8 ft cyclone fence and I had the bruises marking of the cyclone fence in my breast.. then it was off to 8 ft wooden fence and with my academy they shove my fat butt over,, It takes team work is my point here I would be doing fire fighter trainer as well .. I wanted to quit my first week .. my second week and so on.. We were told that only 1/3 of our class would make it..and if we could not pass this miliatary style academy we had no bussiness being on ambulance. I did not want to fail .. that is when I knew I had to do something about my weight.. I remember wearing size 52 pants trauma pants.. When I graduated the class I was 263lbs and also was one of 22 people who graduated 38 people dropped out.. I was given the award as most determined and most sexist voice LOL When we graduated the program our instructors gave u the good bad and ugly about ourselves and I was told u will make one hell of a EMT and a awesome paramedic but I need to get my weight off .. and they suggested WLS.. none of them thought I would make it pass the second week .. I proved them wrong ..but if i wanted to be taken serious in a perdomiately male job I needed to be thin, I knew that point they were right and I needed help to lose over 100 if i wanted to work in medi vac (helicopter unit) I had been trained for search and resue and for medi vac.. but they cannot take a fat emt.. it was there i knew what my life calling was to be just that. So in Jan 07 I decided it was time to make my heath a number one priority and get the weight loss surgery .. and I made my goals.. and I am doing it!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never been more determed to lose weight anytime in my life tell now.. My goal some day is to write a book about the struggles of obesity and the battle we all have endured .. I hope I can share your stories (with your consent only of cource) I want to say ty to my A team members W/o the love and great support u have give me it has helped me to go on,even when i wanted to quit.. I love hearing about your wonderful WOW moments and soon we will have 2 awesome men hitting the 100 lbs loss ,, that is exciting moment.. and I am sure we will have a few ladies soon to follow I must say over the last month I have grown soooooooooo much and learned I will be there one day when I lose my 100 lbs.. Today I just realized I have lost 55 lbs.. and I have 45 lbs tell I will have lost 100 lbs... I may only lost 10 lbs from wls but I lost alot more before I got to the operating table..and gain soi much more in knowledge. Wow I am a loser ... I had to go try on my 52 trauma pants on and they fell to the floor.. I just cried ..I cannot believe I was that big LOL.. So please share what was your turning moment.. it will help alot of us .. So if any want to help me write this book let me know.. Ty everyone... U all deserve a hugs and pat on the back,, Hugs to my April team family. You guys are awesome ,, I see other boards and it seems we have a wonderful bond.. we rock!!!!!!!!!!!! Good job everyone Lisa .

I have struggled all my life with my weight. But my turning point was really 6 years ago.. But until Jan I did not have the right insurance. Well My life got really painful and I did not want to move anymore. I was not happy with my life and I did not know that it was my body that was keeping me from being happy. I would hurt every night....I could not sleep in my bed so I had to sleep on my couch, if I slept in my bed I would wake up with my legs being numb and I could not move with out it hurting. But everything I have been through, I never seen me,,,the butterfly in the coocoon. The way I feel is if you have ever heard Kenny Logins The last unicorn.... I am coming out now and life is safe and it is ok to let people see me now..... TY Lisa....I need to express now I feel.....I did not know alot of what I wrote until now.... GROUP HUG.......

I can feel your pain ,, Like we are throw aways to society as we not seen living but seen as dying tell now .. we can move much eaiser and we r really living..Again,, The pain we lived under.. we r healing one pound at a time.. I think out pain we carry is armor.. (weight) Glad u shared helps me know I am not alone. hugs Lisa

My turning point was when I realized that I was not participating in my life, but I was watching it pass me by. I have these kids and they deserve a mother that can keep up with them, and challenge them. I am now am active participant in my life and theirs. I wish you luck with the book. Keep us posted. Congratulations on your loss!!

well I guess the kids better watch out now.. mommy is back in the game LOL This book I am writing is about the pain and healing that goes on with weight loss.. How did we get here.. ? I really don't any of us woke up one morning and said I want to be morbid obease. when u r 100 plus pounds over weight we lost the reasoning skills to ourselves. We r really living again.. I bet the kids r happy their mommy is back in the game.. hugs Lisa

My turning point was when in the very first class I took towards getting my MBA. Although we are adults and we pay a significant amount of money, they still give us stupid desks and chairs to sit in. Well, midway through a class, my fat butt broke the chair. Luckily, my classmates are adults and the level of maturity in my program is quite high so people were concerned that I was ok and were very nice, but I was mortified. I never wanted to go back after that night. But I did and it took all of the strength and grace that I had in me to face all of those people week after week. And two years later, I am almost done and I am glad that I never gave up. But I will never forget the feeling ever, as long as I live.

Oh yes I forgot not fitting in the chair in school I had to haul my apron of fat to the side and when I stood up the chair came with me .. I am sure i was gonna breck the chair .. I bet u felt horrified ..I did with the desk and chair came up with me.. there I was standing at attention with my chair and desk still with me.. LOL I think so many people can identify the chair and desk at school. we have been there in some form.. I bet u can fit in there now.. and it won't breck . I remember going to nail salon and was told I was to fat to have services because they had a weihgt limit on their chairs 250 lbs... I was so embaressed to be told u r to fat.. and they pointed to the sign posted everywhere.. they were very blunt.. I remember crying and looks on the skinny people face.. I must have came home and ate my pain away.. and now that i am under their weight requirment I will never go back there to get my nails done. Ty for sharing.. I am sure u will see simular stories .. stiring up.. i can laugh at my self now but I think it it covers the crying i am doing inside.. still hugs Lisa

Oh Lisa, you always manage to crack me up, through the tears, of course. Yes, those stupid desks...I can totally relate. Last year I always made sure to get to night class early so I could find a regular chair for myself before the one other fat chick got there first, and turn a desk/chair around and just use it as a table. It was so embarrassing. And yes, I once couldn't find a chair and wedged myself into the desk, and when I stood up, it came with me, too! Aargh! One of my turning points was when I was in a coffee shop and one of my chair leg**** a rotten knot in the wood floor. My whole chair fell to the ground and wrenched up an entire floor board. I jumped up and felt compelled to laugh it off with some dumb joke to all of the patrons who saw it happen. They had to rope off the area and replace the whole floor in the corner. I wanted to die. My friend claims that it could have happened to anyone, but I doubt it-being nearly 300 lbs. couldn't have helped. But my biggest turning point, when I realize my quality of life wasn't where it needed to be, was when I took a trip to NYC and struggled the whole time with trying to walk. I could only walk a block at a time and had to keep finding places to sit and rest. My friends were kind about it because I told them I had a "blister", but it was a total disaster and I couldn't fool myself any longer. Thank goodness that's all behind me now!

I weighed 10 pounds when I was born and it never stopped. I had a brief respite in the late 80's when I was a size 10/12 after losing 88 lbs on Weigh****chers then turning around and finding it all again. Later in the mid-90's I did the coca-cola and cigarettes post-divorce diet and got down to a size 14, but promptly regained it when I realized how much better life was without my ex-husband, lol. After a lifetime of fat-dom, pain and realizing I would die sooner than later because of high blood pressure that was not responding to meds (tried five prescriptions before finding one that worked to bring it down to "less scary" scale)I researched WLS for seven long years, finally wanting to go forward in the Fall of 2005, but our insurance totally excluded WLS of any type and I did not have the strength to fight. We changed insurance in summer 2006 and it did cover WLS, but we bought a house and stuff got in the way. My January 2007 resolution was to move forward with WLS and by April I was on the table. Good, bad or indifferent, I am lucky, grateful and glad to have had WLS. Inky

I know my situation is a bit different from some I was very thin up until I was about 23 and at some points in my life I was very underweight. I suddenly started putting on weight at a very rapid pase after I had the Depoprevara shot. My body does not respond to hormones well and I ballooned up to about 170lbs. When I got married at 25 I weighed 185lbs and I was very depressed about it. It went up from there, I got pregnant at 27 and lost the baby at 13 weeks, and food was my only friend. I then got pregnant with my 4 year old and at 24 weeks was told I had to stay in bed or both of us would probably not survive. I weighed 230lbs at that point, when my son was born at 40 weeks after 16 weeks of bedrest I weigh 265. Thankfully I lost most of it and was back to 230lbs when my son was about 4 months old. That's when I found out I was pregant with my 3 year old. Sadly I once again was placed on bed rest and again my weight went up from there. I didn't loose any weight this time and my ex loved telling me how fat I was. I was in cronic pain due to Fibro and bad back, my knees always hurt etc. I wanted to do wls surgery about 2 years ago but we didn't have insurance at that time. So when my company started health care last October I decided to look into some places around that do wls. I decided in January to go with UIHC because they were close and they are the place where wls was first done ever. They founded wls many many years ago. After a nasty divorce that came to an end in October, and the loss of one of the most precious people on earth to me and a few other life altering experiences I decided 2007 would be my year. I had my first appointment on my birthday and it all went on from there. So far this has been a great year. I have had a few rough times but for the most part it has been a fantastic year. I think writing a book is a great idea.