Wow what an emotional thread! Well done to all of you for getting to where you are now. [round of applause!!]
Me? well... to start off with I come from a family of 'larger' people. My gran was 25 stone when she died, the smallest I remember my dad being when I was a kiddie was about 18 stone. He got to about 28 stone at his largest. My mum has never been less than 12 stone, and both my brothers are up and down the scales anywhere between 13 stone and 18 stone and back again.
As a teenager I was a size 14 and basically went up from there. I got pregnant on the pill at 16 years old and thats when I put my first load of weight on. I lost some and got down to about 11 stone and then pregnant again, up went the scales. I eventually reached 21 and a half stone. This is about 12 years ago. I joined slimming world then for the first time and lost 9 stone. By this point everyone was telling me how good I looked, and that I didn't really want to be losing much more weight, although the scales said I should.. I stopped going to class.
In 2006 I got pregnant again (shock at 36 yrs old and my youngest at the time was 15 yrs old!) but when I had the baby I actually weighed less than when I got pregnant. I was soooo pleased. I could get in clothes I hadn't worn for a long time.
Complcency set in and a hubby who just munched continually put me back on the wrong track and up went the weight again. Nearly 3 stone in 3 years. The worst of it is that I had put almost all of the 9 stone I lost, back on. I was so gutted and absolutely horrified at myself for doing it.
I have a condition called Fibromyalgia (FM) which is similar to arthritis but it's in the muscles. I was diagnosed with it when I was slimmer after I'd lost the 9 stone, but the bigger I got the more I was affected by it. I went to see the dr one day when I could barely move because of the FM. It wasn't my usual dr, but he said (patting my arm.. grrr) with no disrespect, you are a still a young woman (I was 40 last July) but you are very overweight. You need to lose this weight before you are 50 or you are going to be stuck with it for the rest of your life. You have 10 years to shape the rest of your life. I went home angry and upset but he was right, but I wanted to ignore him. It obviously festered in my brain for a while subconsciously. I took my 3 yr old to her gymnastics class and had some time to kill. I went to Sainsbury's close by to get a magazine to read and it was really weird because as I walked to the mag section looking for a photography mag, all I could see was the slimming world mag. It sort of leapt out of the stand at me. I bought it, went and got a coffee and read it while waiting for my daughter. What's even more strange is that the first success story was about a lady who had lost a good deal of weight and she had fibromyalgia too. I decided there and then that I was joining SW in the morning, as I knew there was a class the next morning. And off I went. That was 7 weeks ago, I've now lost 1 stone 6 pounds and although I've got a long way to go still, I have to keep going because I just can't be this size for the rest of my life.