# Your "Tipping Point"



## chanteuse (May 30, 2014)

Care to share what eventually prompted you to change your eating habit and/or to start working out?

Was this tipping point enough to keep you on the healthy path??


Thanks for your sharing and encouragement


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## ThreadDeath (Oct 28, 2014)

Well, frankly I haven't yet reached mine. I doubt anything less serious than the first major heart attack could be strong enough an incentive for me to begin pursuing a healthier lifestyle --and even then, such a shift would be ill-fated, were I lucky enough to survive. Being the intrinsically shortsighted being I am --and while I objectively know I will regret it sooner or later-- I couldn't care less about my physical well-being at present. Heck, my body seemingly still functions today, and there are infinite more exciting and potentially meaningful activities in this world I could engage in and goals I could set than "wasting" time, struggling, day after day, to maintain this flawed piece of "machinery" in working state for another decade or two. The most radical change I've committed myself to thus far, was a 40-day _Master Cleanse_ experiment of mine 2 years ago, when one day I realized I'd reached 100 kg and couldn't fit into my jeans anymore. It went pretty well; I lost over 30 kg and attempted to quit smoking for the first time since I'd taken it up in my teens. Needless to say, I started anew once I once again was allowed to take my first sip of caffeine; most of the lost weight begun creeping back after a while as well, as I obviously hardly even tried to stay on track after the fasting was over. Admittedly though, it was a refreshing change, albeit short-term.

By the way, good luck! :happy:


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## SoulScream (Sep 17, 2012)

Well for the most part of my life I didn't really care about my health. I started smoking when I was 13, never really refused any type of food (even though I have never been really fat) so on and so forth.

First thing was that my lungs started to refuse working properly because of the amounts of cigarettes and weed I was smoking. I couldn't take a drag without coughing. I will spare you the disgusting details of every morning cough. It was really unpleasant. That wasn't enough though. Also I was always feeling bloated and shit (from the dairy products as it turned out). I had no energy and there were some constant pains in my back and legs. Basically I was feeling like a ruin most of the time. 

As the information junkie that I am with really strong sense of "right" and "wrong" I got exposed to a lot of information about animal farming. It made me reduce the amount of animal products I consume but it wasn't enough to make me change. Then I got exposed to information about additives in foods, what they are made of and how unhealthy a lot of them are. The tipping point though was when this girl I know managed to convince me to stop all animal products for 10 days just to see what will happen. She was blasting me with a lot of information about vegan stuff at the time and since all of it resonated well with what I had been previously exposed to I decided to try. Best decision of my life. My body started feeling better in 3-4 days. Even though that wasn't exactly long ago I don't see why I would revert to an unhealthier lifestyle. Even though I usually have problems doing changes sudden changes like that and sticking to them this thing came really natural to me. It also gave me the energy to persist doing exercises (nothing major but I never managed to stick with those back in the day). 

Anyway now I am feeling as it was said in one song "well I got four words for 'em - I'm the fucking man!". Maybe it is rarer to have such a strong effect on body and mind but the way healthier lifestyle helped me .. it's impressive. 

Good luck on your path :} Hope my rambling helped


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## Loaf (Mar 27, 2014)

I cant say when it was (sometime after 30th birthday), but I don't know, I just kinda noticed a drop in my overall health, and took stock of my age, and everything else, and just decided to change my habits. But saying that I'm not a calorie counter or anything, I just cut out fizzy drinks, dropped my alcohol consumption, and chose healthier snacks like fruit and nuts (obviously still eat chocolate and other sweet stuff, just not as much), and portion control I suppose. But I do still eat the things I like.
Also started working out regularly, and walking and cycling to places instead of using car or taxi/bus all the time.


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## aef8234 (Feb 18, 2012)

Getting wombo combo'ed by my ex after breaking up in front of everyone.
Best way to piss off someone like her would be to beat her down in a boxing ring.
So I did.
Promptly flipped off everyone in the gym afterwards.

Liked feeling nice, so I got a magnetic weight set for the room I had at a "party bus", went on an extreme sports binge from dirt biking <I have no idea how to drive, sooo>, to rock climbing, and then ending in parkour, since I live in a suburban enviroment full of abandoned buildings - meaning closest areas, not to mention someone was paying me to map out the county.

Got bored of extreme sports decided to go back into Martial Arts, ended up doing some weird things with some monks, blah blah blah explosions, blah blah blah exposition. Got bored and left.

Broke my left leg after being thrown off a building, got depressed due to helplessness and breaking speech by someone, tried to kill self by jumping off a cliff into some oceany things where some houses sank, survival instincts kicked in so I failed, one of my friends found out, blah blah blah support and help blah blah blah didn't help that my left leg healed weird so my weight shifted to my right and it took too long to compensate so I got lazy.

Five years and all my friends gone later, I'm bored, and apparently the physical activity helped with said boredom, sooo getting back into it slowly. 
Still not used to my left leg being weaker though, so I'm taking it very slowly.


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## nonnaci (Sep 25, 2011)

Numbness sensation in one of toes told me to change my diet (cut sugar) and get in shape.


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## Zster (Mar 7, 2011)

Two bulging lumbo-sacral intervertebral discs causing sciatic nerve impingement. I go symptom free if I maitain a certain weight and level of fitness. As soon as I start to slip, the shooting pain in my leg resumes.


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## hailfire (Dec 16, 2012)

Realized how weak I was in my upper body asides from finding it was time to add a new hobby to the list, so I took it as a challenge and started strength training in September. Also figured it wouldn't hurt on an aesthetic level even though I've never been fat (or skinny-fat). Though I didn't think once about doing it for my health lol, and I'd be shitting you if I said otherwise. I just consider that an added bonus of sorts and probably an excuse to continue my "not going to the doctor" streak. But hey, turns out I really like doing it, it makes me feel good, and it curbs some of my impulses a bit. Also turns out that the times when I have been more vaguely unhappy was when I was more sedentary (12 or 13 to ~18).

Read: Feeding inner competitiveness, for a new activity, and vanity are great motivators for starting to work out.


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## EndsOfTheEarth (Mar 14, 2015)

When walking up a moderate incline caused my pulse to thunder and I got a repetitive strain injury at work I decided I had to change. I took up daily Yoga, and it made all the difference in the world. I had sorted my diet about a decade earlier when I discovered that a daily diet of steamed vegetables and proteins with dairy for garnish works best for me. I never have to worry about weight gain that way. But what I lacked now was core strength, balance and flexibility. Repetitive movements at work cause high levels of injury for people in my profession. and most of those injuries are a result of poor posture and movement technique. I also needed meditation for my mental health so took up yoga.


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## Twonafish (Apr 24, 2015)

Extreme tiredness in everything I do. I worked on 7 hours of sleep, no problem. Lately, however, I realized I'm sleeping in too much, my body gets tired even after a short walk, I feel like complaining 24/7. I don't get anything done and I started procrastinating. 

I realized I hadn't achieved anything in the past few years or so, just dragged by the current. I wanted to take charge.

Nobody likes a rain cloud, I don't like being a rain cloud. So here I am now.


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## chickydoda (Feb 12, 2010)

I was having fast food 2-5x a week and got up to 125 kilos. I was living in a hostel with three flights of stairs, and I would find myself wheezing and feeling dizzy after reaching the top of them. I would lie down in bed, and roll over and suddenly not be able to breathe. I would wake up in the middle of the night choking. These things really freaked me out. I think I had sleep apnea (it sometimes happens when your neck is over a certain size). I moved cities and took up my mothers offer of a personal trainer. After a few months of struggling to eat healthy, I got a meal plan from a nutritionist. I have lost 13 kilos. I still have a long way to go, but the things that made me want to lose weight no longer happen. I also came across a thread here about lifting weights, and I wanted to give it a go.


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## ninjahitsawall (Feb 1, 2013)

I have degrees of tipping points. I think I have yet to reach one that has made me hardcore enough to have a regular, set workout routine. Peer pressure is helpful for wanting to improve your fitness, but only to the extent the people you're comparing yourself to also seem healthy, and not just bodybuilding or whatever because of vanity and going extreme with it. I tend to overthink these things so I look for health benefits of different muscle/fat ratios, aerobic vs anaerobic exercise, etc. When I see clear evidence of health benefits for specific routines or types of exercise, that motivates me as well. Ideally I'd be able to pay a personal trainer help me put things together that work best for me. I have some idea but I'm constantly looking to refine that.

I am pretty lazy about aerobic mostly because I grew up in the Northeast and walking and all of that is promoted so much I got sick of it. I do it as an obligation. I much prefer feeling the burn. I guess pain is also motivating, as they say it's weakness leaving the body.  In general, I hate doing repetitive things and feeling like I'm going nowhere. I like to have goals and they have to be at least somewhat challenging.


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## Tridentus (Dec 14, 2009)

When I realised I felt like I couldn't get the girls I used to anymore. My social confidence was similar, and yet I felt like I was in a league below what I used to be.

I like to think I'm quite attractive when slim, but I'd gained weight over the last 4 years due to going out drinking and getting takeaways to the point I was getting linked with girls who were far below what I used to. I was never going to be happy in a relationship with these girls, so I had a choice, get in shape, or settle for unhappy relationships.

I'm pretty lean now to the point I feel I'm quite cute again, and I'm about to start my big bulking faze in the gym. It feels damn good.


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## DemonAbyss10 (Oct 28, 2010)

there was no tipping point for me, I simply got bored of the same old same old.


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## Fleetfoot (May 9, 2011)

I didn't like how I felt like I was ageing. I probably am, but I couldn't do things like I used to when I was physically peaked at 19. Working out and only eating meat once a week and good food makes my body crack less and makes me feel less like I'm dying.


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## MJC (Mar 1, 2015)

Got a little soft around my JR year of college..real depressed for a lot of the school year. 

Anyway, I just started going to the gym..


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