What was your spark of motivation?

[IMUnaware]

I act, so for me it was a casting thing.

I auditioned for this play, "And Then There Were None" (also known as Ten Little Indians) by Agatha Christie. I had done the play in highschool and I was kind of excited to do it again as an adult. There are two really good roles for people in my age range (I'm almost 38 but can play as young as late 20's on a big stage). The character descriptions were:

Phillip Lombard: "An attractive lean man of 34, well tanned, with a touch of adventure about him."

William Blore: "A middle age thick-set man."

I played Lombard in high school. Guess which part I got this time?

Acting can be brutal. You're constantly being judged and put into categories. Other people are constantly deciding if you "fit" for a certain look they want for the role (which is not a bad thing, but that's another post yadda yadda). Now it wasn't all bad. In fact, Blore is probably much more fun as a role. But I knew that if I wanted an opportunity to play lead roles instead of comic characters/best friends etc that I needed to lose weight. For agatha christie it's not that big a deal, but hey, I'd like to play Marc Antony or Coriolanus before I get too old, and if you're going to play a warrior, you have to LOOK like a warrior.

[Robot_Monerz]

I stepped on the scale a few years ago and it read 194. That absolutely blew me away! I knew I had to get my life in order then. There was no way I was going to let myself weigh more than 200 lbs.

I knew that I needed to be healthier before getting on the scale. I noticed that my clothes kept going up a size every few months, but I didn't think it was THAT BAD. I thought I ate OK as well. I was in denial, not only about my physical health, but mental health as well. I was definitely not happy with myself as much as I convinced myself that I was OK.

Over the next couple years, I managed to lose about 50 lbs. There were tons of ups and downs along the way, but in the end I was eating healthy and being active. I told myself I would NEVER let myself get that way again.

The sad part is, I kind of did. I injured my knees a couple years ago, and let that become an excuse to stop going to the gym. I kept eating as if I was working out though, if not worse! I gained 20 lbs since then. I just had another, "What the **** are you doing?" moment. I told myself that I am not going to go back to what it was like before. I need to get back into shape!

[Avistew]

My boyfriend is American and I'm French. For the past little while, I've been moving between the two countries, staying in the US for as long as my latest visa allowed me to, going back to France until I was allowed back. Typically it's six months in France, either three or six months in the US.

Now, I always weight myself when I arrived in one of the countries. It seemed funny to me that I was always ten pounds heavier in the US than in France, without changing my diet or habits as far as I could tell. I attributed that to the fact that food is processed more in the US, and that I would walk less and drive more.

Anyways, I was used to being 150lbs in France and 160lbs in the US, and although I knew I wasn't as fit or healthy as I could be, it didn't seem so bad. It would always take about a month to re-reach the weight once I changed countries, but then it would stay there.

My latest stay in the US was different, though. It was my first (and so far only) time being able to stay six months rather than three. I weighed myself towards the end... and I was 179lbs. 30 pounds heavier than my French weight.

I had lots of other reasons to lose weight, but that's when I realised that I had to change my habits. There is healthy food in the US, there are opportunities to be active. I was just being lazy.

Once I got back to France, I made the decision to improve myself as much as I could, so that next time my boyfriend saw me, I would be as healthy as I could, or on the way there. He makes me want to be the best I can.

The good news is that I motivated him to do the same He hasn't been working out yet because he has a torn rotator cuff and his doctor has prohibited any exercise (except for the rehabilitation therapy), but he's been watching his diet and we registered on myfitnesspal together recently (only been there a week although I've been losing weight and getting more active since late April).

[Spicy]

The first real spark was when I started taking classes for web development.

I would see these other guys come into class and they were all easily over 300 lbs carrying in the huge 64oz. QT cups full of Coke and Mountain Dew. Then pulling out candy through the class, eating cookies during the break. I was disgusted. I couldn't understand how they could do that to themselves.

Then I looked at my desk, I had a bottle of Mountain Dew, an empty M&M wrapper and a plate with half a cookie on it. Then I realized that the *only* reason I wasn't those guys was because I worked in retail where I was always walking. And then later I worked in a lumber yard where I was always throwing 80 lb bags of concrete. I knew that as soon as I left Lowe's and got a desk job I would balloon up.

Since then I've had little motivations like wanting to join the Marines, finally seeing that first little hint of definition in my back and legs, my girlfriend seeing me exercise and saying "I could never do that".

I think that's the thing, you have to keep finding little ways to stay motivated at every point or you're just going to backslide to where you were or worse.

[Animalben]

My motivation is that I am not living upto the potential I was given, both pyshically and mentally.

It's awesome to hear that people are sorting themselves out so they can have more time with their kids, keep up the good work guys!

[D_chelyst]

My spark was the last course I took for my master's last year (is this as nerdy as it gets?). It's called The Kinesthetic Classroom and was taught by Prof. Gail. The first day of class, she had us take our resting heart rate. My RHR was not where it should have been for someone my age, but it wasn't in a horrible spot either. I decided that I needed to fix this, and fix this NOW while it was still easy to do so. I started out with an exercise tape, then like 9 months later I secretly started to train to run in a 5k with my sister (yes, she was surprised ) I got hurt while training, and my sister told me about NF and some of the things she read on it. I checked it out, and boom, here I am and the strongest I've ever been. w00t!

[BosonBuster]

Seeing my graduation photographs. The garb and the hat, and the PhD, suddenly didn't look right (I'll work up the courage to post those pics eventually...). Mentally I was forever striving for better, physically I had been lazy and making excuses for my unfitness (yes, it's a word!). At 31, I guess it was time for the body to start levelling up, too! However, just going on a diet and "walking lots" was a pretty half-assed attempt at doing something about my shape.

Then I decided to take up flying, and that finally did it - I was not going to get into an aeroplane (or an MD's office to get the medical done) in that state. So I joined the gym, made friends with the iron, and finally discovered Paleo and the Rebellion! Long road, but the sky's the limit!

[spatzcat]

When bitches I didn't like could run faster than me. that wasn't going to fly.

[Artinum]

I always thought of myself as pretty fit. I had a bit of a belly, but I wasn't overweight. I could climb stairs without running out of breath. And then one day at work my back went on me. Not just "ooh, my back aches" (which is fairly common and mostly just irritating) but literally me bending over, feeling something go "twang" and only getting up with immense pain. A work colleague had to drive me home - and getting into/out of the car was something I couldn't do by myself.

Strong painkillers and lots of rest over the next few days got me back on my feet, but the day my partner and I went to our local shop was the clincher. Still dosed up and in some pain, a three minute walk took over twice as long and left me tired and throbbing. I started thinking - when I get over this, how do I get my back stronger? And I realised that I wasn't really all that strong to begin with.

I found Nerd Fitness through a blog article on confidence that someone had linked to (a completely different issue). I was looking for inspiration one night and started looking at the other blogs, and found that I was far from the only person that didn't get on with gyms. I've never stuck with an exercise program in the past - no clue what I was doing, no support - and I've been with this site since March.

Biggest inspiration now - whenever I feel that I haven't progressed, I remember that I can do push-ups. I couldn't do push-ups before NF. Not even in my twenties.