What finally prompted you to start looking after your health properly?

[Spaceandsun]

What was the thing that finally gave you the kick up the backside to start getting healthy or looking after yourself properly?

Could’ve been one big moment or a build-up of smaller things — health scare, seeing yourself in photos, getting out of breath easily, wanting more energy, kids/family, mental health, ageing, breakup, confidence, anything really.

I’m curious what genuinely made it “click” for people and what changes actually stuck long term.

Would be interesting to hear real stories and what made the biggest difference for you.

I got diagnosed with arthritis at the age of 30, and the consultant has said to me, if I don’t build more muscle and improve my flexibility then I’m going to regret it later in life.
so here I am, started at the gym, and concentrating on protein and fibre
I hope I start to like it!

That’s a good question and I’d like to know as well. I’ve gone through phases of having a healthy lifestyle and phase - like now - where I don’t really. I’d love it all to click into place but it seems a bit overwhelming right now. Like you, I also have arthritis (diagnosed mid-twenties, I’m now in my early 40s) and probably do need to ensure that I take better care of myself and don’t just rely on the drugs I take to manage the symptoms. They’re great, obviously, but there’s way more that I should be doing too.

Gallstones. A couple of months after getting it out I started weight training and haven't looked back.

Really wish I'd started a long time ago.

My mum died at 69 a few years ago. It wasn’t because she was unhealthy, she wasn’t, it was random cancer, but it made me think about my own mortality and my own health and my responsibility to my children in particular.

Mum did everything right: she was a healthy weight, didn’t drink much or smoke, was active, etc. It was just bad luck. But then it made me think about how on top of the possibility of that sort of bad luck that you can’t control, I was ‘choosing’ to add even more risk to it by being overweight and sedentary. And how I owed it to my children to make sure I was healthy and active and modelling a healthy lifestyle for them.

So I lost 5.5 stone and started exercising and now I run several times a week, I weight train, I walk 15k+ steps a day, I am active with my children, I can chase them, ride bikes with them, climb up into soft play, go on treetop adventures, down the zip line, all that sort of stuff.

Whatever happens to my health that I can’t control, I’m giving myself the best shot with the stuff I can control. And I’ve noticed my kids have become fitter too.

Did you like weight training straight away, or did it take you time to enjoy it?

A combination of health issues. A very serious shoulder fracture led to an osteoporosis diagnosis. I was sick of being in pain and struggling with mobility. So I started seeing a dietician and losing weight.

Unfortunately a few months later it all went to shit when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The weight went back on, the pain increased, but now I had the terror that it was down to breast cancer coming back. The pain in my back, where the osteoporisis is worst, was unbearable. My doctor said I had to lose weight or I risked a fracture.

So I finally bit the bullet and started on Mounjaro. It has changed my life. I still have a lot of weight to lose. But right from day one, it changed something in my head. It's not just affecting appetite. When I walked before I felt like a deep sea diver with those lead boots on my feet. Every step was an effort. But from day one of taking it, that feeling has gone. My body wanted to move.

When I used to dread summer as nothing looked right, I always looked out of place in my jeans and was boiling hot.

i then booked a personal shopper at John Lewis and the lady looked at me when I turned up for my appointment and said “I don’t think there’s going to be anything in here that fits you but we can try some of the bigger fitting brands”.

John Lewis stocked up to an 18 in store and I was a good 20.

i tried on afew item from brands she said were a bigger fit and they didn’t fit so I ended up walking away with nothing.

as I walked out of the store I thought to myself if I can’t walk into a massive store like this which stocks loads of different brands and buy something that fits then I’ve got a problem.

since then I started Mounjaro, lost 6.5 stone and I’ve had a tummy tuck and sorted out my protruding stomach with muscle repair so now I can wear anything really at a size 10-12

Seeing the avoidable decline of my parents and inlaws due to a bad diet and lack of movement. I don't want my future to be something that I could have avoided with more consideration.

Working in a community stroke team (after over a decade in hospital teams).

Just seeing how people really live, and the justifications they make for the choices they make. I make some of those choices too. But I can decide not to.

There are plenty of people with objectively decent lifestyles who have strokes - sometimes they just happen, and there are risk factors we can’t do much about, like age or genetic issues. It’s noticeable that the active ones with decent diets and good social connections recover much better. But sometimes… am with a patient who’s had a stroke, maybe in a group that’s known to be high risk, and looking at their morbidly obese adult child, and thinking, I really hope you take this as more of a wake up call than you look like you are. So, for only the second time in 30 years, I am not obese and planning to stay that way.

I have heard that mounjaro has been life changing for many people.
i don’t need to lose weight, however i am weak. My protein intake and water intake was poor, I have noticed such a difference in my bowel habits since drinking 2-3 litres of water a day, and upping my fibre! The improvement is amazing!

I quit smoking 10yrs ago, quit vaping 6yrs ago. I've always been overweight, around 13st for decades but I'd got up to 15st5 in 2022. My turning point was a week away in the Lake district and my knees were in agony. I was knocking back cocodamol just to walk around town, I was incredibly unfit and just had to do something. A week later I had an appt with a WL clinic and started my WL. I started with prescription pills and then switched to mounjaro whilst developing a gym habit.
2.5yrs later, I'm slimmer and stronger than I've been my whole life. I love a long walk through the woods, we go camping every couple of weeks, I'd never have done this whilst I was heavy.
I do still have a sweet tooth so I do have to work hard at maintenance and I do love the gym, I go 5x a week.

I'm 53. In the past 5 years I have gone from having one chronic auto immune condition (asthma) to several, including pernicious anaemia, rheumatoid arthritis, osteo arthritis and fibromyalgia Then those conditions appear to have joined forces in order to attack my organs and I now have issues with my poor old liver and kidneys.

I've always been fat and a bit relaxed about my health. Since my latest 2 diagnoses I have put in alot of research about the impact foods have on disease and particularly on inflammatory conditions and so am now newly wholly plant-based. Already seeing a difference (although I am lamenting this over on the under-catered dinner party thread where i am emoting over pork pies and devilled eggs.. sigh).

I had an NHS health check and realised that there were some things I couldn’t change (family history, being an ex-smoker) and some things I could - being obese. I’ve since lost 4 stone.

Smoking - it was the cost of cigarettes really and the fact that I didn't want to smoke any more. I was 26, quit cold turkey and never smoked again.

Cutting back on drinking - meeting my DH who told me very bluntly that I drank too much and I realised he was right. I still drink, but not much and I'm delighted that there are now so many nice non-alcoholic drinks that are widely available in supermarkets and in pubs and bars.

Cutting back on junk food - was a gradual process that started when I was pregnant with my first. Gradually, I realised how much better I felt when I ate proper food and made an effort to prepare and serve it nicely. I've also found regular exercise that I like and I'm less willing to sabotage my hard work with eating crap when I get home!

A combination of things, one was seeing a photo of myself at a wedding but at the same time in Aug 2024 I was walking home from work and had to ask dh to come and pick me up part way back as I just couldn't manage it. As someone who had to learn to walk again in my 30s following neurosurgery for complications of spina bifida the thought of losing my mobility again was a big scare.

I'm also perimenopausal and I didn't want weight to be an excuse for my GP not to prescribe me HRT.

I used a relatively low dose of MJ to support me and took up weight training (with high protein and fibre in my diet and a focus on getting good sleep) and now I am in the best health of my adult life and I have so much more energy than I have ever had.

A visit to A&E for something not serious a few years ago. They did a blood test. The doc came back and said ‘and how long have you been diabetic?’ I wasn’t, as far as I was aware. The GP decided I was pre-diabetic and close to the top of the range. Having had a T1 Mum and husband, I did NOT want to have to live with a carb-controlled diet.

Changed diet (low UPF, low carb), lost weight (diet and exercise), increased exercise and went to the gym regularly. Blood sugars now normal and have been for years.

Which means that I really got healthy so I could eat what I want :-)

My blood tests showed pre-diabetes. I work in a hospital theatre and see first hand how many limbs we remove due to diabetes.

So l lost weight and started exercising. It doesn't come naturally and l have put weight back on due to no will power... but l won't give up.

Every day l see the state my patients are in due to their life choices...smoking, poor diet etc... things that are in our control to improve.... and the massive impact that is having on them. ... it is truly awful.

I also don't think that eventually the NHS will be as "free" as it is currently for treatment and restrictions will be applied eg too high a BMI - no surgery etc - anything to cut down on cost.... and so l want to be in the best physical health l can.

A BP review at doctors and them telling me quite bluntly that if I didn't sort myself out, I wouldn't see my kids grow up. I had just tipped into 40 BMI

Very harsh but it gave me a big dose of reality. But they reminded me of the best reason to do something about it. Fast forward about 18 months, and I'm 6 stone down, normal BMI, running 5k 4 times a week and doing weights several times as well.

I've completely overhauled my life and am off BP medicine. I don't think I could have done it without the support of mounjaro but I think it is a miracle medicine that should be available for everyone that wants it.

I'm loving life now.

I love this, it’s given me motivation to not give up!

My granddaughter. Specifically realising that if I didnt get my finger out and do something about my weight and lack of fitness I couldnt be the granny I wanted to be.

I had an angiogram for my work medical and they said there was some plaque, not much but some. I had to see a cardiologist and he said to try working on lifestyle factors first. I felt terrible I had neglected my physical health for too long, and DF died of a heart attack in his late 60s so I was very conscious of that.
I have lost 10kg (a few more to go) and dramatically changed my exercise habits - started very small and focused on consistency than big ambitious sessions I cannot sustain over time. I am still a bit overweight so need to keep going, but blood results are much much better, I’m a size smaller and I’m ok like this for the long term.

8 years ago, practically to the day I was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism. Totally out of the blue,I hadn't been bedridden or done a long-haul flight recently. Thankfully it was caught in time and dealt with,but it gave me such a shock. The only symptom I had was feeling increasingly breathless. Thankfully the doctor I saw took me seriously, and didn't put my breathlessness down to me being overweight and unfit. After spending a night being monitored in hospital,I resolved to lose weight once and for all.
I know being overweight probably wasn't the cause of the embolism,but it probably didn't help. Over the next couple of years,I managed to lose 7 and a half stone (105 lbs) and I have kept it off. And I managed to do it without WLI. Admittedly I still have another 35 pounds to lose to be in the acceptable BMI range, and I have been using WLI as I have found it near on impossible to shift this last bit.
So although the pulmonary embolism gave me a scare,I am grateful that it gave me the kick up the backside to do something once and for all about my weight.

I loathed sport at school, humiliated & made to feel useless on a weekly basis so dumped my trainers and did nothing.

Started feeling stodgy at 48, so took up jogging by myself (fab for peace & thinking time). Got to being able to run 10k. Weekly park run. Took up karate for core strength and flexibility.

Kept that up, then diagnosed with bc at 58 so switched to 30 fruit & veg a week diet, cut out alcohol.

Now all good and probably the fittest I have ever been. Lots of energy.

I read relatively new research about the potential
ability to delay the onset of dementia. Weight training and reliable cardio and although I had been doing the cardio I hadn’t been doing the weight training. I found a way of doing the weight training that suits me in January and I haven’t looked back. I care for my mum with dementia and I am so terrified of getting it I’ll do anything. It has led me to want to eat better including upping my protein intake and reducing alcohol and sugar.

I've gone down the WLI combined with weight training and lost nearly 4 stone. At 49 I'm the fittest I've been in probably 30 years.
The push for me was just wanting to be fit as I age. To be mobile and to not let immobility stop me from doing what I want.

In the last 6 years my husband has been hospitalised and genuinely nearly died 3 times. It's made us both stop and think about a lot of things, and for me it's really made me think that there may come a time when he doesn't pull through and my daughter will just have me, so I needed to get my act together to look after myself.