What was your "light bulb moment"?

Not everyone has a light bulb moment, of course, but for those of you who did -- what was it?

For me, it came about after my father's unexpected death.  I was the one who found him.  Not long after I had a dream in which he asked me if I loved my son.  When I said, "of course," he responded, "then don't let him find you dead in your bed one morning."

When I awoke, I had this sudden realization that I was allowing my addiction to food to kill my son's mother.  

I often say that my love for my son literally saved my life.  

Sorry to hear about your father.  That must have been devastating.

I'm a revision and after my lapband broke,  I was considering whether or not to get a new one and then started reading everyone's nightmare band stories and realized mine was a nightmare as well and that I had been normalizing and rationalizing it...majorly in denial.  people were talking about revisions and I realized there was another path and the rest is history.

Wow Kat, that was deep! So sorry about your Dad & wow, your love for your son saved your life, truly amazing. 

Years ago I had a dream about my father being dead & it felt so real I woke up crying. Eventually he did die, I forgot how long after the dream & always dreaded if I ever have another dream like that for my mom, who thankfully is still here.

I wish I had a lightbulb moment, I think I had a series of dim witted moments. You'd think that having health problems that would get progressively worse would be enough to get me on that table, but oh no, I kept trying over n over to lose it the old fashioned way. Ignoring the mirror, buying clothes that hide my shape, being overly emotional & drowning it out in food, no, no, still no.

Finally taking a hard look at a photograph of myself looking so sad when I was trying to be happy got me looking more seriously at wls.

Many have said a photo got them. 

I run across old photos NOW, when I thought I looked pretty good...how in denial I wAs

You are so funny T... a 'series of dim witted moments' .... and yes a good-bad picture of us will get us every time...

That is sad Kat, and I am so sorry you lost your dad. That was a pretty wicked dream that "woke" you up and got you on track.

I actually have a picture of the exact light bulb moment. I was very blessed and one a major national teaching award. It was a huge deal. They flew me to California, had a conference for the recipients, and this beautiful awards dinner where they presented you with a $25,000 prize. The week before all this went down I was diagnosed with cancer for the first time, and mentally I was a train wreck because of it. Anyway, I couldn't find a dress for this dinner because I was 6'2'' and weighed about 320 pounds or so. I also couldn't find panty hose that even came close to fitting. When I had to cross the stage to pick up the check and shake hands, the only thing I could think about was how I was so enormous next to the two male presenters and prayed that I would not have a wardrobe malfunction due to the poorly fitting attire. 

It was literally at that moment when I realized just how much my weight was affecting me. What should have been a proud professional moment was defined by all the baggage that the weight carried and crappy health issues it was causing. I decided in that very moment to do something. Oddly, one of the sessions of the conference was spent calculating the cost of being obese both financially and to your health. It was given by one of the presenters who dealt with cancer. I don't know what it was, but something about that talk really resonated and shook me out of the "surrendering to never being able to take the weight off and giving up mode" I was in. Most people think that the best part of that whole award was the financial prize- but I actually think it was directly responsible for saving my life. 

That's an amazing light bulb moment!!

BTW, congrats on such a wonderful award, too --  

That is a truly fabulous story!!!!!