New Member Saying Hi!

KaseyMackenzie

Hi everyone! I'm a new member who is looking for a supportive community focused on fitness/health/reaching a healthy weight (whatever that is for each person) and it looks like this may be a great place for that. I've struggled with my weight ever since puberty, and lost about 50 pounds on WW in my mid-20s, only to gain all of it back plus some when I got pregnant with my son 8 years ago.

I had the lap band surgery a few years ago, which has been great for appetite control and has helped me lose some of the weight, but a succession of life changes/stress meant that I never quite committed to consistent exercise the way I should have - key to weight loss success with the lap band. Long story short, I finally re-committed myself a few months ago to getting this excess weight off in honor of my dearly-departed mother and nephew who both died way too young (especially my baby nephew) and my grandfather, who just recently lost his battle with terminal cancer. Pappy, as I call him, has been great at motivating me to get off my rear and exercise because if a man with a compound back fracture and tumors on his vertebrae - not to mention a severe form of arthritis he had battled since age 17 - could get off his duff to do physical therapy every day when he was in the nursing home his last couple of months after being diagnosed, I sure as heck don't have an excuse!

My life is pretty busy with a part-time job as a paralegal, a part-time job as a legal writer and editor, and a part-time job as a fiction writer. I wrote a 3-book urban fantasy series for Penguin/Ace Books and am in the process of trying to sell a new project or two. Add that to all my family responsibilities, and I'm certainly crazy busy. However, I have learned that I need to make my family and me - especially my health - a priority or all of that other stuff won't matter one little bit.

Previously, I had been tracking my food intake with Weight Watchers Online, something that is always successful for me when I actually do it - and exercising as much as possible. I recently upped the level and intensity of my workouts and am starting to do weight-training with dumbbells at home more. I am using MFP more to track my food intake now because I love being able to get an overview of all my macronutrients, which I find helpful for tweaking things. I discovered I was ingesting way too much sodium so now I am alternating meals that are highish on sodium with meals that aren't so I can get that down to a more reasonable level.

I am focused on fitness and health first and eventually trying for baby number two which is long overdue. I'll already be trying to conceive in my late 30s by the time it happens - I definitely don't want to increase my risk by still being seriously overweight. So it's past time to stop complaining and start doing something about my weight!

Okay - by the way I am rambling on, it is obvious I am a writer! Haha. I'll stop for now, but looking forward to getting to know everyone around here and hopefully making some MFP friends.