Here we go again

marisap2010

Hi everyone. To start off, I'm a 31 year old female, and I'm 5' 8". I have struggled with being overweight most of my life. I was the chunky kid in school who had a nickname reminiscent of a particular pink Muppet character. As I hit puberty, I grew taller, and things evened out during high school. In college, I didn't gain just the dreaded "Freshman 15." It was more like the "Freshman 65."

Soon after I started grad school, I got out of a 4 year relationship, and I decided that I wanted to focus on me and learn to take better care of myself before I got into another relationship. A friend and I started Weight Watchers. I only went to a few meetings, but I kept up with the plan for about a year and lost 60 pounds! That was 7 years ago.

I managed to keep it off for the most part for about 5 years. In that time, I met my hubby and started a great job. I took up running, and I'm training now for my third half marathon. However, in the last two years, I have also gained back a lot of the weight I originally lost. It baffles me at times since I do work out a lot more than I used to, but I also know that weight is really lost through maintaining a good diet. I considered doing Weight Watchers again, but I know the plan has changed somewhat since I originally did it, and I really don't want to pay to go to meetings.

I started keeping track of everything on MFP a few months ago. I have lost 7.6 pounds in the last 2 months. You wouldn't now it from looking at my weight progress on here though. I went to the doctor a few weeks ago, and I discovered their scale weighed me 7 pounds more than my scale at home. I immediately went out and bought a new scale, which seems to be consistent with what I weighed at my doctor's. If you look at the weight I input on here, it will look like I gained weight, but it is really just the change to a better scale. Even though I know this, it is still depressing to find out you weigh more than you thought!

My doctor told me I needed to "really think about losing weight." I'm right on that cusp of average vs. overweight. I don't feel good in my clothes anymore. I'm terrified of getting back to my post-college weight. I looked at a picture from my first half marathon yesterday, and I look like a totally different person. I want to get back to that. I wasn't too skinny. I still had some curves. But I felt, and looked, healthy and happy.

So, I'm 7 pounds down, and my goal is to lose another 17 to put me at 150. At that point, I'll reevaluate and see where I want to go from there. Just wanted to introduce myself because I figure putting myself out there to a bunch of strangers might make me more likely to stay on track.