Finally got the nerve to say hello :)

I joined MFP somewhere in the first week of this month. I have been logging my food from my phone since then and have been very pleased with the whole app. Just recently I logged on my computer and have been browsing the message boards and have liked what I have read. The encouragement and high fives around here are amazing and very motivating for me. So here's some info about me. I'm 34 and have 5 children. They are 15, 14, (grrr lol) 12, 9 and 8. I work as a surgical tech and I cover a call schedule from 7 pm to 7 am .Sometimes I work all night and more often I don't have to work at all and just sit home waiting for the phone to ring. When I work its very active, lots of walking (sometimes running lol ) standing, lifting, twisting, turning and such which is fantastic except like I said , I can go days at a time without going in. So when I am home my mind thinks I need to sit here and rest in case I do have to pull an all nighter, I sleep when my kids are at school and so I'm backwards on everything. This has made me completely lazy

So around the Holidays I ended up on my moms scale at her house and was SHOCKED to see that I had hit the 200 mark! WHAT?? I'm 5'3 and never did I think I weighed that much, it devastated me. So I decided that with the new year I was going to make some changes, big time! Being from the south, fried food and sweet tea are what I lived on. So I decided the first of January, no more fried foods, white flour, sugar, rice, potatoes, soda and red meat. I was never one to go for chicken or turkey, I always preferred a rib eye with a over stuffed baked potato. What I do LOVE are any and every fruit and veggie known to man. I also started buying cases of water and stopped making tea (kids don't like this) and went from never drinking bottled water to going through a case a week. I started by writing in a new journal and then I found this app on my pone after hearing a friend talk about it. SOOO very glad I did! I'm in love with the app and it really helps to see what I'm eating. I'm now eating lean ground turkey, deli sliced chicken breast, egg whites and such things all because I search calorie and fat content and have to say I stay full and happy.

So now I'm ready to make friends and get even more motivated ! This is not something I want to do for a few months, I want to be able to do this for LIFE! Thanks for your time and excited to be involved with people going through the same things as myself !