Hi There! New Here!

Well.. technically I'm not new but I joined awhile back and never really looked around. I have decided I HAVE to change my life if I want to be happy with myself again. Me being overweight has not only changed me physically, emotionally but it's changed my personality. I HATE who I have become. I am not who I used to be, I'm not ME! I'm ready to get back to being myself again.

My story:

My parents split when I was 9 years old. I think that has a major fact in my insecurities, and I grew up living in different places, one year with my grandmother, one (or four!) with my best friend, one year with my dad and only a couple with my mom. It was hard and I spent most of my life living with my best friend. She was a little over weight all of her life, and I actually was skinny for my height but being around her and her family (who was also overweight a bit) and hearing them talk bad about themselves and watching them go on diets made me feel like I too was overweight. So I would diet to... I never lost weight (probably because I didn't have fat to lose!) and when I moved to my moms house my freshman year I was away from the diet talk. I didn't even think about it, I wanted to live like a normal teenager and eat what I wanted to eat when I wanted to eat it and I started gaining weight (it didn't help that my mom and step-grandmother are AMAZING cooks!). I just couldn't keep myself from eating, it was freeing not having to worry about what my family thought about what I was eating. 5lbs turned into about 60 in less than 3 years. It was pretty bad. I didn't realize how overweight I really was until I moved back to live with my dad and I guess I just got a good look in the mirror and was horrified! I looked horrible! I started to lose weight and then met my now ex and got pregnant with my first daughter. Not knowing how eating would affect me weight wise while pregnant I ate whatever I wanted to. I couldn't diet so it was like whatever I wanted (or craved) went into my mouth! I ended up gaining about 65lbs! I only lost about 25 of it during labor and afterwords. Then I tried to lose weight but it just didn't seem to happen. A couple years later I found myself pregnant for a second time. Not even 3 months into my pregnancy I kicked my ex to the curb and decided to be a single mom. I was fine with that and this time with pregnancy I watched what I ate and only gained 25lbs! I have lost all of that weight now and I am about 20lbs lighter than I was after I had my first daughter. I'm pretty proud of that however I still have so much to lose to be happy.

I didn't mean for this to be long. I think I just needed to get that out there! I haven't really talked about my weight with many people.. it's embarrassing. I really hope I can accomplish my goals this time around. I'm so sick of this!

If you read all of that... your awesome! LOL


BTW: My name is Denise!