Well hello there, people! :)

Hey everyone! My name is Raven. I'm a 27 year old female from Pennsylvania. I've attempted to lose weight in the past and have done alright for a while, then gave up. I've been using MFP since November 4th and I could not be happier with it! This feels like so much less work than it did all the other times I've tried to get healthier.

I went through a period of a couple years as a teenager where I was well on my way to a serious eating disorder. I was a competition cheerleader who worked out excessively, and was also starving myself. When I was 16, I was down to about 85lbs and looked like death. I was in an abusive relationship, severely depressed and the anorexia, for the most part, was my way of punishing myself for getting into the situation that I was in and not being able to get out of it. I'm well aware now that it wasn't my fault, so no worries there. I certainly don't have any compulsion to starve myself anymore. In fact, I think I love food a little too much. The funny thing is that once I was recovering and gaining my weight back at 17, I was having a really hard time with it. I remember going to buy new jeans at the mall and learned that I no longer fit a size "0" and had to move up to a size "3". I was DEVASTATED! I laugh now because I wish I could go back to that moment, shake some sense into myself and say, "Girl, if only you knew that 10 years from now you will still have these size three jeans sitting in your dresser - untouched - while you hold on to the desperate hope that you will be able to fit back into them someday!" hahaha

Anyway, I'm on my 4th week of MFP and I've lost 4 lbs already. I have 39 more to go and I'm really excited! I feel like I can do it for real this time!!!