Introduction (at one month in!)

Hi, everyone!

Things are going well, so I decided it's time to stop hiding and introduce myself.

My name is Beth, and I am 35 years old, married, and a mother on a very precocious 4yo boy. I have been overweight pretty much since junior high when I buried my self-esteem in friendships that involved cinnamon rolls, pizza, chips, and soda. There have been a few periods of successful turnaround for me, but the most major actually involved a bad breakup with a LTR, and I was so sick from the whole thing that I couldn't eat very much for weeks, and amazingly, shed about 30 pounds. I was down to 130 and looked amazing.

Then I made a bunch of life changes that involved too much free time on my hands, and I took up baking for my brother and his wife. Of course, I had to help eat everything I baked, and the weight came right back. It's been a giant yo-yo for me ever since, and I reached my maximum of 260 while I was pregnant -- gaining 50+ pounds during my pregnancy. After I had the baby, I was down to about 245, but even with breast feeding, I never lost weight. It took me and my family over a year to realize something might actually wrong, and sure enough, I now have a hypothyroid.

The biggest two challenges I face are that I have a tendency toward binge eating and I live a very sedentary lifestyle. I work full time and go to school part time, and I make time for my family and studies the rest of the time. I have not had any skill when it comes to making time for fitness because I feel like I lose enough sleep as it is. LOL And I am one of those people that cannot eat just one serving of junk food -- I have to gorge myself on it. I am getting much better at recognizing the trigger foods that set me off (chocolate chip cookies, cheesecake, Doritos) and learning to either buy/servce singler servings or avoid them as much as possible. But I also know I cannot just say I will never have them again because that tends to trigger this rebellious streak in my brain that makes me want to EAT ALL THE THINGS and completely binge a day or two away.

Last year, I really tried to make some changes, but other sites just were not cutting it for me for a number of reasons. Finally, I stumbled upon MFP on my Android phone and decided that counting calories seemed reasonable, and with that kind of tool, maybe even easy, so why not try it. I played with it on and off, but never took it seriously until this year. Then, as so many do, I made a resolution, and started over. At first, I was trying to lose 2 pounds a week, which is about 1200 calories a day, and it took me about 3 days to realize this plan was doomed for failure as I was always hungry and cranky and miserable. So I took another look at the plan, and decided to take a more long-term approach. After all, I have 3 years left of school, and I had no problem with that, so why not look at weight loss the same way?

I settled at one pound a week with an approximate two year weight loss goal, and that got me 1640 calories a day. And I have managed to follow this plan for the last 4 weeks, for a total of 4 pounds lost so far! Most days, I eat a bit less than the maximum, and a few days, I go over. But I am much more conscious of my food choices, and I eat a lot more salads than before. I am getting lots of calcium, but I am still low on the iron. I am not as tired, and my brain seems to be thinking more clearly. And with this last month of (slow) success, I actually feel like I can do it this time! I am even starting to add some light exercise in, like walking farther to my car on campus and taking the stairs when possible.

I guess I just want to join in and find/give support here on the forums because this is the kind of thing you need friends for, and I know my RL friends have heard it so much, that it is hard for them to be encouraging anymore. (Although that last bit may just be in my head.)

Thanks for reading if you made it this far! That was a lot longer than I intended.

Cheers,
Beth