New here, one week of success!

I have been overweight pretty much all of my adult life.

Now, at 34, married 10 years and with 3 kids (nearly 6, just turned 4, and 5 months), it is really time to get this done. My weight has hovered in the 255-305 range over the past decade, and was at 303 as recently as August. A move to an area without easy access to fast food crap brought it down almost 20 pounds within a couple months, but I was stagnant, and feeling like I could very easily get back to 300+ again.

But a family member encouraged me to get back into running (as I was 3 years ago or so). It may not be the best at 283 to start a running regiment, but my motto is "it's gotta be this time." No excuses. He even gave me a 10K to shoot for (May 7). I'm currently doing the "Couch to 5K" program, and will run in a 5K on March 19, another on April 16, and then the 10K on May 7. After that I'll plan on just maintaining my running program while I continue to lose weight.

My first day tracking food on here (Feb 11) was a real eye-opener. I exceeded my 2300 calories by over 1800, and the memo at the bottom told me that I'd gain almost 10 pounds if I kept that up for 5 weeks.

But amazingly, even with that day, in the next 6 days I only exceeded my calories one day (and this was a nice anniversary dinner that put me at just +400 or so), I lost 7 pounds (running/walking almost 10 total miles in the process). I've already felt the pull to food beginning to wane, busying myself in the evening hours instead with reading or grading papers (yes, I'm a teacher). And Wednesday I woke up early for my run only to discover a thin layer of snow on the road.

"No excuses," I reminded myself. So I went. It was beautiful. Snowflakes on my face at the beginning of the run in the dark. 25 minutes later, clouds clearing and the beginning of daybreak.

MFP seems to work for me so well because it's online, and I'm on the computer quite a bit at school and home. Not at the expense of my family, mind you, but I'm online several times a day minimum. I hate paperwork. I hate writing things down. But going to the website to log stuff - no problem.

I'm excited to be here, to be logging EVERYTHING and to be a part of the MFP community. I know not every 7 pounds will come off as easily as these first ones, but it is sure an encouraging start to my journey.