Lurker Introduced

Hello, all My Fitness Pal users:

I've been tracking food for about a month and lurking on the forum for pretty much the entire time, so I figured it was time to jump in and say hello.

My name is Kat, and I've been bigger than my peers since elementary school, although my weight didn't get out of control until I graduated from high school. During high school, I had a really poor self-image and really low self-esteem, both of which were reinforced by my inability (read: refusal to really try) to lose weight. Once I was in college and realized that I am awesome no matter what I look like, the idea of dieting went out the window, and now I'm almost 25 and have been hovering at about 320 for 3 or 4 years. My husband is a cook, and he's very good at what he does, so it was easy for a long time to ignore the fact that I was OUT OF CONTROL.

My breaking point came last month when my parents came to visit my brothers and me. My ma is an incredible lady, but she's really, really terrible at being tactful. She's been trying to (and succeeding at) losing weight for a few years now, and she's offered to help with whatever I need to get my weight under control. Because I am a happy and successful lady, I always kind of agreed with whatever she said, then didn't worry about it once she'd left town. But this time, when she discovered that I was smoking, she went on a rampage about my lifestyle. It took me back to high school, when I hated who I was and what I looked like, and I felt like I was drowning in the sea of self-hatred. I moped around for a day, then decided two things:

1) I am a beautiful, intelligent, responsible, successful adult precisely the way I am, and anyone who tries to make me feel anything else can go **** themselves (sorry, Ma); and
2) I want to add "healthy" to that list above.

My husband and I have no desire to have a kid right now, but I know that we will sometime in the future, and I want to be ready to give any child I decide to have the best chance at life that I can, and that begins with my health. My father has diabetes, and my grandfather did as well. my blood pressure is normal, but it's on the high end, and I would like to see that number come down. I also want to be able to climb up a bunch of flights of stairs without huffing and puffing.`

I'd played with calorie counting before I had a smart phone, but I never did it in earnest; it took too long and was too impractical to look up everything on the computer at home once the day was over. I looked through the market and found this app. After playing with it for a bit, I realized that it was precisely what I was looking for, and I set my calorie intake to 1400 a day and took off.

Since then, I've lost at least 12 pounds. I get too obsessed with numbers if I have a scale at my house, so I weigh in every couple of weeks on a friend's. The fact that i don't have a scale has let me focus less on my weight and more on eating better. I've noticed, over this month, that I've gone from eating very few fruits and vegetables to eating tons. I'm more aware of my portions. I also love that this plan allows you to have something "bad" every so often; it is easy to stay motivated when I have a bad day, because I can always scroll back and look at all of my good ones.

So that's me. I am glad to be here! My ultimate weight goal is 160 pounds. My first big goal is to get into the 200 pound range. I am aiming for that to happen by the end of this month- I haven't weighed myself in over a week, so I may be closer than I think already.

I hope any and all who read this are having a STUPENDOUS day. I know I am!