hello all (my recent life story condensed in about 5 paragra

hello,

I just wanted to reach out to all of you. I've gone around and added some of you as friends but i haven't "formally" introduced myself on the message board. I've been on here for about a week now. I was on my android phone and was looking for a calorie counter and stumbled upon mfp, which I can honestly say is the main reason why I've continued on with my quest to lose some poundage.

I'm from the Philadelphia metro area and I graduated from college a couple years ago. I graduated in the midst of the economic collapse. After graduation I moved back home (central PA) and worked at the front desk of a new hotel. During this time, my anxiety was growing as I was unable to find a job in my field. I guess I just felt like a failure by putting forth all the effort and taking out all those loans to go to school and having nothing to show for it.

This was the factor that morphed me from healthy guy to one who sat on his *kitten* and ate wendy's at lunch (there was one next door to my workplace) and went out to the bar every night with my friends, drinking and eating the most terrible food.

I quit that job back in September because, really, I wouldn't have been able to be happy with myself continuing on there. I moved back to the Philly area soon afterwards to find some work. Fast forward to now, and I am still unemployed. However, I feel that this is mostly my fault, as I just allowed the downward spiral to continue without ever really putting any real hard effort into reversing it. During this time I still continued to maintain a very unhealthy lifestyle.

Until about a week ago. When i got entirely pissed off at looking at myself in the mirror and seeing where my life was, the direction it was heading, and thinking about what could be done to change it, I came to the conclusion that in order to succeed in any facet of life, it would need to start with how i feel about myself and how I view myself. After you can shine a loving light onto yourself, I feel, everything else will fall in line.