MFP - Restarting the Trek (first post, yay!)

Hello! I'm Angel. I just turned 30 (today!). I'm a single mom of one daughter (age 8). I'm trying to lose weight, not just as a temporary thing but as a lifestyle. I know it's not a diet but a change of life because I've done it once before.

I come from a family of very large females. In fact, only my aunt (who was an official Washing Redskins cheerleader until she had children), and myself were the only ones not morbidly obese. I felt good about myself, especially during family gatherings. I wasn't thin, around 210 pounds, but I could walk around, unlike some of them. Several years ago, I went on a trek to get healthy after my daughter started school and I realized that I could physically not keep up with her. I was too tired and out of shape. I began exercising, eating right....which then became an obsession with losing weight, a very dangerous obsession. I'd starve myself, smoke to avoid eating, sleep to forget about hunger, and take as many pills as I could find. This was the same time my family started getting medical help. Due to their medical obesity, they ALL got medical help. Every single female family member got their stomach stapled (whatever that big long word is for that) and/or medical weight lose procedures/pills (minus m and my aunt). They all lost tons of weight, dropping down to petite sizes. I dropped to about 140 pounds but not in a very safe way but I felt like I was in competition.

Then I met my boyfriend who made me feel that it was alright to not look like an anorexic girl like my family was becoming. Unfortunately, he constantly brought over junk food and would snap at me if I tried to leave the house to hit the gym, and even when I was so full, I thought I'd puke, he'd get rage mad if I didn't shove more food in my mouth. This created weight, which created depression, which created self-will to eat more food.

Now him and I aren't together any more but I'm one donut away from weighing at 190 pounds. I try to eat healthy and eat portioned amounts but my stomach constantly hurts like I'm starving to death (not a new thing, been trying to slowly decrease the amount over the past year and a half, not all at once). I always tell myself I'll eat healthy and next I know, I have a Big Mac in my hand. I feel like a fool, a very fat fool who can't fit in any of her clothes and can't keep up with her daughter.

I want to lose the weight, but I try to exercise and my asthma kicks in within a few minutes. I try to eat healthy and just end up making excuses. I don't want to go back to the dangerous way I was doing it before. Medically, my doctor says I have thyroid problems (that's the medicine most of the rest of the female family members, even extended family members, are on) but because I've lost the weight before, they refuse to give me medication for it. I told them the dangerous way I did it before, and that I'm trying to avoid that so then their reason for not giving me the medication is that it'll only encourage bad behavior or some bs. So I'm on my own. I really need some friends whom are active and can help me through this, to do it safely but also to actually do it. I'm tired of being me. I'm depressed and can't function and feel like I'm wasting my life. I want to be happy for my daughter, not just forcing it so she doesn't see. I want to be able to keep up with her, but I can't do this alone. I'll admit that. I need help and encouragement so if anybody can help me with that, I'll try to be a good friend too.