21 year old college student trying to break a family cycle

Hello everyone!

My name is Stephanie and I am a 21 year old college student who has had a long struggle with weight. These weight problems, however, are not unique to just me. My grandfather, my mother, and just about everyone on my grandfather's side of the family was/is obese. In fact, when I was five, my grandfather died from complications due to diabetes. My mother, following in her father's footsteps got up to 400 lbs until she went on Jenny Craig and lost 244lbs. Before my mother started dieting, however, my weight problems had already been established, as I was eating just like everyone else had been. Then, when my mom went on Jenny Craig, she would force me to workout with her, so I became more active, but my weight never really decreased, as my eating habits never changed.

Then, when I reached middle school, I became self conscious about my body and tried crash dieting. I lost 40 lbs in two months by eating under 1000 calories a day. Because I was in starvation mode, however, I could not retain the weight loss and gained back everything I had lost plus more. Literally, by the ninth grade, I had reached the 200s after getting down to 140lbs from a starting weight of 180lbs. By this point, my mom was also struggling to maintain her weight loss would either put both of us on these strange fad diets, or at the other end of the spectrum, eat cookies and cakes with me. One diet made us drink shakes every morning, another had us eat these "energy" bars before every meal. Due to this, my weight yo-yoed between 205-220 for about two years. By the time, I was a high school senior, I gave up on dieting and was in the high 220s.

Starting college marks a turning point in my health, however. First off all, my college requires that we take three semesters of PE. After completing turbo kickboxing, yoga, and step-aerobics, I realized how fun exercise was and no longer needed to be forced to do it. Because old habits are hard to break, once I was done with my required courses, my weight skyrocketed to 250 lbs. One weekend, when I went home and saw my mother, who had gained most of her weight back by that point, I decided that at 250 I could either go up or go down, and I decided to go down. I started monitoring my portion sizes, eating balanced meals, drinking water, and exercising and have since lost a total of 33lbs. I maintained a 25 lb weight loss for a whole year and have lost an additional 8lbs after joining MFP a few weeks ago.

Because I am 5'9 with a larger bone structure, my goal weight is 175 lbs. My weight loss, has encouraged my mother to get back on Jenny Craig and hopefully, we can both be healthy together. Still, I need as much support as I can get because I have the tendency to become complacent with my current weight which causes me to lose the motivation to want to lose more.
Thanks, everyone! Good luck with your journeys and please add me as a friend.