Thanks to everyone!

Hello, Everyone!

I'm not so new to My Fitness Pal. I've been diligently tracking all of my food and exercise for about 8 weeks now. So far I have lost almost 9 pounds!

Although I haven't posted before, I often read things people post in the forums and wanted to say thanks to all of you for your positivity, wealth of information, and willingness to show your own personal progress which in turn helps others to keep working towards their own goals.

Much like a lot of the members I've seen posting, I never really paid any mind to my weight or the myriad of bad habits that contributed to my constantly fluctuating weight. I know that I am not that overweight, however being that I am only 23, I can't argue that I have any excuse not to be in shape. I always lived a semi-active lifestyle since I was a child, but once I got into high school it became more difficult to maintain a healthy weight based on my body type and normal hormone changes. In college, my weight fluctuation was worse than ever. I often fluctuated from as high as 185 pounds down to 165 pounds depending on stress and eating habits. Although I was relatively active, I wasn't making a conscious effort to keep my weight under control.

Now that I have graduated and have a full-time job, I have a lot more "free time." At first I defaulted to the same old habits; not exercising, over eating, and using too much sugar in coffee, tea, etc. I expected that once the stress of moving and starting a new job settled down, I would go back to my "regular" weight. I was wrong.

Instead of losing weight I gained even more and I didn't understand why. I started working out using the Zumba game for the Wii. I felt like I was getting a great workout, but nothing was happening... Finally, I decided to take a closer look at what and how much I was eating. Suddenly it was all so clear; way too much sugar (even though I don't eat any candy or snack often, the sugary drinks were killing me) and always feeling the need to finish my entire meal even if the portion was gigantic to begin with.

I stumbled onto My Fitness Pal to have a better idea of what I was eating and how I could make better choices in terms of content, not necessarily to count calories. Within a day or two I was hooked and sure enough, a week later I had lost 1 pound! I realized how many things I ate thinking it was a healthier choice were actually awful for me. This site and the forums really helped me to understand a lot of things I avoided since I was young to "protect myself" from being a calorie counter that obsesses about every last thing they eat.

Now, I still love to eat great food and I still cook a lot at home, but I pay closer attention to the details of what I'm eating and control my portions. I've lost almost 9 pounds and even though I've worked hard to do that, I feel like it's so easy with the help of this site. I work out 3 times a week for about 35 minutes; 25 minutes of Zumba on the Wii (which is really great and keeps me entertained) and 10 minutes of The Firm Target Toning resistance training (this was great to battle my "I hate going to the gym" habit because I can do it at home and who can say no to 10 minutes?).

Sometimes I revert back to my old habits and pig out, but I don't punish myself for it. I look at the quantifiable consequence on this site and it helps motivate me to be more disciplined.

I feel better than I've felt in a long time and look forward to seeing progress in myself and others on this site! I've already referred 5 people to join and every one of them (although they haven't all stuck with it) loved the site and found it to be immensely helpful.

Thank you to all of you, again, for helping me to realize that I can do this, even though I don't have far to go.