Giving message boards a try

Hi. I am a huge forum/board person for technology and gadgets, but never thought I would be posting on a forum just to "talk to people" especially about weight loss and the trials of it all. But here I am. I hope there are some folks here that will talk back. :-)

I'm 30 years old and have been big all of my life. I'm 6'1" and currently clocking in at 233 lbs. At my heaviest, I was 288 lbs, so I've lost about 55 lbs over 3 years. It's been a long ride, with points of doing well, then just holding weight, then gaining, then losing again. I'm currently at a losing point and hope this is the point I stay at for the duration. It's more important now than ever that I don't start the upward trend anymore.

After reaching a record low of right around 230 lbs, I began slowly gaining weight. First it started with regressing to my same old bad eating habits of eating out too much, making poor decisions on what to eat in the restaurants, and then eating way too much at any given meal. At first it didn't' have much effect, as I was working out a great deal for rehabbing my leg from a complicated reconstructive surgery. I was actually working out enough to still lose weight even though I wasn't eating properly at all. However, as my leg got better and the workouts reached a more normal level, the pounds, of course, starting adding on.

Last year I went through some emotionally taxing times as well as a series of medical problems. It was a tough year and I responded by not taking care of myself to get back on my program of diet and exercise. The lack of exercise along with eating poorly resulted in putting on the pounds again, gaining about 15 pounds over the course of the year. I was depressed and in denial and honestly, I can admit it now, just kind of didn't care because mentally I had just shut down. However, my medical issues now require that I care about my weight, both for myself and for the family I would like to be able to start one day.

So after getting myself out of my funk and depression, here I am now, trying to "get back on the wagon." After going through Jan-Mar and only losing 6 lbs despite doing what I though was pretty good with my diet compared to what I was doing when I lost 55 lbs, I decided I needed to go back to actually logging what I eat each day to see why I wasn't losing weight any faster. I wanted to use a site this go around that offered a mobile app and found this site.

So here I am. I'm down about 11 lbs since Jan, which puts me right around where I was when I fell off the wagon in late 2010. I'm posting because this time, my weight loss isn't just about wanting to lose weight for myself. It's also, and more importantly, about getting to a proper weight for my health and for the family I hope to one day be able to have.

Thanks for taking the time to read and I'm looking forward to participating on this board to help motivated and also help with getting motivation.