My first day...

Hi Ladies!

I somehow think I have been seperated from my real family at birth, and I managed to find you all again through Amy working at Tessco and becoming part of our twisted version of 90210. Might explain why all my siblings are nutso and I am the only stable, rational one. I love my parents a lot, but my brothers & sisters just make me very, very tired. Some days I swear I should just call Jerry Springer and confess for all of them...

Regardless, stability and rational have not prevented me from gaining a gigantic amount of weight over the last 5 years, with about 15 lbs of it happening just this year. So I am up for giving this a shot and seeing where it takes us.

My goals: I want to be a size 10 and not feel like a beached whale in a bathing suit, or honestly any type of clothing when it really comes down to it, but that is DEFINITELY the worst. Whatever weight gets me there is what I am aiming for, but I am thinking that it will be between 130-135 lbs with a serious focus on toning. Which means given the fact that the scale said 166 lbs this morning, I have at least 31 lbs to shed. And it just makes me wish I had more control over it all because at the beginning of the year I really only needed to loose 15 lbs and now that number has doubled and I still don't know how to do it.

I have read back through nearly all the postings to catch up with you guys, and I'll throw out there that I need to find some way to change my perspective on my body image. I am extremely negative about myself. I also am completely aware that my main eating issue is "grazing." I munch out on just about anything at nearly every opportunity that I get. It is incredibly pointless, and even though I recognize it, I am so addicted I don't know how to stop it. I am a bit saddened to say that I am at a point where if I don't get it under control, things could get really ugly, fast. I think this method of orgainizing weight loss with people I know are real human beings will help me...I joined Weight Watchers online but the stories just did nothing for me because they could be huge lies for all I know. I have quit 3 times now and signed back up; if they had any values they wouldn't keep taking my money like that.

I recently started a binder of magazine articles, ads and notes to myself that I am hoping will help be grasp some perspective. I am listing everything I eat in a day and then at the end of the day I go back through the list and place a check mark next to it if it was unneccesary. So far there are a lot of checks, but I've only been doing it a few days. The first page is the Dove ad that uses the real, live women and says "Let's face it: Firming the things of a size 2 supermodel is no challenge." And I clipped a bunch of articles about other women who struggle with the same issues and have overcome them to varying extents. Somehow I have a subscription to Self (that I have never paid for but keeps coming??) and I tend to buy Oprah's magazine since her weight issues make her very real to me. So those are my sources so far. I am planning to look through it when I am feeling weak and want to go eat everything in the house or office that isn't nailed down.

So I think that catches me up. My first mini goal is to ditch a minimum of 5 lbs of this blubber I am carrying around by the end of the month.