I've lurked long enough and decided to take the plunge (again, I was on here several years ago but have since deleted that account).
I am a 22 year old social worker heading up one of the clinical programs at my agency. I'm a bit of a modern hippie, going on a journey of self love and care by growing out my hair, making attempts to reduce my impact on the environment in sustainable ways like reducing food waste, and occasionally hoisting the black flag so that I can start slitting throats in the names of social welfare and "oh my God would you stop being stupid" (that should be the name of my pirate ship).
For the start of 2018, there have been a lot of changes in my life, primarily that my partner and I got an apartment together and I now have control over my own refrigerator. It is a week today that we have been living together, and it's doing good things for me. My big "why" doesn't really have to do with the way I look because I look fantastic and I'll tell anyone all about it. I have a lot of peace with my body, all 187 pounds, five feet, and four inches. I'm pretty satisfied with my abilities as well. I'm a fair runner (not lately, thank you job), I can lift things, and I can live my life how I like to. But, I also know that bettering my life right now by losing some inches, improving my mile time, and lifting more things will serve me very well as I get older. I want to gain more control over my fibromyalgia symptoms, and I know I can do that by eating and moving in ways that my body likes. Weight loss and appearance are a happy side effect.
To boil it down, my "why" is: I love my body, and therefore I want to do things that make it happy in order to increase my quality of life, while living with chronic pain and fatigue.
