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Hi, everyone! I just found this site a few days ago and have been lurking, learning as much as I can before being ready to start. I don't know if I'm ready to do this but I'm at a point where if I don't get started, I never will, so here it goes. I've struggled with my weight my whole life. As a kid I never seemed to lose my baby fat like everyone else did. It didn't help that the things I liked to do were largely sedentary. I would rather curl up with a good book and some music than go outside. I remember one summer my parents refused to take me to the library anymore and said that if I wanted to go I had to get there on my own. That actually worked-that summer I biked to the library and back just about every day. Even the organized group activities I was in weren't physically active. I was the music geek in band and choir. And the academic geek on the math and debate teams. Yeah, I was super cool! I was diagnosed with depression after a suicide attempt and episodes of self-harming when I was 16. While certainly not the only thing, my weight was definitely a factor in that. At 16 I was 5'5" and about 180 pounds. If only I knew then that I would kill to be at that weight again. I'm 26 now. For the last 10 years, I've been dealing with barely-managed depression. After some trial and error with therapists and meds, I eventually stopped self-harming. The problem is I didn't replace it with a helping coping skill. Instead I started eating my feelings. When I was happy about something, I ate as a reward. When I was depressed, I ate to feel better. When I was angry I ate, when I was tired I ate, and I ate and I ate and I ate. And now I weigh 350 pounds. The sad thing is I knew what I was doing to myself as I was doing it. I wasn't unaware as my jeans crept up from a size 16 to a size 26. But depression makes you not care. It makes you want a quick fix when you know deep down there isn't one. And it's so easy to say I'll start tomorrow. Another factor in all of this is my personality. I'm the type that always puts others first. I've lost sleep and sacrificed the quality of relationships in an effort to help and protect the people I love, especially my younger sister. But she's 22 now and I can't keep fixing her life for her. And this isn't just in my personal life. I work at a cancer support center and it is so easy to get caught up in everyone else's problems and minimize my own, convince myself they don't matter. But obviously they do or I never would have gotten to this point in the first place. So I'm going to be selfish. And I'm not going to apologize for it. For the first time in my life, I need to stop being so concerned about what other people think, stop sacrificing who I am, my opinions, and my passions in order to be more "neutral" and therefore more accepted. Stop feeling like I have to always have to put on my fake happy face because goodness knows, if I have the audacity to be fat I damn well better be jolly. I need to stop apologizing for thinking what I think and feeling what I feel. So there it is. My honest reality. I'm really looking forward to getting to know you all and getting some new ideas about food and fitness. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!