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My Story: (sorry if this is very long or seems "poor me", that's not my intent). First off, I'm having a hard time determining just how much to actually share with complete strangers, but to get a complete picture of where I am coming from, perhaps its worth risking a little TMI... I've never been anyone in danger of being overweight. Quite the opposite. I'm one of *those* people. I can eat just about anything and not pay a price in weight gain. I can eat more than the majority of my friends and am much smaller in stature than most of them. I'm reminded constantly that I "don't know what its like to deal with weight issues all my life" -- but I do relate to the feeling of exclusion and the "everyone's looking at me" that I hear overweight people talk about. Being eternally skinny, while it seems a great place to be, is definitely a situation where "the grass is always greener on the other side." I was constantly used as everyone else's proof of how tough they were. I was target for bullying because they knew I'd not fight back, or if I did, I could be dealt with rather handily. This has lead to a lifetime of self-esteem issues. For the most part I'd like to say, I've come through it all on the other side rather well. I still have feeling of being excluded or judged, especially when meeting a new group of people. I never got to play football like I wanted A) because I already didn't fit in with that crowd, I had no support system for encouragement, C) they didn't have pads that fit, and D) the other guys were just more motivated to use me as a tackling dummy -- despite being rather fast, I just didn't "make the cut." And typical to most "nerds" -- was normally that last person picked for any type of activity. Growing up in a house where I wasn't allowed to lift weights because my mother thought it would "stunt my growth" made it hard to do much about my size and stature. I learned to just take it, and threw myself into music. (Yea, became a band nerd -- which didn't help things). Fast forward 10 years from High School and a failed marriage later, I met the woman of my dreams. It felt like I had finally come through the other side, and if I may say so, I scored a 10. I met a highly intelligent and beautiful woman that actually thought I was good looking as well, who happened to be a cheerleader in both high school and college, and was Prom Queen, Homecoming Queen, Snowball Queen, etc, etc. In my shallow mind -- my high school mindset -- I had really turned it around. Fast forward around 15 years, I'm 38 (she's 40), and we have two kids that are both beautiful and induce insanity at the same time. Like any marriage, its been work and there have been uptime's and downtimes. About this time last year, I was in an exceptionally dark place. My wife had started a bootcamp the prior year and had lost 50+ pounds, met an entirely different circle of friends and once again, I was feeling pushed aside. (I'm very high maintenance, I realize this). I could only take so much before I finally had to initiate a talk. I'm normally a very blunt person, so I just hit it head on. I'm one of those types that would rather know where he stands than live under false pretenses. I simply asked: "Do you even find me attractive anymore" -- to which the response was "…well, you're not *UN*attractive to me." Ouch! My tiny little world fell down around me in that moment. I'd felt like I was kicked in the chest. Here was this woman that I thought the world of, that I was extremely attracted to, and had been for YEARS telling me that basically, she didn't feel any physical attraction to me anymore. Granted, kids take up time, you get as many date nights and other priorities play a role in something like that, but [pause for effect] OUCH! In the meantime, leading up to this, I knew that her and her clique of friends all had the major hots for one of the trainers -- oddly enough, the dude shares my name. They'd actually fake bad form in an effort to get this guy to touch them and correct their position. Really? For some men, that probably wouldn't bother them much, but for me and my admittedly timid and fragile mindset along with poor self image -- it was devastating, and then hearing that she wasn't necessarily attracted to me anymore, I hit the bottom. HARD. I weighed about 170lbs which was my heaviest and I started working out, albeit -- for the wrong reasons. I had P90X buried in my desk drawer (I had planned to start using that two year's prior but a bad neck injury kept me from starting -- yet another long story). I got out the DVDs and started working out. I HATE working out from video and while I didn't complete the program, (it truly was a scheduling issue at that time…or at least it felt like one), I kept at it. I made my own modification to the P90X schedule, working out on the "Lean" program 2 to 3 times per week. I didn't see dramatic results, but I felt better -- but I still wasn't doing this for *me.* In early November, my wife came home and handed me a 3-month trial membership to Anytime Fitness. I've been working out 3 days a week ever since. Mostly weight training, but some cardio. (My wife has actually since obtained an ACE Fitness certification so she wrote a few workouts for me). However, I still feel that my biggest struggle is doing this for the right reasons, doing this for ME -- not to change her perspective of me, -- her comments earlier in the year were really a blow to my ego and I'm struggling with that daily, (my negative self-talk doesn't help either). In any case, that is why I am here. To hopefully find someone to help me hold myself accountable to working out, holding me accountable to setting and reaching goals, and more than anything else, to find something positive to put in my head for once because its good for me, not because I magically want to be able to turn my wife on when I remove my shirt (though that'd be nice). I'm not sure that ultimately I will be strong enough to ensure my marriage lasts as there really are times where I feel "something has to give" and "I deserve to be happy, and wanted" -- we all deserve that -- so I owe this to myself, to finally like the image that faces me in the mirror and to improve my confidence and self talk. I like what I see here, and from a physical standpoint, I'm liking what I see in the mirror more often than not so I need to really just keep that up, but also focus HEAVILY on internal attitude. I hoping to find that here. I hope this doesn't violate any of the Rebellion Rules as it sounds an awfully lot like I am all "woe is me," but that is NOT my intent. Sometimes misery DOES love company -- but sometimes we just need to know that people understand, that we aren't alone, and to know that there is a support system out there of genuinely good people wanting to band together and help each other out. I hope I can help someone else in return. (I can't find my before/in progress pics, but when I do, I can post them). Anyway, looking forward to being an active member here and hope I didn't share too much. (if I have, someone please say so and I'll edit it, remove it, etc.) Hope I haven't made a bad first impression.