New here & ready to make the change!

[Mgn]

Hello! My name is Megan.

I'm 21 years old and a senior in college. I have struggled with my weight as long as I can remember, and have been teased about it for just about as long by both classmates and family members. This definitely affected my perception of myself, and I struggled through my teen years with restricting my diet to unhealthy levels at times, and feeling absolutely dreadful about myself every day. Now that I've gotten older and gone off to college, I certainly feel a lot better about myself, although I have gained about 30 pounds since high school. I couldn't figure out why, until my life kind of came and slapped me in the face.

I never thought I was an emotional eater, but in June 2011 I was forced to come to terms with my emotional connection to eating. My mom was on her deathbed in a nursing facility due to an aggressive and extremely rare cancer at the age of 57. I was really distressed about losing the person closest to me. It would become a nightly ritual to eat a pint of Belgian chocolate gelato and cry. I never was able to acknowledge that I use food as a comfort until that point, but I began to realize that I ate in response to several emotions: sadness, loss, anger, boredom, feeling overwhelmed. I don't ever want to be in the situation again that food is my comfort.

In addition to comfort eating, I also have an issue with being slightly lazy. I would always rather stay inside and play video games than go for a walk or go to the gym. Always always.

As far as overweight/obese people go, I'm really not in a bad situation and I'm better off (weight-wise) than a lot of people are, but I still feel the need to get slimmer and healthier. My biggest priority is to get the weight off to combat my family history of diabetes, heart problems, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. I'd also like to cut my risk of cancer, as it's obviously had a huge effect on my life, and while my mother's cancer was likely not weight-related, I don't want to gamble with my health.

I have successfully lost weight before -- this April, I lost 12 pounds (went from 189 to 177) and felt awesome about myself, but summer vacation came and the stress of working three jobs caught up to me, and I lost sight of my goal and gained 4-5 pounds back. It's made much more difficult by the fact that I am surrounded by other people who have NOT experienced struggles with their weight, and don't need to keep it in line too much. Regardless... I'm ready to get back on the wagon now for good.

So, that's the story of how I got to where I am today, and I look forward to hopefully finding a firm place within the community here at NF. Goodness knows I need the support.

[Shatyr]

Emotional eating is a hugely annoying problem. I've been there. So has my mother. It never really goes away, but it sounds like you're making changes for all the right reasons. I'm pulling for you.