Coondocks - I love your post!

I'm new and just starting, but mine came when I was daydreaming. Of course, when I dream about my future I'm always thin and the one to be desired. I also always dream knowing that it probably won't come true, but wanting it so bad I can feel it. Then I realized, hey, no more excuses. No more "I can't because I'm fat" or "People will think it's ridiculous for a person my size." So, I want to lose weight so I don't have any excuses. I want to chase those dreams and not feel ashamed or embarassed or like I have to hide. I want to be the center of attention, travel to far off places and have people say "man, that American...she's gorgeous" not "typical american, fat and lazy." I want this...and I want it bad.

You and I both my dear =3 there's no reason we can't have those dreams, as long as we put the time and effort into it, right? I mean they always say "there's nothing you can't do" or "nothing is impossible", I seriously hope that's true, because I've felt like, no matter how hard I tried, I would never be able to be "little".

I guess I had two big moments that were tied together.

The first, and most important, was in January of this year. To be frank, I had hit rock bottom. Depression and anxiety had lead me to almost losing my position in grad school due to lateness and even missing whole days. Over the previous 4 months I had all but stopped brushing my hair and my mother had to force me to brush the huge knots out over Christmas break. There was even a point around November and early December that I only bathed once a week. And of course, on the weight front I had gone up 50lbs in the past year and 10 months (not all of that was from the depression, but a lot was).

I had come back to school for the semester, but didn't starting going back to school. I just hid in my apartment for a week. Finally, I made myself go one night, but even then I didn't know if I could make myself get up the next day and go in again. Finally when I was driving home I had a panic attack and called my mom, saying that I had ruined my life forever. After calming down, I just had this feel that in that moment, I had a choice either to give up on all my dreams, or to finally get help. I choose to get help. Luckily my university offers counseling, and the next day I got an appointment.

The next moment came in counseling. Its funny, I had been thinking about dealing with my weight for years since I had always been overweight, or at least chubby, but never actually done anything about it. But one day, it was like a switch had been flipped. All a sudden, the decision that I could never make before became so easy. I didn't even tell my counselor, I just went home, looked online at the prices for gyms, and joined Curves within a few days. I think I knocked my counselor's socks off when I told her the next week.

So, while I didn't exactly decide to change my weight in January, I did decide to change my life, and that was the most important part.

For me, nothing was ever enough: my capacity to get used to things, to accept them, is apparently endless. Don't depend on something being intolerable, because after a little bit you discover you can tolerate that, too. You've got to make yourself want to change, not be forced to change by an insult or a picture or a embarrassing moment. In a few days or weeks or months you'll forgive your mom. What will keep you going then? You've got to have that resolution inside of you if you want to stick with it.

In other words, while "rock bottom" can be the spark for weight loss, it's never the fuel. Make sure you have fuel.

It was a bunch of little things.

- getting embarrassed of asking for a seat belt extender every time I flew somewhere.

- being nervous going out to restaurants that I wouldn't fit in a booth or that the chair would have "sides" that I couldn't fit into.

- being tired and sore after walking only 2 blocks from the train station to the office.

- having some random stranger come up to me he was as big as me and he lost the weight and I could as well (he was trying to be nice, but it was embarrasing).

- Buying a scale that went up to 450 pounds and having it give me an "error" message when I got on it (I actually don't know what my real starting weight is, but the 446.8 was the first weight I was able to record).

- Always feeling like I was a circus freak and everyone was watching me.

- Closing off myself to finding love because I felt like nobody would ever want to be with someone like me.

etc. etc.

For me, close friends and family members kept hammering on how fat i have become which made me feel less confident. A friend lost weight and told me how she did it, i started the diet plan and i was really excited after i lost so much within 2weeks and the same people kept admiring my new look. This encouraged me and made me determine to get to the right weight for my BMI.

Me too!! We can do it and we will have those dreams! I just keep telling myself "it's gonna suck sometimes (maybe most of the time), but it'll be worth it!" that's helping, I think. We deserve to be happy, and that starts with being happy in ourselves!