I was reading through threads, and I am so impressed with how supportive everyone is here. I've read through so many people who are hurting and wanting to stop being a victim...and I see myself in all of these folks.

I am a compulsive overeater. I recognize it in myself more and more everyday, though it has been there for years.

I am so tired of wanting to be fat to avoid unwanted sexual advances. I do, seriously, have that as a motive. There is a part of me that freaks out as I lose weight. For the past couple of years, I have been stuck between 307-309 as my lowest weight. You know, the weight at which you intentionally quit Weight Watchers.

I've been so blessed to learn to use exercise to help cope with stress. Now, I just need to do it instead of turning to food. The dog would certainly be happier!

The only time I have successfully lost weight by eating less and exercise was because my (then)fiance and I were doing it together, and I just felt more loved and more loved the better I did. I don't have that anymore, I don't have that constant source of love (romantic love, not family love...I've gots plenty of family love!).

I wore a cowboy hat all day on Wednesday. People smiled and said "Yeeha!"

But I loved who I was in it. I was strong, I was identifiable, I was not invisible. And I could kick your butt. I was a Texan in Maryland, that mythical person that Marylanders only see on TV.

I love that hat. It transformed who I think I am. I want to be that strong person with or without that damn hat!

I need to be me. All of me. I don't want to be a victim anymore, and I need to get rid of this extraness of me. I need to be strong all the time, because the truth is, I can kick your butt! And take names!

With or without a hat.

You go girl! Don't you just love it when you find that thing that makes you feel soooooo great inside. I feel that way in a swishy skirt. Makes me feel pretty and powerful!

I totally understand how you feel. Since I've lost this weight I have had more attention than I ever had. I went out last night and got hit on by three different guys! That totally freaked me out because I'm not used to the attention and all of it was unwanted. I was just there to dance ... not tangle some idiots sheets for the night!

I told my friends that this is the only part of being thin that I don't think I'm going to enjoy. It's great if the guy wants to get to know ME first, not have sex first. What is it with them??

I need to be strong like you with or without the hat!!!

Hello and to our forum!!! I LOVED your story. It made me smile. It's amazing what kind of an impact a little thing like a cowboy hat can have on someone! And it's an important realization that you don't NEED a cowboy hat to be that same person. Congratulations on your weight loss so far!!

Much luck and strength.

I LOVE your post! I understand the unwanted attention. It feels safer to be heavy cuz then you don't get that kind of attention. I know that is part of my issues with weight and food too.

I feel like you (in your hat) when I wear a black turtleneck, jeans and a pair of boots I have. It makes my red hair look really bright red and my green eyes really stand out. I have that kick butt attitude and so much more confidence. Funny how an outfit or something external can make us feel that way.

I'm glad you are here.

That post just choked me up. Welcome.

Thank you everyone! It was amazing to me how differently I felt with my hat on. Like a different person.

I've had it with dieting. I'm completely changing my relationship with food, one teeneeeeeey step at a time. I've signed up for a Christian weight loss program of sorts that focuses on other things, not just dieting.

And I'm never doing Weight Watchers again. I started that program when I was 8 and did it about every other year after that. You'd think I'd have learned by now.

I would love to do something like Diet to Your Door or whatever it's called, but I can't spend that much money. And it wouldn't solve my problems- or Nutrisystem, Medifast, and Jenny Craig would have made me thin by now!

Time to do something different. Yup.

And, um....half a day binge free!

Oh, my gosh! I LOVE your post, too! It made me smile and I also teared up a little.

You've nailed that feeling that I experience on occasion. Thank you for the reminder!
It's almost as though we're using a "crutch" or a bag of tricks to help us through things, isn't it? And there is NOTHING wrong with that as far as I'm concerned! I think we all need them at times.
I'd forgotten what it was like to run with music, but now that I have an MP3 player, I've got this fantastic music that makes me feel strong, fast, and pretty damned gorgeous. Sure, it would be great if I didn't need it. But who cares! I'm only human, and it works!

I'll bet we all have a bag of tricks. Stuff that helps us to feel good about ourselves.
Even little things. Like my favourite jeans. They look great on me (okay, as great as a pair of jeans can LOOK on a 200 pound+ woman. heh heh), so I wear them a LOT! I feel good in them, so why would I wear some other pair that make me feel dumpy and weak? My DH calls them my "uniform".

I'm so glad you're here with us, Freedom. You've got such a great attitude... I just know you'll succeed.
Keep your hat on!

keep posting.. great story!

I've started Project Me.

I figure I'm at the right age to- I've done what I thought I wanted to do and found that, while I am doing marginably well, I am extrememly bored.

This year I turn 28. Since my earliest memories are pretty much in the 2nd grade, this reminds me that I will have been dieting on and off for over 20 years. Wow. That startled me today, because it made me really realize that diets don't work.

No, really. They don't.

No, I mean it! They really don't! There's never going to be that magic program that will give me the motivation to eat only half of what I would normally and count every lick (Didya know you can have one Herschey's Kiss for half a point? Didya even want to know that?). I don't care what CosmoSelfBookofRed tells me. If magazines had it right, there would have been only one story about 30 years ago in one magazine, and everyone would be thin.

Today is my first real day binge-free. Yesterday, I was on a liquid fast (for spiritual reasons). I did pretty well, until that demon hour of 9:00, when I binged on soup. Did I strictly follow my liquid diet? Yep! It was soup! But, the whole reason I did it was to reassure myself that food was there, and that I would be able to eat what I wanted to today. Can someone tell me how eating soup at 9:00 at night confirms that I won't starve? Hmmm...nevermind. I realized that's not really a rhetorical question.

Today, I've been eating intuitively, and have done fantastically. I've only eaten when I was hungry, and I didn't binge when I did eat! I was even able to eat only 1 Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in a two cup package.

That's right, my friends. I did the impossible. I saved a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup for a later time. If I don't deserve the Presidency at this point, I don't know what it'll take.

More on Project Me later. Cliche title, but I think it most appropriately says what I'm planning. This may require uprooting a lot of things. We'll have to see!

Thanks for the compliments, everyone. I love this forum, and I look forward to being more than one day binge free!

Welcome to the forum! I think it's important that we all find out inner cowboy hat. Great story.

I ate too much today. Oomph. It was just one of those days- what I packed for my lunch was terrible (it was so bad I had to throw it away...I couldn't even choke it down) so I had crab rangoon. I tried to save some for later, but that just didn't work out.

Then I waited too long for dinner, so I ate a *lot.* Now I'm uncomfortably full. Danggit.

But! I didn't binge because of feelings!! I was truly hungry when I ate today. So that is, in and of itself, a victory!!!