Hi everyone! I'm new to this forum (but not to losing weight). You can call me Pen. :>

I'm 20 years old, going to college in Southern California. I've lost a fairly significant amount of weight before (30 lbs, from 190 to 160), a few years ago, but I've since gained about 10 lbs of it back due to falling out of my good exercising habits. College hasn't helped. I'm a physics major and I have to study literally ALL day, leaving little time for the gym. >.< I belonged to a weight loss community on the website Gaia Online, and keeping a diet/fitness journal really helped me stay on track.

The biggest problem I have with my body is my arms and legs (don't worry, I already know you can't spot train!). My torso is pretty slim, and I actually like my wide hips and big butt, but I can't stand my thunder thighs, cankles, and flabby upper arms! Like seriously, I have the worst cankles ever. It's so bad that the ONLY time they aren't covered up is when I go swimming. Otherwise I wear long pants, boots, leg warmers, or at least long socks so no one will see the monstrosities.

As for losing weight, my diet isn't horrible, so my struggle will mostly be about dragging myself to the gym regularly. I lost the weight before with Dance Dance Revolution, but in my dorm that's sadly not an option.

My eating habits do need a little work as well, though. I eat sugar too often (only in the form of snacks; I have soda less than once a month) and have very little portion control (I always clean my plate, even if there's way too much there!). Besides studying nutrition online since I first got into weight loss, I've also taken a nutrition class at university, so I know how much I have to eat, and what I have to eat, and things like that. The hard part is just actually doing it!

Why do I want to lose weight so badly? For myself. It's like dying your hair or getting your ears pierced: I want to look a different way. I also have a family history of morbid obesity, so I'd like to keep on breaking the trend (I've never been obese, just overweight, but if I'm not careful it would be easy for me to end up that way. If I ate how my parents taught me, I probably would be obese. Luckily I've taken my diet into my own hands since I was about 15.)

My goals:
-To lose around 30-40 lbs, putting me at around 130-140 lbs (I'm 5'7" and big boned... really ;P)
-To be around a size 7-9 jeans (currently 11-13)
-To lose my arm flab, thunder thighs, and most importantly, cankles!

I plan to start a new diet/fitness journal to help me stay on track.

Hi and welcome to 3FC.

Good luck with your goals.

Hugs
Michelle

Welcome and good luck!

Dhani

Welcome Pen to 3FC, we are glad you are here!

Hi Pen. I'm new too! Are you familiar with excercisetv.com? They have dorm room workouts that you can download for cheap. Also, weights help too. What plan are you on?

Cin

Thanks for all the comments!

@Cin: I actually do work out with freeweights sometimes ^^ I've been at university for 2 years and the way it usually works it that once in a while I'll get up the willpower to start going to the gym fairly often for like a month before I get busier again and stop going. But when I do I do either an upper body freeweight workout or a lower body workout (alternating every other time I go) as well as about 30 minutes of cardio each time. I think it would be very effective for weight loss if I could just stick to it for very long! As well as improving my eating habits, of course...

Oh and I plan on counting calories (going for about 1500/day). I think it's best for me because I'm a big overeater and if I don't watch myself I end up eating well over 2000 calories a day before I know it.

And thanks for that link, it sounds really cool, I'll check it out! :O

Hello and welcome to 3FC! It's great meeting you! I wish you the best of luck with your goals.