I'm not used to actually participating in forums. Lurking is so much more my style, lol.
I'm a 24-year-old grad student wanting to get to a healthy weight for my height and build. I'm 152 lbs. right now and would like to get down to 135... and stay there. BIG emphasis on the stay there. I tend to go up and down.
I've had body image issues since I was in elementary school. I remember being 17, 129 lbs. and thinking "I'm disgusting" which is ridiculous and unhealthy. I still struggle with this but I've recently made peace with how I look. I'm around the heaviest I've ever been but I feel happy and comfortable in my own skin. This is a first for me. I've left the getting-dressed-in-the-morning panic attacks behind and I'm almost able to talk to people without thinking 'I'm not good enough.' It's wonderful and I look forward to healing even more
So, now that I have a new outlook I feel ready to tackle losing weight - not because I hate myself (that was my motivation before) but because I think it would be good for me to do it. I stumbled on this site while googling and after looking around I decided it fit
So, nice to meet everyone!
p.s. Are there any sections of this community for people with body-image issues? I'm a lot better, but... it doesn't take much to lose all of that progress.