Hiya folks! Over the last few years, weight management has been very difficult for me, and I'm hoping that joining a community will help keep me motivated and focused on my goal.
Well, as with many people, this has been a lifelong struggle for me that was amplified by a million by the time I went to college. I have always craved food more than others but I was able to generally keep it in check, being up to 10 pounds overweight up until my teenage years. I even got very healthy with exercise and proper eating by my senior year of high school, and the one time I weighed myself, I was at 151 (I'm 5'9" and that weight suites me).
Enter college. I was 17, and I already had previous mental health issues, but I got severely depressed (new atmosphere, non-existent self esteem, cruel roommate, hard courses, extreme anxiety, etc), and I started my cycle of binge and emotional eating and little to no exercise. It's almost 8 years later (I'm 25), and I unfortunately have had a very hard time stopping. I've had periods where I've started a healthy routine, but I have not been able to (or maybe I hadn't tried hard enough to) keep up at it. Until now, that is (hopefully). I have no clue what my highest weight was, but in mid-December I was at 235 lbs. At that point, I started a healthy eating and exercise regimen with about 1200-1500 calories a day and cycling, and I've recently started the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred, and at this very moment, I'm at 214 lbs

. I'd love to get back down to the 140-150 range, so I'm looking at around 70 lbs I want gone!
My biggest issue is falling back into a pattern of bingeing. So far this month I've noticed that if there's something readily available to me that I love, like a whole bag of chips or a full plate of delicious food, I will eat it all, even past the point that my stomach feels full. This gets me very down, I feel like a failure and feel like I'll never reach where I want to be. I have stopped buying these tempting items, which is a huge step for me, but there are temptations surrounding me. I need to both find a way to stop the binge eating and terminate that negative thought cycle. I'm sick of being overweight and feeling unattractive and unhealthy.
Looking forward to talking with you guys, seeing the strategies you use and finally losing the weight and feeling good!!