hello. my name is Andrea. I just stumbled upon this site and have been reading through the forums for the past few hours. looks like a great place to gain some support and BOY DO I NEED IT!!! I'd love to find a buddy, or two or three, or more... to chat with, share our goals, trials, failures and success. So, I'll tell you a bit about myself and then see where it leads...

I'm 34, current weight 165. I've been losing and gaining the same 7-10 pounds for about 6 months and I am SICK OF IT!!!! I need something new, something to get me motivated and keep me there. I've struggled all my life with body image, but up until the birth of my first and only child 5 years ago, was never overweight. I gained 50+ lbs during pregnancy (stopped counting towards the end). I lost about 35 of it during the first four months after giving birth but 15lbs has slowly crept back on over the years since - from neglect, procrastination, laziness and the like. It's about time I saw that prepreg weight of 135 - that's my initial goal. 5lbs/month for 6 months... starting today, 4/12/04.

I guess I'm also on a journey to find peace inside this body. As I said, I've struggled with body image for as long as I can remember and I'm tired - too skinny, too fat, too big here, not big enough there, lumpy and bumpy, stretch marks and all. I'm GOING to resolve this and live a healthy life - physically, emotionally, spiritually.

anybody care to join me???

I'm not new to this site but until recently I didn't take my weight loss serious. I recently joined QWL center (not sure if that was a good decision) but I have lost 8 pounds in 4 weeks, now down to 195. Maybe we can be buddies?

HI! Andrea.Nicky welcome like you just need to loose consistant would be happy at 5 pounds a month as long as I kept it off just cant seem to get below that 150 mark and go down from thereso with maybe your encourgament I can Rita

hi Nicky and Rita! looks like we have a group!

I saw something like this this on another post and thought it was a good idea for tracking progress - lists starting weight, current weight, goal weight and coming up with a few behaviors to strive for.

SW 165 (4/12/04)
CW 164.5 (4/13/04)
GW 135 (by 10/12/04 - 5lbs per month x 6 months)

this week (4/12-4/17 ) I will...

- drink 48oz of water a day
- go to bed at 10PM, get up at 5AM
- eat no sweets
- drink no alcohol

what do you think? wanna give it a try?

and Nicky - what's QWL?

Andrea! YOu sound JUST LIKE ME!!!!! OMG. are we TWINS???? LOL. I'm a newB here too and just like you, I've stumbled on this site looking for a low fat reciepe and here I am. I just HAVE to admit this...I have't REALLY TRULY tried to lose weight before. I'm now 33 and have 4 yr old twins and am SO sick of being fat. I started gaining weight at about 24(ish) and got pregs with my twins at 28 and now I'm about 165lbs! I've never been heavier and felt so....GROSS!!!! SO today I excersied. YEAAAAAA MEEEE!!!!! LOL. and it felt good. I got through the WHOLE FRIGGGIN' TAPE and did EVERYTHING! Think I'm a bit surprised at myself?? LOL Now all I have to do is try to get FOOD off my brain and it'll be ALLLLL good!! That's my problom..I cant seem to keep food from jumping into my MOUTH!! What is WITH THAT?? SO now I hope to have a group where we can encourage each other and help each other. After all, it sounds like we're all in the same boat. You can email me at any time but please put "chicks" in the subject so that I know it's you.
I hope to hear from you soon so we can get started on this thing!!!!
Thanks for listening!
Sweetstyle

hey sweetstyle!!! so happy you found me.

I think you're right about us being twins, cuz I have the same food jumping problem you mentioned. Did you ever have change jump out of your pocket and into the vending machine??? (that happens to me at work sometimes) Anywho, let's give this thing a shot, shall we? 5lbs a month doesn't sound crazy, right? and by fall we'll be 30lbs lighter!

I'm not quite sure how this board or buddy thing is supposed to work. Do we continue to chat here? do we move to another spot??? Anyway, I hope you'll check back here until we figure out what we're doing.