Hello everyone.
My name is Alyssa and I'm 21. I'm about 5'10" or 5'11" and I weigh ~240 lbs. I actually just stumbled upon this site today while looking for weight loss or fitness forums so I'm hoping this is what I'm looking for.
Just a little background information about me.... I've always been at least a bit overweight and I have a history of depression and, more recently, anxiety, and I'm a transwoman. My whole life I felt the pressure to look thin and attractive and desperately wanted to be that way, but until a little under two years ago I didn't think I would ever have the courage to come out to my family and so I had just resigned myself to the thought that no amount of weight loss or dieting would ever make any difference because no matter what I did it wouldn't make me look the way I feel. So it's not that I tried and failed to become thin over and over (at least, not wholeheartedly), I just never even bothered in the first place, but rather just dwelled in despair. As a result I have serious problems with motivation, but I'm really trying to get over them.
Soon it'll have been a year since I started hormone replacement therapy, and in the time I've spent so far I've mainly been working on emotional issues. But now my body is starting to become shaped more correctly and it's really starting to dawn on me that just taking that first step isn't enough; if I want to beat my depression and feel good about myself then I need to work to make sure I actually fit my new form well. I have a, not huge, but, somewhat large frame as it is so I don't know how much weight I can realistically lose and still be healthy, but I want to lose as much as I possibly can so I can finally be happy and get as close as I can to that body I always wanted. Another pressing issue for me is that fact that my breasts are starting to develop, and it occurred to me that I can either lose weight now before their development peaks and just have a huge self-esteem boost when I have them, or I can slack off and they'll finish growing, and then when I do finally lose some weight I'll just have to watch them shrink again, so it'd certainly be nice if I took advantage of this while I still can!
I guess that's about all there is to say for now. I honestly don't really know what I'm doing yet, I'm a total newbie to this, but I'm going to look around and I hope that the community here is what I need.
Greetings!
