MandiMand

I have been overweight almost my entire life. Or at least, I always felt that way. I was tall for my age at 11 (5'6), and weighed 110 pounds. But because most girls in that age group are small and scrawny, I was constantly teased and ridiculed. And not just by my classmates; my parents put me on a diet and my mom accused me of looking pregnant (my weight tends to settle around my middle, sadly). As my family moved quite often, I ate more and more ue to boredom, and grew more and more depressed when back-to-school shopping came around, because of the comments from my mom about how I wasn't fitting into the clothes she had picked out for me. It was very depressing, and I didn't have anyone to turn to. My teenage years weren't any better, and I just felt like such a failure.

In my early 20's, I lost forty five pounds and felt more in control. I started working out and eating slightly better. I gained some of it back when I began dating my ex-boyfriend, because he and I loved to eat. We broke up and I dropped the weight again. I felt like it would always be this easy. Now 11 years later, I realize I've packed on those pounds again, and then some. t's not so easy to lose weight anymore, and I know have to contend with Type II diabetes and high cholesterol. I have a small son, and I feel constantly guilty about my shortcomings, in that I am usually out of breath and feeling exhausted when I should be out there running around and enjoying life. I did a lot of research, and finally decided that I could no longer do it through diet and exercise alone, I needed an additional boost to get me back on track. And why not use this tool wisely?

So here I am :-)