If there was already a thread on this, I missed it. Thought we could post a little about ourselves. I plan on getting to know you all and leaning on you in the tough times to come!

Just the facts: I am 36 years old. I live in Arizona. I have 8 year old twin boys. I have been married for 17 years. I have about a hundred pounds to lose.

A little more detail: Let's see, was never overweight as a child. Underweight would have been a better description. Right after I got married, my periods stopped completely and I gained a ton of weight very quickly. I was diagnosed with PCOS. Very difficult to live with. Bad body, bad skin, can't get pregnant. Lost 50 lbs with the help of a trainer and low carb and got pregant with twins. Weight came back with a venegance! I have yo-yo'ed ever since. I can lose a bit, gain it back. I was fairly successful with nutrisystem. I lost 50 lbs but couldn't afford it anymore. Not with a family to feed as well as myself. So I stopped and gained all that back. That is when I decided I needed to stop the yo-yo. I need help to lose weight and KEEP IT OFF! So here I am!

Anyone else want to share??

Hi! I'm Kathryn (also known as Katie, Kate, or Kat) I'm 27, single with no kids and live in Montana.

I was banded the 21st of July and am feeling many things about this new journey. Joy, Fear, Nausea, Anticipation, Failure, Excitement, the list goes on...

I've been overweight my entire life...no seriously...I was 10 pounds 3 ounces when I was born and it kept going up from there. Being that everyone else in my family is also big, it wasn't that big of a deal growing up...or maybe I just won't let myself acknowledge just how traumatized i am? =p As I got older and the weight kept piling on, (graduated high school at a little over 300lbs) I decided I wasn't going to live the rest of my life this way and decided to do something about it. Sadly, I didn't choose the healthiest route but still managed to starve myself to down about 220...which remains to this day my lowest adult weight. Of course the pounds just came right back with a vengance and I managed to hit my all-time highest weight of 426 lbs about 3 years ago. I could have died!!! Especially considering the fact that I've never really seen myself as "obese"...which sounds crazy...but is one of those unfortunate side effects of being overweight your entire life; you know you're bigger than most but don't really put much thought into just HOW big.

Since that shocking discovery, I've tried (and failed) at a multitude of diets including, LA Weightloss, Slim Fast, MediFast, and Phenteramine (the half of Phen Phen that is still legal in the US).

The Band is something that I had been toying with for about 5 years but didn't really get serious about until I got so frustrated by only being able to lose small amounts of weight just to gain them right back with the above mentioned diets. I'm hoping that this is a life long solution that will allow me to experience everything I never knew I was missing out on before.

I'm so excited to be a part of this forum and the Freedom Fighters! It looks like we've got a really great group here!