Beginning...again.

I guess the great thing about beginning again, means that you haven't lost your drive to succeed right?

Here I am, once again, at the beginning.

If we rewind to about 2005/2006, I weighed 250 pounds which I thought would be my heaviest weight ever.

Then, with the help of the South Beach diet, minimal exercise and twist of luck, in 2007/2008 I lost a total of 75 pounds. I was at my lowest adult weight of 175 pounds! I felt amazing and for the first time ever actually felt like I looked amazing. Of course, I eventually gained the weight back and by February of 2010, I weighed 245 pounds.

With the help of Sparkpeople.com, I was able to lose 40 pounds but in the events of the last year or so, have gained all of that weight - plus some - back.

It was heartbreaking to step on the scale Monday morning and see some really scary, unfamiliar numbers: 274.

I have officially gained 99 pounds. Is this even possible? Wow.

So, here I am again, beginning yet another weight loss journey. I'm so grateful for the resources of Sparkpeople and have had the most success and enjoyment in the weight loss process using Sparkpeople.

I was looking back at my weight loss progress report (awesome feature!), and when I was successful in 2010, the results were slow and steady. There were weeks when I lost multiple pounds, but there were many weeks when I lost a pound or less. This helps to give me some perspective and to realize I don't need to lose - nor will I lose - 10 pounds every week.

While exercise is important, I have found that my biggest problems revolve around my extremely unhealthy relationship with food, so through this journey my goal is really re-define that relationship and get to a happy, healthy place.

My goal is no longer to be at 175, rather, I think 190 is more manageable for me. So, that's my goal. My deadline is by my birthday next year (Nov.5), which gives me about 46 weeks or 326 days - almost a full year to reach my goal.

I won't be upset if I reach my goal sooner, but if I average 1 to 2 pounds of weight loss per week on a normal week, then November would be about right to reach my goal.

I've picked Mondays as my weigh-in days and my hope is to post a weekly Monday blog reflecting on my prior week.

I refuse to make this a crash diet. Instead, I'm focusing on making choices that work for me and choices that will work to make for a lifestyle change.

Thank you for all of the support over the years on this site, dear Sparkfriends. I'm hopefully that I can reconnect with many of you and find some new friends, too!