Well my story is more than likely similar to most people here. I have been overweight all my life and have stuggled to get that perfect body that the media says were supposed to have! LOL. I have learned through my stuggles that indeed it is good to be healthy so we can live a full life, but so many get focused on that picture perfect body that they loose sight of what should be the first thing to be looked at, our minds!!. Maybe it is just me but I have made gains with the way I look I used to be 326lbs then I pulled the old " Take fat burning pills and starve yourself" approch and I dropped down to around 215-220 in like 6 months. Suffice to say I have some loose skin left over, since then I have done a large amount of reading into proper nutrition and weight training, I go to the gym every morning before work and I have established fairly good eating habits. I have alot more work to do, mostly on myself, I still suffer from the insecurities and low self esteem as I did when I was at my heaviest. So now instead of reading nutrition books I read phsycology books trying to learn how to repair the mental damage I caused myself. I am on a great journey and I am thankful that I have reconized my faults and am working to correct them the best I can. I look forward to traviling down this path with you all. Good luck!!

Sounds as though you could have some interesting input into this forum FTP, I haven't really explored that side of weight loss so much, but I agree that we do often underplay the part that our minds play in our journey to better fitness. I certainly had to face my own self image issues. Funny thing is, although I lost my weight, I still feel very insecure about my body. I am putting on a little body fat again, as part of a weight training programme, and I get so silly about it. I'm a 44 year old man, and I still have a good healthy BMI, but I still sometimes feel fat.

Welcome to the boards FTP, hope to hear more from you.