WELCOME!

LORI HERE,

Thank you so much for taking the time to read about me. I am a 37 year old single woman. I am a Realtor and live in the city of Philadelphia. I grew up in the suburbs in an italian american family. My parents were divorced when I was 7 and my mother raised my sister and I on her own. Even though I came from a pasta eating italian family, I was never an obese or overweight child. In junior high and high school I always thought I was so fat, but when I look back to pictures of myself, I realize I was small, just always bigger than the rest of my ultra skinny classmates and friends.

After high school and as I entered my twenties, I began to gain weight. At that time, I didn't belong to a gym, I wasn't too familiar with exercise. When I realized my weight was becoming a problem, I tried everything - exercise tapes, diet pills, Atkins diet, Weight Watchers, etc. I was never successful and started to get bigger and bigger. I am a very picky eater and don't like vegetables. I was also not secure with myself because of how I looked. I am very confident about who I am on the inside, I'm just not happy with the outside. It consumes my whole life and effects everything that I do.

I was engaged when I was 23 but broke it off before the wedding as he was not the one for me. Soon after, all my friends around me started getting engaged and married, followed by houses, dogs, babies and more babies. I felt lonely and like my social life had come to a screeching halt. We no longer got beach houses for the summer, no longer went on our ski trips as a group in the winter, etc. I think I began to feel lonely and bored. I didn't realize at the time that I began to eat more and more, and was active less and less. When I really stop and think and dig deep inside as to how I have allowed myself to get this big and unhealthy, I can only relate it to the fact that I must have been emotionally eating and filling the void of my social life by ordering a pizza or cheesesteak and ice cream and having it comfort me at the time. If I didn't have any friends to go out with on the weekends, I would order a pizza or chinese food, and that was what I had to look forward to. Then the more I ate, the more I craved.....

I lost some weight on Weight Watchers in 1998 and was down to 178. By 2004 I was back to 205. From April of 2004 to May of 2010, I had gained 85 lbs. My highest weight was 292. My current weight is 280. My goal is to weigh 150.

I have been struggling so much for the past ten years and want to start living my life instead of letting it pass me by. I want this more than anything in the world. I need to be healthy. I want to have a husband and children someday and my clock is ticking! I am going to be 38 this year. I don't want someone to want me the way I look now. Not for vanity reasons, but I would want a partner who takes care of their health and I expect that would be desired in return. I am the most passionate person, and have so much life inside of me and so much love to give. I just need to let it out! I would love to be able to wear a dress, not have to cover my butt with a purse, wear a sleeveless shirt, bend over to tie my shoe and not have to back up against a wall, go skydiving, wear heels, go dancing, LIVE MY LIFE.

This has been a life consuming, life hindering, life threatening issue and I NEED to make this change NOW - and I am READY.

I started documenting my food and exercise with my BODYBUGG beginning on MAY 22, 2010 (7 months until my b-day)

STAY TUNED....... :)

(HERE ARE SOME PICS OF ME AT MY HEAVIEST WEIGHT, then when i was thinner in early 2000's, then high school, then young)