The backstory

It's a new year. Time for new goals. It's time to get real about my weight.

I've always considered myself to be a chubby kid. I wasn't blessed with the skinny kid active energy metabolism. Now, at 33, when I look back at pictures of myself, I realize that I was just normal. I wasn't a skinny kid, but I also wasn't fat. I just felt fat next to all of the skinny kids.

When I finished my freshman year of high school, I decided to do something about being chunky. I went on a diet. I decided not to eat more than 1200 calories a day. It wasn't professionally monitored or doctor recommended or anything like that. I just created it on my own. And I stuck to it for the entire summer. By the end of the summer, I fit into my skinny "incentive" jeans. For the first time, I looked good. I felt good. Hell, I was HOT. I still had curves, but my waist was tiny. I was 14 years old, 150 pounds, 5'8" tall, and wearing a size 8.

Then my mom sent me to live with my grandparents in Hong Kong for my sophomore year of high school.

All my hard work at weight loss was completely insignificant in Hong Kong. Girls there grow up on a diet of fish, cabbage and rice. I don't eat fish or cabbage. The girls in my class averaged somewhere between 80-100 pounds. They also are genetically flat chested, unlike me toting around C-cup boobs. Granted I was taller than all of them, but weight-wise, I was more in a category with the boys. I think even some of them were smaller than me. They were certainly more atheletic. The boys grew up practicing Tae Kwon Do and other forms of martial arts. I never participated in sports. The closest I got was spending summers knee-boarding at the lake, which only helped keep my arms toned.

The only good thing that year was that no one else seemed to notice that I was the biggest girl in class. I'm not sure how that's even possible, because it was all I could notice. But I actually had the most friends and the best social life ever during that one year. Inside though, I was screaming at how I could not just be skinny! Why, after my hard work, when I could have been normal, did I have to end up in Hong Kong with all these skinny girls? Of course, again, when I look at the pictures from this year of my life, I realize how incredible I really look. I still looked good. But I just couldn't see it in the midst of all the 80-pound girls around me.

When I returned home, my mom put me in a new school to finish my high school career. I discovered boys, and they discovered me, but sometime over the course of those 2 years, I gradually added on weight, finishing high school at 180 pounds. Because I was tall, I still carried it well. But it was still there. I remember the air force recruiter came to recruit graduates, and I could not qualify because the maximum weight for girls in my category was 160 pounds. I couldn't even serve my country!

So I went off to college. My first time on my own, unmonitored. Now, the running belief is that girls gain the "Freshman 15" their first year of college. But I think for me it was more like the "Freshman 30". It was during my freshman year that I also discovered alcohol, so most of my activities, including how much I actually gained that year, are pretty hazy. In fact, all of college for me was pretty hazy. I partied. I drank. I tried some drugs. I do know I tipped the 200 mark at some point. I lost my high school boyfriend, who on his last visit casually suggested I run the trail around the campus.

After the 5 years it took me to graduate from college, I moved out to Los Angeles, the land of the beautiful. I was weighing in at around 220. The chunky girl at the office. In LA, anything over a size 2 is pushing it. Size 0 is the size of choice, and I also learned that there is something called Size 00. This blew me away. I was happy when I was a size 8, and girls in LA aren't happy unless they are a 00?

Part of my problem is that I am actually pretty fashion forward. I can help dress my skinny friends in ways they never conceived. I just can't pull that look off on myself because I can't fit anything. Shopping for me is a very depressing thing. In my head, I picture myself normal. I picture myself in these normal, cute clothes. But by the time I am trying them on and realizing they don't fit, I get severly depressed. I realize that the vision in my head and my reality are not the same thing. My only shopping salvation is shoes. I have tons of cute shoes, mostly heels. But a fat girl in high heels? It doesn't look right, and to be honest, it doesn't feels so good carrying 250 pounds on just your toes. My goal is to look good in high heels and nothing else!

Now, after 10 years in LA and dieting ups and downs, here I am. Beginning this new, very public journey. So here's what you need to know:

Week 1:

Age: 33
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 257
Size: 18-20
Goal Weight: 150
Pounds to lose: 107

So the journey begins...