Well what can I say to explain why I'm doing this?

Of course the expected answers are that I want to live a healthier and longer life and have a better self-image. Those are all givens and very valid reasons for wanting to lose weight but mine go a bit deeper.

Some background:
When I was just a little cubby I had some very well meaning but harmfull programming put into my head. It's the imfamous "you have to eat everything on your plate." My parents meant well and I do not feel that they caused me to turn out this way. Nope, it's all MY fault, all 100% of it. So growing up I was always the biggest kid in the class. Not height wise, I wish, but weight wise. I've been fat all my life. In High School I was well over 250, in college over 300.

I've never had a great self-image, in fact it's always been a bit on the poor side. I eventually hit a point when I tried to accept my fate of always being fat and try to be happy and "love myself". Didn't work. I was in denial. I did have times when I tried to chage my fate and lose some of my weight with mixed results.

I ended up going to a doctor and was put on Medifast. An all liquid medically supervised diet program that also included group meditation/hypnosis sessions. I dropped 85 lbs in 12 weeks. I loved dropping the weight but I hated what it did to my system. It was all chemicals and junk and it reaked havoc.....and a year later it was all back.

I tried it again but this time with the Bahamian Diet program. It was and all liquid diet and I did lose quite a bit and being all natural and vegetarian my body didn't revolt against me. Same result, it all came back and it brought some friends.

A few years ago I tried Atkins and in about 7 months I dropped just under 80 lbs....and yet again it came back. This pattern repeated to much lesser degrees with other programs and attempts.

I hit my heaviest (that I know of) in September of 2005 when I topped out at 386 lbs. I was in shock. I had no clue that I was anywhere close to that weight and that 400 lbs was in sight. This triggered a massive depression. So I tried Atkins again and my body fought me every step of the way. After 6 weeks of induction I was only down 12 lbs so I gave up till 16 days ago.

So I devised a program for me to force weight loss then throw my body a curve ball and switch gears back to Atkins. I'm just over the halfway mark of my first phase and I'm down 17 lbs so far.

I'll post more details of what I'm doing and my progress every few days.