Starting up again.

While this will remain my primary posting place, I'm going to begin using my tumblr again - this time, with a different purpose. Recently, I've become entirely unhappy with my health - or lack thereof - and its effect on my appearance. Read: yes, I'm complaining about my weight again. But bear with me.

While my body mass index now falls within the normal range, I was once on the brink, teetering between being overweight and being obese. After four years attending a somewhat prestigious all-girls middle and high school, I chose to leave and enroll in the school that would become my saving grace - mentally, emotionally, and physically. The change in me began even before my first day of classes. As soon as summer began, I decided a complete lifestyle overhaul was in order. I went on my own sort of diet - a healthy eating plan that limited carbohydrates and focused on fats and protein. With barely any strenuous exercise, the extra weight began to melt away. I don't imply that weight loss is this easy for everyone - it's not. The fact that I was able to lose so much weight with limited physical effort is a simply a testament to my problem, which was not so much under-exercising as it was overeating.

By the end of the summer I had lost thirty-five pounds. I was wearing new clothes and bearing a new outlook and confidence. Over the next three years I would continue to lose weight - after ups and downs, I had lost nearly fifty pounds from the time I left my old school to the time I graduated from my "new" school.

It's funny because at my lowest weight last May, I was still unhappy - I still longed to lose that "last five pounds." And after a while, I stopped trying. Summer came and went, and then my freshman year of college came and went, and somewhere in between each of them I gained five pounds. Ten pounds. Thirteen.

And that's where I am now. I still consider myself to be a stress-eater. I snack when I procrastinate. I bake when I'm worried. I can't shake my appetite when I'm upset. Just my luck that I'm somewhat of a "stresser" by nature.

So, you guessed it. My tumblr will become my weight loss diary - feel free not to follow if that's not your cup of tea. I'm about to make the age-old vow to get healthy again. To eat better, to exercise, to lose weight. Whatever you want to call it, I just want to be happy with myself. I can't express how proud I was - am - to have lost those first thirty pounds four summers ago. Although I didn't see it then, I can say it now: I saved my own life.

And while now the situation is not so dire (nor dramatic), the desire remains. I need to do this before it's too difficult. Before the stress of college or a new job or a family rests on my shoulders, I need to get to a point at which I am willing to call "good enough."

And so it begins.