You asked for my story and here it is:

I have fought the weight battle all of my life. I tried just about everything out there and lost the weight dozens of times to just gain it all back again and more. At my highest I weighed 295 pounds. At that point desperation set in. I started walking and dropped 30 pounds. That wasn't even enough for people to notice. That is the weight I was at in the photo on my Spark page where I was in China on the Great Wall. The following spring I found SP. I think the keys to my beginning and initially sticking with the plan was that I really wanted it and I came to believe (through reading the inspirational stories and the SP information) that I could do it. I think that believing is really important. If you doubt yourself and your ability to do it, it gives you permission to throw in the towel when you have a rough day or the scale doesn't move the way you want it to or whatever comes along that makes things harder.

I stuck with it and kept exercising and tracking food from April of that year until January of the next when I hit a plateau. I was stuck there for about 3 months and couldn't get off of it. I kind of just slid into maintenance (despite the fact that I hadn't reached my stated goal weight). I stayed there within about 5 pounds for close to 2 years and then I gained some when we moved to a new house. Once settled, I was determined to get that extra weight back off and I got serious again and dropped even more.

I really think that the key to not sliding right back into 200+ pounds has been the development of healthy habits. I stuck with the healthy eating and exercising long enough for it to FEEL GOOD even to me. Now when I don't eat right and don't move enough, my body doesn't feel right and I kind of long for that "healthy" feeling again.

For me, this whole journey has been about these things:

WANTING it badly enough to be willing to try.

TRUSTING that the information I was getting was accurate -- that eating a proper amount of healthy food and exercising would take the excess weight off my body.

BELIEVING that it was really possible for me to achieve a healthy, attractive body.

DOING these things daily for a long enough time to create new, healthy habits that could overtake the old, unhealthy ones.