And here we go....

So to start out I thought I'd share some information about myself.

I'm 34 and live in Ozark, MO.  My journey in life didn't start there.  I am originally from New Orleans - born and raised there.  All of our family celebrations that I can remember, centered around food.  Birthday's were about where we were going to eat to celebrate - holidays were about the food - even every day activities like school events ended up being about food.  I can see why I'm at the point I am now and what has led to this road.  I enjoy food, I savor good food and I look forward to meals.  Unfortunately I also eat during times of stress or when I need comfort and during those times I'm more apt to seek out those foods that are not healthiest.

I lead a very busy life intellectually, but not physically.  I work for an insurance company as a supervisor of a correspondence unit.  My team consists of members that are in other countries and other states - I'm actually the only person on my team in MO.   There's lots of meetings, lots of angry people and lots of stress of will I have a job tomorrow based on things that are not under my control - business changes, government changes, financial changes.  Our company has downsized in the past and with any customer service oriented company, downsizing is just a fact of life that can occur at any moment.  When I'm not at work, I'm in school or studying.  I am currently a part time senior at Missouri State University in the Dietetics program.  My ultimate goal is to be a registered dietician, get my masters (second one) or phd and teach at a university.  My relationship with food and the challenges I've faced and the research I've done to find what "diet" would suit me has lead me to discover that I find this field absolutely fascinating and it's a rapidly growing field considering the issues currently going on in our country with weight. 

Outside of that I have the regular stresses that we all have - family, financial, health etc.

Oh and I have a family - well not a normal family - I have 5 cats, a bird and a bunny - yup, i am the crazy cat lady and that's okay - but I want to be a healthy crazy cat lady. 

Anyways, that's about me.  Tomorrow I will post my stats - weight, measurements and my goal for the next week.  I will be taking my weight and measurements every 2 weeks and setting a new goal every week.   I hope to post some websites I find informational - from all sources - nutritionists, government, success stories, medical websites etc.  And i will attempt to journal every day my stressors, my ups and downs, my accomplishments and my food.  I would like to start taking pictures for a photo diary of everything I eat in a day - no matter what it is.  As for exercise, I plan on journaling that as well - I have some ideas but i will discuss that more tomorrow along with my goal for the week.