For as long as I can remember I have been overweight.  There was a time when I was about 11 that I was, "normal size" I guess you could say.  But I gained weight more and more through the years.  In sixth grade I was a size 14!  I still remember being so embarassed to change after PE class.  I was so self conscious, I hated to change in the locker room with everyone else.  Sixth grade is the first year I received my first nickname, Shamu.  Now as most people know, Shamu is the whale that was at SeaWorld.  I still remember the group of people that called me that.  I blew it off at school like it was now big deal, but by the time I got home, I was dying inside.  There were times when I would go home and just cry. By the time I got through junior high and hit the 9th grade, I had gained a little more weight and acquired a brand new nickname, Free Willy.  Yep, I now actually had the honor of sharing the name with a whale of a movie star.  I still carried on and pretended it didn't bother me a whole lot.  I proceeded to finally call some of those people names back, cuss at them, or whatever I could do to make myself feel better about it.  But for the most part I still blew it off.  Even though I was older now, I still didn't stop crying almost every day when I got home from school.  I don't think my mom even realized how much it actually hurt me, as I was too emabarassed to let her know what was going on. By the time I was out of high school and in college, I had tried just about every diet, including about 5 different kinds of diet pills.  Some of them worked, but only for a little while.  All of that was a quick fix to my weightloss, and anything I lost I would soon gain back.  I HATED going to class during college, because our desks weren't exactly made for plus size people.  Needless to say, I developed some major bruising on my stomach where the desk pushed into it.  Some of the desks pushed so tightly I felt like I couldn't breathe.  But I just smiled and pretended I was comfortable.  I didn't want anyone to know that I was "big" even though it was painfully obvious. At one time, I had lost almost 40 pounds, which was my biggest accomplishment in weight loss ever!  I gained all of that and more back when I quit smoking and met my current boyfriend, because we started eating out all the time and I just got out of the swing of things. During college, and even now, I still experience the downside to being overweight.  I almost refuse to go clothes shopping, because every time I try something on, it only depresses me because nothing seems to fit.  I refuse to go to an amusement park out of fear that the seatbelts won't fit (which at one time they almost didn't), and I can't seem to walk up a flight of stairs, or to the other end of the parking lot, without breathing heavily.  I have high blood pressure, my knees and ankles tend to pop a lot, and I hate the way I shake when I jog.  My feet swell up often and I get sweaty way too easy. The final straw for me was when I had to go the doctor due to my severe headaches. That was the first time I had weighed in awhile, and I almost died on the scale when I saw the weight.  341!! The highest weight I have ever been in my entire life.  I was ashamed and from that day forward, I decided to do something about it.  I had another Doctor Appointment 2 weeks after that and during that time I was trying to lose as much weight as I could.  I ended up losing 7.2 pounds and realized that this was actually possible if I would put my mind to it.  That is when I decided to join Weight Watchers for a little extra help.  I am determined to do it this time with lots of help and motivation from Weight Watchers and my online groups.  Thank you so much for letting me share my story with all of you.