I am a 42 yr old woman living in the midwest. I have battled my weight forever. I was thin between 13 and 19 - once I had my own money and was in charge of what i ate, the weight started creeping up. I hit my heaviest 6-7 yrs ago (315) and got scared i was going to have a heart attack and die. I tried a reduced carb diet, mostly because my friend had developed typeII diabetes. Not very succesful until I embraced a different motivation. I ate and excercised extreme and lost 87 lbs in 6 months. While on a plateau, i lost my motivation, fell off the wagon in a chinese restaraunt on my birthday and never got back on. I gained the weight back over the next few years and have tetered around 300 ever since. I know how to lose weight and a time or two i've lost 20 - 40 lbs but it always finds me again. I feel that i have been only addressing the symptom and not the disease. I know this time i will be successful over the long run. Partly because I know that what I'm doing is forever and it IS a long run and partly because I'm aware that being fat is about a lot more than just eating too much.