Well, let's start off with a confession...

What better way to introduce myself to the world of blogging than with a picture and a confession of why I am blogging in the first place. Easy enough... I am a 29 year old woman trapped in an 80 year old woman's body. Let me give a few examples of what I mean:

• I huff and puff going up stairs. We're not talking 5 flights, we talking 5 to 10 steps. If there are more than 3 flights, I may need to take a break in between or risk passing out.
• I have acid reflux, which has been linked to being overweight. I have been taking medicine at since I was 23 to keep it under control.
• I have had permantly swollen ankles due to water retention since age 23/24. I actually took water pills to reduce the swelling while in the US, but in Europe the doctors won't prescribe them to me, so here I sit, puffy and painful.
• My chubby feet don't fit comfortably in any shoes other than tennis shoes (or as the Brits call em 'trainers') and I just can't pull off trainers and skirt for some reason.
• My knees creak, snap and pop when I walk or climb aforementioned stairs and I'm pretty sure that's a bad thing.

So those are just a few of the ways that I've abused my body over the short period of time I've been around.

It's not only the physical things have been bothering me but there are other things as well. For instance, to go shopping in Europe as a plus sized (the fancy word for overweight) woman is horrible. According to the fashion industry here, I have to dress my body like it acts... Like an 80 year old woman with bad taste and just a smidgen of color blindness. I swear in order for the shirts to fit me in length I would have to be 7 foot 10 inches tall AND wear heels.

It's not only the fact that my body is acting older than it should be, it's other things too. Let me continue my confession.

I fly home to the US about once a year. I can't fit comfortably in an airplane seat. Thank God I sit next to my husband who is on the thin side so he shares part of his seat with me. Sometimes I have to ask for a seat belt extender. Every time before boarding the plane my hands start to get sweaty and I'm a nervous wreck. I try to be discreet when I ask for it, as it is quite embarrassing for me, but sometimes the hostesses don't get that.

Sometimes I can't fit in seats at restaurants or movie theatres. In the US I don't usually have a problem, but in Europe it is always something I have to worry about. I have squeezed myself into chair that are uncomfortable to only leave the table later with imprints of the chair on my backside that take hours to fade away or I'll sit on the very edge of the seat the entire evening so I don't have to squeeze myself in only to leave later with a backache.

Those are just a few of the reasons I am blogging here. Those are the things that have pushed me to the brink, have bothered me in the past and have made me finally scream "ENOUGH!!!". Those are the things I am trying to change in my life, little by little, bit by bit.

It's quite exciting actually, embarking on this new path, new way of life. It's going to be so nice to ride in the plane and not have to shift my weight from side to side to let the blood flow back into my hips. It's going to be nice to go to a restaurant and sit back and relax and actually enjoy an evening.

But really, what I am most excited about and my final confession of the day... I have been overweight so long that I am just curious as to what I look like under there!!! It's that curiosity that keeps me going sometimes. How exciting to see a whole new me that I have never seen before! It makes my belly do flips when I just think about the final result. Finding the new me is like meeting somebody I've never met before. I've put myself pretty high up there on my list of "people to meet" (coming in right in front of Oprah).

So there you have it, my confessions, my first blog, and my first baby step on my journey.