Hi there! I am 20 years old and I am needing a little help getting back on track physically, mentally, and emotionally. I have been working out for almost 2 years now and I really enjoy it, it is what my career is going to be. I am going to give ya'll a little background info and then ask my questions. Last year I lost about 40 pounds, but I didn't do it right, I didn't eat and worked out all the time, but I lost the weight and that is what I wanted. Well, I hit a lot of roadblocks with friends, family, and myself and it is continuing to slowly kill me. I sunk into a deep depression and I am having the hardest time EVER to get myself out of it. I am currently on Effexor XR and I do see my pastor weekly, but I had knee surgery in February, so it has been more irregular than reglular. I am hoping to find an approach so I dont have to pop a pill everyday. My boyfriend really loves getting on here and I have started to read things and I decided that I was ready to "throw myself out here" and see if ya'll had any positive support or information to help me gain knowledge and confidence as well. I grew up in a very mentally abusive family, as well as emotional, physical and spiritually abusive, but mainly mental abuse. I didn't relaize until I started dating my boyfriend (who is also a user of elite fitness) and becoming best friends as well as lovers (for the past 2 years) with him and being very close to his family that the family situation I was in was not good AT ALL. I grew up being a robot-doing everything for everyone else and not caring ONE BIT for myself or what I wanted for me. I programmed myself to what my father wanted and that is NOT what I wanted, but I did it because he always said honor me and respect me no matter if it hurts you. Well, when I moved to college and learned that none of my friends had parents like this and I was up the creek without a paddle, I started by switching my major to what I wanted instead of what my father enrolled me in and then I started working out with bowlingforsoup (my boyfriend) and I was seeing positive results, but I was still a stupid, ugly, fat bitch in my fathers eyes. That is how I wake up almost everyday and the condemnation has beaten me down so far. I have realized here recently, that if I want to grow as an individual, which I really do and if I want to marry bowlingforsoup (which we plan on doing, we have discussed it), then I have to get myself in gear to doing the right healthy things for me, NOT for my father, unless I plan on making me and everyone around me miserable and I DONT want to do that-I am not that kind of girl. So, here are my questions, this time around on the losing weight thing, I want to do it right, I want to find a great workout for me with correct sets and reps to help me lose all the weight I gained back from last year (40 pounds plus some) and decrease my waist, butt and hips. I want to eat right, not eating at all is a bad thing and all it did was reverse me into becoming an obsessive eater and that is bad too. I want to be able to find a diet that is good for me with not a lot of weird foods and be healthy. I am really ready to turn my lifestyle around, to be a happy, healthy person, inside and out. I pray that God will help me with this, but recently, I think I needed a little more support from real people, I feel that it may be more motivating, not only getting information from my boyfriend, but also ya'll. If ya'll want to know more, just PM me, but in the meantime, I thank in advance everyone who reads this. I am sorry that I dumped out everything, but I just want to get back to what I used to be and this seemed to be a good place to start. Like I said before bowlingforsoup loves it on here and I would love to get to know ya'll too. Have a great day and I really appreciate just getting to put this up here.