You are so right, Des, we all <b>can</b> do this! What is amazing to me is the sheer number of people in this support group on different types of eating plans, some with lots of weight to lose (like me) some with just a little bit to lose, and we are all doing this <b>together</b>. The people here on WISH are the magical ingredient that makes WISH such a help to me.
What was my turning point? Well, there were a couple of them. It's sort of a long story (like I am capable of telling a short story

).
First, I saw photographs of myself at DISCON. Talk about embarrassing. I felt like I might just as well go ahead and change my user name from nativetxn to YES I'M OLD AND FAT SO GET OVER IT. Then my mother became very ill and was diagnosed with stomach cancer and had her stomach removed. My sister flew up to Michigan for this, it was Christmas Eve, I'll never forget it.
At any rate, my sister is about 4 inches taller than I am and about 60 pounds lighter than I am but she wanted to lose weight and wanted me to do it with her. She wanted to do Atkins and I gave her the same response a lot of people give <i>me</i> about that way of eating. I said, "Atkins will kill you." LOL, it's hard to believe that now. She told me that it wouldn't kill me in 3 months so I agreed to trying it for 3 months.
I lost 18 pounds the first three weeks. Now <b>that</b> is a turning point

Then in January, wovenwonder posted on the cb asking for some of us to come over here to WISH and bug Kelsie about some surprise she was cooking up. So I did, it's just so much fun to bug Kelsie
When Kels finally posted about the WISH Challenge, I sent her a pm and told her that I wanted to create a "fake" name and take the challenge. I was too embarrassed to have my other DIS pals and comoderators to know I was such a mess

I thought I might have a better chance of people replying to me if they didn't know it was actually me posting. Can you believe it?
Anyway, I knew that Kelsie could check my IP if I posted on WISH and I didn't want her to bust me so I sent her the pm and told her what I wanted to do. She sent me a pm in return that basically said, "Are you nuts? Why would you want to do that?"
So, I used my real name and took the WISH challenge. It was the best thing I have ever done for myself. Everyone here is just <b>nice</b>. Everyone is encouraging and caring.
Y'all are the best bunch of <b>losers</b> I could ever hope to know. One thing I hope to do someday is to actually meet every single one of you. I'm going to start working toward that goal
I really enjoy seeing new faces here on WISH. It always means, to me, that I have a new friend. That's why I always want people to delurk, I badly want them to be my friend, too. I'll just keep working on that
If I was able to help anyone find the joy that is WISH I feel very, very proud.
Katholyn