I'm Erin. I'm 31 and I live in Chicago.

And I'm fat. Well, not so much anymore since I've lost 40 pounds. Give or take a few here or there. My all-time high was about 200 at the end of college. When I started this blog, I was 184. Then 174 when I started Weight Watchers for the first time. I'm a shorty - barely 5'2 with a small frame - so it was quite a bit to be lugging around.

In 2005, I started to put back on 20 of the 40 pounds, and it took me almost two years to get it back off again. As of this update, September 2007, I'm 138.5. That's the elusive Weight Watchers goal weight I've had in my head for years now, like some stupid carrot. Now that I hit goal, I officially believe I took way too much stock in a string of numbers. It's sort of the same reason I took down my progress pictures. Truthfully, my body seems most comfortable in the mid-140s, and I'm no longer taking that weight range for granted. If I lose a few more pounds, fine. If not, I'm learning to be OK with that, too. I'm comfortable and happy and healthy at that weight and it's a lovely place to be.

Comfortable and happy and healthy, that is.

I've been keeping this blog since 2003 and I don't have a philosophy about any of this anymore. I really don't. Mostly I just think people are too lazy to do what's best for their bodies, and this includes myself, and once they get off their asses and do some learning and moving, things work out. And I don't mean solely in terms of weight loss. I really don't. Not everyone is made to be a goal weight. I used to have deeper, probably more meaningful and heart-wrenching thoughts about diet and body and weight, sometimes I still do, but I'm at the point now where the emotional baggage of being fat is for the most part pretty light.

And, really, that was the point of this blog from the beginning, to sort of allow myself to purge all of the ideas and thoughts I had in my head that kept me for committing to bettering myself and my health. I consider it a successful thing that I'm not navel-gazing on my weight as much as I once did.

Some basics: I gave up Weight Watchers for good in 2006. It was a good program for me when I started all of this, but the POINT counting and meetings and rhetoric just tapped into too many of my personal neurosises, thus defeating the purpose. I lost weight, but I was also losing my mind. So to speak.

Since then, I've been losing weight all on my own. I found out in May 2007 that I have hypothyroidism, and I've been following a low-fat, low-glycemic index kinda diet since then. And a little before that, too. Basically I eat a lot of eggs, egg whites, lean meats, veggies, fruits and low-fat dairy. I don't consume more caffeine than what's in two cups of coffee, and drink loads of water. Sometimes I hate it because it makes eating on the run difficult, but then I remember how crappy I felt before and suddenly bread and potatoes don't seem so tempting anymore.

I work out five times a week, mostly running and weight lifting and yoga. I really love to run. It's helped me with my anxiety and depression issues, as well as my waistline. I just feel better when I run, whether it's one mile or six.

However I still hate the shit out of weight lifting. Weight lifting can suck it.

More miscellaneous: I work as a Web editor for a company here in Chicago. I freelance, too.

I come from a close family and have a group of friends I do not deserve. In my spare time, I cook, read, hang out with said friends and family, write at my main site -- ejshea.com. I once was married. Now I'm divorced. Currently I'm dating a wonderful man named Scott who is as awesome as they get and makes me very happy. I'm lucky.

This site has been featured in a number of publications, including, just to name a few, O Magazine, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, Women's Health, plus countless of Web sites such as MSBNC.com and Lifescript. I've been on Good Morning America and WGN-AM radio, too.

Together with some talented ladies, I've written a book that was semi-hatched from this site. It's called "Tales From The Scale: Women Weigh in On Thunder Thighs, Cheese Fries, and Feeling Good ... At Any Size." The book is chock-full of personal stories ranging from childhood eating binges, sex, clothing and everything in between. Nowhere does it tell you how to lose weight, but it does speak to just about anyone who has or who is trying or who has tried in the past.

Thanks for reading.