My Single Mom Life

Well I did say that I would post my starting weight and my target goal, so here goes.
After all these years of being pretty much sedentary, (almost 7 years now) a weight lifting restriction of no more than 10lbs max, and no strenuous exercise beyond walking, my starting weight is:

I know that is accurate because I used the scale at Publix. My house scale is old and while it was close, I know that is my real weight.
Ugh.

I've been working out on the elliptical everyday now for 20 minutes a day, and I just pop my earbuds in and crank up the music on my Sansadisk mp3 player, and go to it.

Once I figured out how to get the batteries in, having the control panel lit up and working, makes working out much easier. It keeps time for me, miles, measures my heart rate, and beeps when I'm supposed to end.
I'm really enjoying this a whole lot more than just walking.
As for my weight, I am going to lose weight, but I'm not going to obsess over the numbers on the scale.
I'm not going to weigh myself daily, or even every other day, only once a week so I don't get all nutty looking at numbers.
I feel really good so far, I'm not having too much pain after working out, just the usual left hip area, but that's to be expected with a broken iliac screw in there.

I have two workout and health buddies Belle and Mindy.
We're going to do our best to help keep each other motivated, be a sounding board for each other when we just don't wanna keep going, swap healthy recipes the whole family can eat, and just be supportive.
That's the most important thing in my opinion.
Working out and trying to lose weight can be so difficult when you don't have a good support system to keep you encouraged, to keep you motivated, and applaud your accomplishments no matter how little they may be.

My goal is to get back down to what I was pre-sedentary, before they told me I could no longer work, and that surgery was needed.
I weighed 145 then, and it was perfect for my height and frame. Any lower than that, I start looking like a skeleton.
My weight right now is not horrible, but I'm not happy with it either. At least it's not what it was when I moved here 10 years ago. I weighed 235 when I moved here, got a job doing manual labor, and dropped down to 145 within 6 months and kept it off for 4 and a half years. I would have kept it off longer than that too, if I hadn't been forced by my doctors to stop working and to not do anything to further complicate my back and spine issues.

So there we go, my starting weight and goal weight.
I know I can do this, it's what I want, and if I want it bad enough, I will achieve it.