I have no idea if this is the right place for it, hope it is.

I am a female, 5'5" and 130-ish lbs. This might sound normal to some of you, and indeed it is 'normal' on the BMI scale, but for me... it is not.

In highschool, I maintained a weight of 100 lbs just by going between classes. I have a high burning metabolism and all the good and bad things that come with it. I am small in the hands, feet, face, well... everywhere. EXCEPT.

I spent the last three years of my life pretty much sitting around on my ass most of the day or sleeping. I would drink quite a few cans of soda a day, I would eat 4 or 5 milky ways or butterfingers or some other high-calorie, high fat candy bars. A DAY. And then one measley meal... maybe healthy, maybe not (steak and green beans with lots of butter, or cheese in a can on crackers with pepperoni, anyone?)


This is when my muscle pretty much disappeared and fat took its place. I have a gut, I have MONSTROUS thighs. Really, I was lucky... with how I was living and eating I should have gone up a couple hundred, not a measely 30 lbs. I realized stuff was getting bad when I was struggling to carry a 25-lb bag of kitty litter 20 feet. I started out simple: a change in diet. I thought FOR SURE this change would do the trick. I stopped at the candy bars, maybe occasionally treating myself to one tiny square of dove chocolate. I switched to Special K and egg whites only and whole wheat, calorie counting, kiwis and fruits and veggies, multiple meals a day.

I did this for a month before I stopped. Why?

I was NOT living. If you call that living, you're freaking weird, I am sorry. I needed some treats in my life and I discovered this when I broke the diet by eating every last thing I craved so badly in one single day. Burgers, fries, aolie, chocolate, philly cheese steaks, pretty much everything bad but so good. Then I reverted out of guilt to just trying to make smarter choices - saying no to candy bars save a bit of chocolate a day (maybe some m&ms or a few cookies), but keeping with the light mayo and other such healthier choices. And of course, lean cuisine dinners and snacks around at all times.

At the same time as doing this I was doing first, Wii Fit, and then, p90X. I even stuck with the p90x after I quit the diet. But I quit the p90x when I discovered... I lost no weight. None. At all. The diet had LITERALLY done nothing for me. I even checked against inch measurements around parts of my body -- it was, indeed, worthless, as well as the exercise.

Which brings me to now.

I personally decided that my biggest woe must be the fact that I have almost no muscle left in my body. I started rectifying this by purchasing a home elliptical machine, which I never used after I discovered that I could not last even three minutes on the thing. Instead, I sat around in a depressed state of self-pity, deciding that I just had to live with it. It was, after all, a normal weight, right?

Well, about a week ago I got a good look at myself again in a full body mirror at a store's dressing room. I was making sure my spring clothes fit, and noticed the pockets of cellulite in my thighs and butt and how much my gut stuck out. I have no mirrors in my house save the bathroom cabinet one, which in my teeeny bathroom, will let you see maybe your chest and that is all. I fell to pieces. I cried so hard in that dressing room that I didn't come back out for 10 minutes. Silently, I loathed my body.

My friend is a member here somewhere and a big fan of cycling these days, and his ranting, along with the Yehuda comic and memories of bike riding as a youth and how nice my legs were, got me to finally give this a try. I am dirt effing poor, though, so instead of getting a pretty bike, I took the tiny bit of money I had into making an ancient mountain bike from my teenage years road legal. Lights, helmet, plain ol cheap walmart shorts so I didn't worry about pantlegs getting caught in the extremely exposed gears, horn, and a u-lock. The bike looks like someone put pretty shinies all over a pile of dog crap, but hey, it works.

Even though I have been working away at my elliptical and have managed to get to a whopping 12 minutes at 0 resistance (!!!) before I can no longer bend my legs, I decided to add biking to my schedule.

I took it out for my first ride today. Here, in this part of Western NY, we have two choices for riding terrains. Flat, or suicide effing hills of doom. I cycled about an hour and a half through the mostly flat town, only encountering one obnoxious (but really, very small) hill. At times, my legs would burn and I would have to pant out my mouth from the exertion. No clue what heart rate is or speed was, as those are toys I most DEFINITELY can not afford (I just spent my last 50 on accessories). I kept in the road so I would have to try to force myself to go at higher speeds.

So my curiosity is, is this going to help me? Even if I cannot tackle those huge hills yet? The mountain bike has nubs on the tires but to be honest, I can't figure out that gear mechanism to save my life. So I really tend to treat it like it has nothing. Can I tone my legs? Can I finally lose this stupid weight?

I'm getting absolutely desperate here. Just want to wear a swimsuit and feel good. Hell... to fit into my clothes again would be nice, and not have a muffin top, and not feel like a tub when I wear my shorts or have some loose fabric around my thighs in my jeans would be nice.

For the records: 32 1/4" around the belly button. 39" around the hips/butt. Upper thigh at widest point is 21.5". 29" around the ribs. 6" at knob of wrist. 21" around skull. Is one thigh supposed to be bigger around than my skull?!

Edited to add:

During those teenage years of my only exercise being running around school between classes and gym class, I ate like a hog. I am talking there were times when I was packing 4 lbs of food a meal at 18. I am now 25.