Things I Don't Miss

 Changing my nutrition and exercise habits have had a profound effect on me both inside and out. Even though I've had some success, when times get tough (I hit a plateau, I'm constantly surrounded by temptation, I get distracted by emotional stuff in my life, etc), I sometimes find myself drifting back to my old way of thinking. Sure, when my friends are eating delicious New York pizza, I want some. I wish it was in the cards that I could eat a slice or two like I used to. When it's late at night and I get a craving for ice cream, I start remembering what it was like to load up on my favorite flavors whenever I felt like it. When I make my boyfriend a bacon cheeseburger I FRAKIN' WANT ONE TOO. Who wouldn't? My choice to not give into that overwhelming urge to throw in the towel and go hog wild with food is what makes me strong. Willpower is a muscle and the more you flex it, the easier it gets. However, when I'm teetering on the edge of disaster, I start to think of what I don't miss about my "old" life. It's like the Star Wars prequels. Sometimes you really wish you didn't sit through those years of pain, but it's there forever and no matter how hard you try, you can't imagine it away so you might as well do your best to glean what you can from it. 

That's why I made this list of "Things I Don't Miss." Thinking about the negative things in my past and how they've changed helps me to focus on a brighter future that as of now, isn't so far, far away anymore.

• I don't miss getting winded just by walking from the subway to my destination.
• I don't miss sweating like crazy all the time.
• I don't miss getting hit on by guys who only want me because I'm a "BBW" fetish.
• I don't miss only being able to sit on the subway if there are two adjacent seats available.
• I don't miss my feet feeling like they were breaking after being on them for hours at a time.
• I don't miss my feet and ankles swelling up like sausages a few times a month.
• I don't miss slowly having to accept that I'm getting too big for my clothes.
• I don't miss binging on a whole pizza from Pappa John's and feeling like crap afterwards for willingly destroying my body day after day.
• I don't miss calling to order food from one of my favorite restaurants and having them recognize my voice and fill in my order before I can finish my sentence.
• I don't miss that guy at Dunkin' Donuts who saw my State ID from when I was thinner while I was paying and said, "Wow. When did you get fat?"
• I don't miss going to the doctor and having to get poked and prodded a billion times for them to even find a vein to take blood.
• I don't miss people feeling they need to console me by telling me, "But you have a beautiful face."
• I don't miss my family repeatedly telling me I'm going to get diabetes.
• I don't miss approaching a roller coaster with apprehension because I might not fit in the seat. 
• I don't miss putting myself down with a joke so that no one else has a chance to do it first.
• I don't miss feeling like I'm holding my friends back because of my weight.
• I don't miss letting myself get pushed around because I don't feel I deserve to take up any space.
• I don't miss looking at my beautiful friends and feeling like I don't even deserve to be around them. 
• I don't miss  being jealous of other people's beauty and success in healthy endeavors and subsequently hating myself for it.
• I don't miss promising myself that "I'll start tomorrow" but already knowing I won't.
• I don't miss making a million excuses for not trying something because I was afraid to fail due to my weight.
• I don't miss looking in the mirror, being unhappy with what I see, and not being able to temper that with an affirmation that I'm working hard to become a better person.

Last night, a friend asked me how it "felt" to have lost all this weight. I was flooded with a mixture of emotions because I know at my core I'm the same person in a lot of ways, but in that moment I was struggling to capture the result of leaving all that negativity in my past. In the end I decided on, "I'm not afraid anymore."