Sitting across from a friend who was having much different lunch than me. She feasted on leftover spaghetti, and meatballs, cheese, and had a really sugary dessert, some kind of crust, chocolaty sugary confection. And yogurt….
“Are you sure you don’t want some, Chris? No one will know.”
“I will know, but thanks anyway. I gave up sugar and reactive foods the first day on this road, and I am not going back. I really do actually enjoy what I eat! ”
“You must miss it at times. I am sure a few bites would not cause all the much reaction.”
“Ummmm actually you would be amazed, so no thank you.”
I thought about that. At times, I guess I wouldn’t have minded a bite or two. But I know too much about what sugar does to me, and I know way too much about how quickly I respond to food additives. I have learned a lot about the times I seem to want it more. It’s is always at times when I am over stressed, over tired, when life seems too hard. Do I miss it? Sometimes, I guess…..
But I will tell you things I don’t miss.
I don’t miss my shoes being tied on the inner sides. If you are overweight by a significant amount, you understand that. You try to pick your foot up to tie your shoe and the bow ends up in the inner part not in the middle of the shoe. You can’t tie it any other way.
I don’t miss having something fall on the floor and worrying about how I am going to pick it up.
I don’t miss not having to sit down to pull my pants on or my socks.
I don’t miss getting on the floor and trying to figure out how I am going to get up without assistance. I don’t miss my knees screaming in pain when I did get down there.
I don’t miss trying to decide what activity I will do because I can’t do all of them on the same day.
I don’t miss looking at the chairs in the room and trying to decide which one will fit me best without it being an embarrassing. I am actually amazed at how much better I fit in chairs.
I don’t miss crying in the shower with pain, trying to have the warm water loosen my back muscles so I could do my job. I really don’t miss the huffing and puffing to my third floor classroom, dreading the days I had walk up and down more than twice. I don’t even think about that anymore.
I really don’t miss always shopping in the super plus section of the store and still not finding things that fit quite right, or finding things that my mom would have worn. I don’t miss that pretty white sweatshirt jacket I had that thought looked so great on me, only to overhear a kid innocently saying I looked like a big marshmallow. Yeah I am not missing any of that.
I don’t miss eating to kill pain, instead of eating because I was just hungry. I don’t miss pasta nearly as much as I would miss the yummy stuff I make for myself now.
I don’t miss my size 3x clothes at all. I pull stuff out of the dryer and still stare it and can’t believe that it will fit me. I don’t mind all the stuff I gave away to charity because it didn’t fit anymore.
I CERTAINLY don’t miss my Hashimoto symptoms and all the anxiety that they brought with them. I don’t miss all those funky winter ones especially, the ring of flaky skin around my head, the short non existent eye lashes, the long gone eyebrows, the puffy circles under my eyes, the dry flaky skin that looked like a white alligator skin on my legs. Yeah, not missing too much of that.
I don’t miss the days of eating 400 or 500 calories and never losing a pound. I eat more now than in my entire adult life. I don’t miss jumping on the scale all the time and beating myself up for what I had no control over.
I don’t miss the constant medical appointments and the personal relationship I seemed to have at the pharmacy. I came in so often they recognized my car as I went through the drive through. I don’t miss that at all.
My constant companions of hopelessness, anxiety, sadness and lack of self worth have deserted me, making room for happy, joyful, motivated and hopeful outlook.
There really is a lot I don’t miss.
“You must miss it at times, all this great stuff.” ummmm…. hmmmmmm…. nah…. I don’t think so.