Don't bother - well said, and I totally, totally get it. I'm sure a lot of people do. Although I was never all that close to goal, in the end it was my brain that sabotaged my last success, not my fork. Now I understand there's a mental component to it all, a serious head adjustment to make, and it's not altogether pleasant or easy or natural. Maybe it is if you were thin once, but if you've always been fat like I have, a person may find themselves uncovering more surprising things than just their abs during this process.

Even if you used to be thin, you can uncover some things you never realized about yourself and how you fit in the world. For example, I sometimes wonder if I'd have gone farther, been happier, more successful, etc... if only I'd STAYED thin. When I get closer to the weight I USED to consider "fat", it's really an exercise in self-awareness I'm not always anxious to take on... which is when I tend to blow it, foodwise. Funny how that 200-lb mark looks SO different on the way down. Anxiety-provoking on a whole different way than it was on the way up!

OTOH, refusing to blame my fat for my choices in life is pretty scary and liberating all at once. Still being fat, and LIVING my life without hiding behind it is really thrilling!

So maybe it's not my fat ITSELF I really will miss, but the self-soothing of using it as an excuse.

I have a totally different perspective, guy's hit on my all the time...beat the crap out of me as a matter of fact. All through elementary right up until I was in 8'th grade and hurt a guy real bad and the punks left me alone. Then I went into high school and lived with the abuse for another three years until the next unlucky soul received the three years of anger through a just a few punches to the head.

This is why being fat pretty much ruined my life before college. A terrible childhood, very little contact with females until the end of my senior year of high school. And what I can't seem to shake is constantly being defensive, even to this day. I hate it and being fat is in my opinion, the driving force behind it.

I fought a lot in school, always after prodding, poking, verbal or physical abuse. It never seemed to be a smaller, shorter or younger punk so I feel no guilt. It eventually came to the point that I "blindsided" several abusers in high school...they never saw it coming. However, it made a difference and many of these punks left me alone.

It probably sounds quite nasty to some people but being short (5'-6") and almost as wide I was an easy target.

BTW, I have been married for 13 years with beautiful 9 and 10 year old daughters.

I already miss the going out to eat and just eating like crazy without thinking about it. Like Kim i miss that relationship with food.
I remember before i gained my weight back when guys made me want to punch their noses because they were all interested in me. Now i want to punch them when they don't notice me because I'm fat again. It made me mad before because i knew that if i were fat the guy wouldn't even look twice. Now i am mad because I was right. I don't think i will miss very much about being fat.

As the mother of four boys, this post really pulled at my heart strings. I think we forget sometimes that it can be just as rough for males, as it is for females, to grow up with a weight issue.

RDW, what happened to you in school was terrible. I hope your parents were there for you, and I'm so happy to see that you're married today and have what sounds like a wonderful family.

It's already been said but I just had to throw my two cents in....I will miss using fat as an excuse and facing what may be shortcomings in myself and not my physical appearance. For example, I haven't made VP yet, even with a degree, and I always blame my fat for it but maybe it's because I'm just not qualified for it. Or thinking that someone doesn't want to get to know me just because I'm fat when in fact it may be they just don't want to get to know me.

And, yes, the relationship with food. Food anesthetizes me.

But, weighed against the advantages of losing the fat, I can cope.

This discussion is bringing tears to my eyes. There have been at least ten posts I wanted to respond to--I so appreciate the openness and insight, the willingness to talk from the heart and gut, cut to the bone. RDW, ROFL about the boob thing--and your other post made me think of Golda Mier saying something to the effect of, "We may someday forgive our enemies for killing our children; what I cannot forgive is making us kill theirs." Sometimes we can better endure the trespasses against us more easily than being harassed to the point where we react instead of acting in accordance with our own standards.

I think initially my reaction to this question was to say nothing--because I fear that if I say, "yes, this has been useful," it puts me back into that zone of having friends who tried to analyze my reasons for being fat. ("To get attention. . . " was one suggestion. Yeesh--fat makes me INVISIBLE!)

But to pursue this for my own purposes:

When I was younger and thinner I kept hearing But you have such a pretty face--and it wasn't meant as a compliment---people always sounded so sad when they said it. I had to lose weight to find out that, nope, it was pretty much just your average face. I'd still enjoy having strangers tell me I have such a pretty face, but it doesn't happen anymore. ;~}

I'll miss my green coat. Last March I found a coat on sale for a few bucks that is sooooo beautiful--hunter green,cashmere-soft, deep collar, ankle-length, Wuthering Heights kind of style, wrapping me in warmth and style and beauty--by spring it was getting biggish, by fall it will be ridiculously so--first really nice coat I've ever had--because I couldn't find a nice coat in my size before that which I could afford. And no, tihs is not the kind that can be easily cut down and resewn to fit. Drats.

I had `fat clothes' that I was sooo grateful for, because I had so few of them--they were my old dependables. I used to wonder what I'd do if our bldg burned, because I'd have a really hard time getting clothing that fit for immediate replacement. While I have clothing I like very much, I don't have that feeling of relief and gratitude towards those items like I did with my '24s.

And, like the Grizman says, weight as ballast gives a kind of false strength--you learn to use that to make things move. Imagine my surprise when I got behind a bookcase and shoved, and nuttin' happened. My friend who is shorter and weaker (but for the time being, heavier than am I had to get behind it and she moved it almost effortlessly.) My surprise. I'll live with that, but I'll miss the coat.


And. that's. it.

For what am I most grateful to the fat? This forum.

What do I resent most about it? The time and energy and money and pain and life that it has cost me. While I feel fortunate to be able to move on and enjoy the life ahead of me, my youth was marked by this, and what should have been a joyous and energetic and life-filled time was much more a painful struggle. Hmmmm. . . not much of a trade-off for a coat. . . .

I am just starting my journey and have a long way to go. My response is that I will miss nothing! But one thing I have noticed by reading through this thread is that the closer you people get to goal, the more things they come up with that they miss. Dont get me wrong.....I'm not saying anybody regrets losing the weight! I think it just puts you more in touch with your deeper feelings. I think sometimes we spend so much time thinking about food and weight that the other feelings get pushed aside to deal with "later" when we become thin. Some counseliing after the weight loss might not be such a bad idea.

I don't miss anything about being fat, though technically I still am. I'm not 400 lbs anymore, and I still can eat out and pig out on low carb foods at buffets but this time I don't feel like everyone is staring at me. I do miss not worrying about fast food choices cause I can barely eat anything at the fast food places, esp. when you've got $4 to your name and 3 kids-(one of which is mine), rattling off a list of what they want-lol. But, other than that, I don't miss anything cause I can move around and function and once in a while get looks from guys, even recently had a guy follow me for a mile asking for my number in his car, scared the crap outta me. And I'm looking forward to losing even more so I can have my pick of the litter!!!

Having grown up fat and teased about it, I developed into someone that prefers to be invisible. When I was thinner in my early 20's, I started to come out of my shell more and wanted to be attractive to men. But at the same time, I still had the feeling of wanting to not stand out. Talk about conflict! I would get all dressed up and go out with my friends, but then turn down any guy that talked to me. I wasn't a b**ch, just afraid. Eventually met my husband, got fat and had lots of kids. Now, even though I have only lost 30 pounds so far, I am already starting to feel more noticible. Again, I want to be attractive, but I don't want uninvited attention. Its kind of hard to sort it out. I definitely feel safer now, just because I have a husband and kids, I am not "on the market". But I still feel nervous about not being invisible anymore. Not totally a bad thing, but something new to deal with.
What I am waiting to hear is "you sure don't look like you have 5 kids!". Which is funny because most of the women I have seen that have alot of kids are usually not too fat. Something to do with being run off your feet!

Hi, to be honest; for along time when I was 50 lbs overweight, I didn't realize how overweight I was, really. I wondered why my fiance started treating me badly. He's been history now for 4 years; I was dateless after that for a few years.

I really thought I was just getting older and that was a part of life, now I think i was just depressed. I can say in the last year I have quit smoking and lost 20 lbs, so I have to give myself some credit for that.

I think I will miss the food, I still do, even though I have only lost a total of 25 lbs or so, I live alone, and it gets lonely, and food was there for me.

I guess I will have to eat things I love once in a while, just not like before.

I just want happiness in my life, I hid from the world for so long after some terrible things happened in my life, now I'm getting better and I just want my life back......."I refuse to take antidepressants" I have a strong faith in God for everything in my life now.

Sometimes I don't "feel real," as though either I don't exist or everything around me is imaginary. This weight loss is making me feel that big time. Fat made me feel more present. I have a feeling of disappearing.

I'll miss gorging myself on all the homemade goodies at church fellowships. I'm starting to believe that being a little old lady means you have to cook with tons of sugar, flour, butter, etc..

Hmmm, let's see...

Pasta, pasta, pasta, pasta....did I say pasta?
Bread, especially when my mother makes it from scratch when I visit her
Pasta
And the almighty potato!

Basically, that's the worst of it for me. I was never a sweets eater, and I certainly did not enjoy being fat. I am a center of attention kind of person so the whole being invisible thing was never for me. I think it is the food, most of all. I hate the feeling of restriction. I was always a spoiled child growing up...LOL! Like Beruca Salt! Kidding! But seriously, I think it is that thing where you can eat what you want and not be "accountable" for it, because after all what's a few more pounds on an already overly fat body? I have to watch everything carefully now and I hate that but I love having a thinner body and shopping in "normal" stores a LOT more than I hate watching what I eat now.