I had an AH-HA moment this morning in the shower......WHAT? I can breathe and STILL SHAVE MY LEGS!!!!!!!!! Bending over doesn't take my breath away anymore! LOL

Anybody else want to share? I would love hear your AH-HA moments!

Moments like this make it all worth while!

I can eat out and eat healthy -- just substitute....this has really made my life easy...I no longer have fear of falling off of the wagon after a night out

OMG had a similar experience this past week!

I just got up out of bed! Like I didn't have to heave my fat belly over..it was incredible..such a good feeling!! Very freeing!

Another AH HA moment was when healthy food tastes better than the fat laden crap I was eating.. I feel so much less bloated and not gross..

-PLus I swear my vision is better, colour just seem so much clearer and brighter!

I've had several, and each time it feels GREAT!

I realized I was sitting with my legs crossed one evening visiting friends. Prior to that, I would just rest my lower leg across my other knee. This was really crossed legs.

I can circle my wrist with the fingers of the opposite hand.

Stretching after class one day I had my hands on the back of my leg and thought, "What's this?" and realized I could feel my hamstring and not just fat!

Visible collar bones.

I love when these things happen. Here's to long lists of AHA's for all of us.

Lin

I have had many, but my most recent one was when I realized that I can reach the spot that is always itchy on my back by myself without using the back scratcher

I can stop eating. Even if it tastes good even if there's a lot left I can stop and save it for DH or for another day. I don't need to finish it in one setting.

Oh, and I don't need to go to bed full. That's been a hard one for me but I'm getting more used to it now.

I finished Couch to 5K this Monday and got teary-eyed when I was done. I couldn't even jog for half a minute when I started, and there I was running for a half hour!!

I have to say that this is a FANTASTIC ah-ha moment. I realized very early in the process that feeling hungry isn't necessarily a bad thing. When my DD was small and would whine that she was hungry a short time before dinner was ready, I'd always tell her to just sit tight for a few more minutes because it was impossible to starve to death in the time between lunch and supper. Now I have to remember that for myself.

Many times I'm asked by friends what I have been eating to lose weight. When I tell them, inevitably someone will ask if I am hungry all the time. Well, I'm not hungry all the time, but I do admit there are times when I am hungry. I tell them that and that I use the hunger as a reminder of what I'm trying to accomplish. Food is always available - it's not like there is a crisis here! I'm not going to pass out or starve (see previous paragraph!)

Then I read an article about how thin and heavy people react to hunger. Thin people tend to recognized the hunger, but wait until meal time to eat. Heavy people tend to recognize the hunger and eat immediately, no matter how close the next meal is. Here's to all of us learning to react like thin people!

Lin

I share a lot of these...

• I can reach the itchy spot on my back too!
• I have BONES, I can't see all of the, but I can feel them, and its SO cool.
• I can cross my legs.
• I can paint my toenails comfortably.
• I'm seldom the fattest person in the room anymore.
• I ran the other day to catch a taxi and I wasn't even out of breath...in fact, I wanted to keep running...how crazy is that???

Angie - When you said you're seldom the fattest person in the room anymore, I realized that I often think that now, too. I hadn't even realized that it was a conscious thought! I'm also no longer the heaviest of my siblings (and my siblings are both men, one over 6' tall. LOL)

And do you know what's sad about this statement? I'm still overweight. You are still overweight. And by comparison to the people around us, we are not the heaviest. That shows how prevalent the weight problem is, especially here in the USA. I wish I could grab the people I see (especially young people) who are the size I was in January and tell them that if a fat 60 year old woman could lose weight, they can too, and they'd be so much happier if they did. I never felt my weight hindered me, but when I see how much difference things are now, I'm amazed.

Hope everyone has a few aha's every day! They are the best motivators.

Lin

I realized that soda doesn't taste that good after all once I cleansed my palate of it for a while. Most of them taste like nasty chemicals to me now. This has made managing my former addiction to them pretty manageable, I don't even want them now!

This Picture....was another moment for me! I have them all the time! but this was my most recent!

This is my bro/sis and well....I've ALWAYS been the ONLY fat person...now...not that way at all.

I could not stop staring at the picture!

That makes (about the different reactions to hunger). I think another thing for me was really realizing that the time of day when I was hungry made a huge difference too. Being hungry at night is OK because I can go to bed. Being hungry in the afternoon=BAD because I'm at a HUGE risk for overeating, have a hard time working, and am prone to headaches/dizziness. It's really helped with my diet.

Yes to that. As excited as I am to be back in mediums in some way it's an empty victory because of vanity sizing and it's a reminder that as a country we're gotten very overweight. It's hard because when I was at my highest I didn't realize HOW bad off I was. I wasn't in good shape, I got tired easily, seats were so much more uncomfortable etc. It's not just about looks but about health. I still have a ways to go but I can certainly feel a tremendous difference and sometimes I wish others could try being at a healthy weight for a day to feel it (I Know that would've been a great motivation for me at the beginning and maybe would've encouraged me to do something about my weight sooner!).