[buriedbeds]

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Great story, saving your own life. Thanks for sharing.

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Thanks, both to you and diddy.

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Is there anything you have done in the last year that you had wanted to previously, but your size had stopped you?

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Yes, a LOT of stuff. The best example would be a cross-country trip I did last New Year's where I flew to San Francisco. First, I flew - and flying when you're big is AWFUL, so I hadn't done it since I was 16. I know it's bad for the people you're next to, but believe me, it's just as bad or worse for the overweight person because they feel terrible and self-conscious and depressed about it, ALONG with being extraordinarily uncomfortable.

So flying was a big step forward. Then I drove from SF to vegas and spent a few days there before coming back. The whole trip, both in SF and in Vegas, I burned the candle with a blowtorch - barely slept, drank, ran around, etc. etc. etc. Things that I wouldn't have been physically capable of before.

I also go to more movies and sporting events than I used to, because I don't have that fear of having to sit next to other people in cramped spaces.

I'm much more likely to go out generally, too, because I don't have to worry about drunks or the like starting [censored] with me. I've been harassed in bars enough that it stopped me from going out, or harassed in the subway by groups of ghetto kids. I don't have to worry as much about that kind of crap, so I'm much more able to go out socially.

One other very notable thing is being able to shop in normal stores. Big and tall stores are EXPENSIVE and generally of lower-quality. Just being able to shop in an Old Navy, for instance, is fantastic. It's cheap, it's easier...it's great.

Also, if you're not constrained to the big and tall, you can wear more kinds of clothes. I was constrained my entire life to those clothes. If you've never been in a big and tall, they're basically geared towards the widest demographic possible (ha-ha, pun not intended, get over it), so you end up wearing only, pretty much, 3-button polo shirts and khakis, because they can sell that to both 60 year old and 15 year olds. In recent years the selection's gotten a little better, with a lot more ghetto-kinds of clothes that I'd never wear, but for the most part if you're overweight you're just stuck wearing awful clothes at insane prices.

So clothes are another good example. I also do a lot more physical-but-not-sports kinds of things, like hikes in state parks, etc.

So, yeah, my quality of life is way, way, way better. These are just some of the things off the top of my head.

-bb.