Name something you have accomplished in your life that you are proud of. Brag about yourself,I wanna hear it.

I am proud of going from being morbidly obese to being healthy. I have lost a total of 127.8 pounds/ 58 kg over 4 years. I currently weigh less than I did at my lowest weight when I was in highschool. I gained 120 pounds/ 55 kg over a period of 5 years. I blame most of the weight gain on my active alcoholism during those years. I used to drink a litre of wine a day. A 750 ml bottle of vodka over one and a half day. My drinking was rampant and out of control. I felt like a slave to alcohol. I used to watch episodes of a show called intervention on YouTube and I would feel so envious of the addicts who went to rehab and came back 90 days sober. That seemed like such an impossibility back then. I was lost in despair,just completely disconnected from life around me. All I would do was lie in bed,drink and eat. I wasn't getting any exercise,I wasn't doing anything. I was just ballooning and self isolating with the only motivation for me to leave the house being buying alcohol. Now I walk kilometers a day. I can walk 10k in just under 2 hours. I'm physically fit and I love it. I can do cartwheels, I can squat,see my feet when I look down,tie my shoelaces without any hassle and fit comfortably in public spaces and public transport. The aesthetic benefits of weightloss are great but it's the overall healthy and light feeling that makes this so worth it. I remember going to the doctor when I was 23 and he told me my blood pressure was elevated. I felt so ashamed. It's one thing to get it due to genetic factors but it's different when you get it as a result of bad life choices. I knew I was the reason my blood pressure was elevated. I remember deciding that I had to do something but that motivation didn't last because nothing I tried to lose weight would work if I was still drinking. Weight gain is often just a symptom of a deeper psychological issue. My weight gain was tied to my drinking which was tied to an undiagnosed mental illness that I was using alcohol to self medicate. I'm grateful to have gotten help for my depression because that's what helped me outgrow alcohol as substitute for emotional regulation. No alcohol meant less calories and drunk cravings so my daily caloric intake was slashed in half.Add the daily exercise to that and the fat started to melt off. I'm proud of myself for fighting to give myself health and a better standard of living.

SW-User

Way back I attended a school reunion. When I told the guys at work about it one said that we should hold a reunion for our Company. By then we were on another site to where we had started, and a staff of well over 400 had been reduced to less than 100.

We all put a lot of work into it. We contacted the Social Club and asked for a freebie booking in the lounge and they agreed. We had no names and address but put letters in two of the local papers advertising the event. We got ourselves a mention on local radio. During the build up if we saw an old workmate in town we would bend their ears.

Come the big day we stood in the lounge wondering if anyone would turn up. People started arriving. Word had spread! Over 150 old timers turned up. One or two were heard muttering "how on earth did they manage this" and one old guy, in a wheelchair, was close to tears meeting so any old friends. Some people had travelled from far afield. A great time was had by all.

During the evening we opened a book for people to put their names and addresses in, and couple of years later we were able to notify people by mail when we held another Reunion.

The happy hubbub of that evening with so many old pals meeting up is a great memory.