I truly didn’t think it was possible, but I’m starting to forget what my former life was like as a morbidly obese woman.

Some of that thinking will stay with me for the rest of my life, and that’s a good thing. If I don’t step on the scales every morning, there’s a part of me that scolds myself for the omission. There’s a niggling part of me that reminds me, any time I decide to take a food holiday, that it has to remain a holiday and not a constant. It’s the same shadow that reminds me what can happen if I try to pretend I have a normal metabolism — I will pay for it with weight gain and a dip in my mental outlook.

There was a time when I thought living with that shadow would be arduous, but really, it’s not. For me, it’s healthy that I no longer feel like I can banish those thoughts and simply go off the rails indefinitely. The norm I return to, now, is far more healthy than it used to be. Rationalizing that I was just gonna be fat and unhappy, anyway, so I should just indulge myself — that part of me will probably always exist, but its voice has been reduced to the tiniest of whispers. When I treat myself, it is the occasional indulgence instead of a way of life.

Just yesterday, I walked with my elderly mother into a local store. She walks with a cane, now, but I walked with a cane for far longer. In those days, I wore a cross-body purse so I wouldn’t feel as if I needed my hand on that side to be constantly checking a purse, and it’s a habit I’ve kept; I rarely carry a large shoulder bag these days. I mentioned this to her as a possibility but she said she has problems adapting to that.

When I told her that, though, it struck me how far I am removed from those days. It almost felt like I was lying; because let’s face it — how often do people who end up walking with a cane get to do what I did? I have that cane around… somewhere. My travel wheelchair found a home with my mother-in-law, for the time being. The walker is hanging up on the garage wall; and while I won’t tell her this, I have kept it in case my mother needs it, and perhaps it’s time to simply leave it at her house in case she wants to test it out without the embarrassment of having someone there with her.

I have distanced myself from that part of my life to a point where it no longer seems a part of me. It’s been long enough, now, that those of you who know me personally may even have to think back to those days, yourselves. As long as I never forget the lessons I learned when I yearned for a healthier body, I think this is a great place to be, mentally; I no longer think of myself as a handicapped person, and there were many days when I believed my descent into disability would never have an ascent to a healthier body. That my lot in life was to accept decline.

Friends, it doesn’t have to be that way for any of us. We don’t have to accept self-invoked limitations; we can work to overcome them if we allow ourselves the freedom and the hope to do it. Regardless of what anyone says, we are not permanently doomed to live as morbidly obese if that’s our choice; that’s what my life has been about for going on six years, now — rejecting the odds and doing what’s best for myself. I believe more firmly than ever that the seeds for success have had everything to do with my brain and my attitude; weight loss is a side effect of that mental change and cleansing.

Pick whatever it is you want to change about your life, and set your goals for working at it, whatever it is. Even if you never achieve that goal, working toward it is its own catharsis.

Just do it.