The end of an era

In November of 2005, I was at my all-time highest weight ever of 165 pounds.  That same month, I joined an online community called MyFoodDiary and started counting my calories and going to the gym.  I loved the site and felt empowered by the control that I had over food.  Over the course of over two years, I lost weight the healthy way, and got down to 137 pounds in May of 2008.  I felt - and looked - great.

I loved MyFoodDiary.  I joined challenges and groups, was active on the discussion boards, uploaded recipes, and tracked my calories religiously.  But the past few months I've stopped using the site as much, and the $9 a month membership fee - which I felt was TOTALLY worth it back in the day - just seemed unnecessary now.  About a month ago I started using Fat Secret.com and their Calorie Counting app that they offer for smart phones.  I don't love it, and it's not as user-friendly as MyFoodDiary, but I felt like I needed something new, and something free.  $9 a month didn't seem like much before, but now that we're budgeting out annually, $108 is a lot more - 2 nice dinners out, groceries for a week, etc, etc.  I just couldn't justify it anymore, but I also couldn't make myself take the leap to actually cancel my membership.

Well, today I did it.  I made the decision to cancel, logged into the site, and then went straight to the cancellation section. But then I paused, and felt incredible, ridiculous guilt.  I clicked through my weigh history, my "fridge," my peaks of valleys of success.  I went into some of the groups that I used to be so actively involved in, looked at what they were chatting about, and felt sad that I had sort of abandoned them.  I caught myself up with their lives, let out a big sigh, and then hit the cancel button.  It was over.

Except it wasn't!  They wanted me to fill out an exit survey!  I did, indicating that I quit because I was simply no longer using the site, but that it was definitely helpful to me in the past.  After completing the survey, I went into my inbox to find this message:

Cancellation Confirmation

We have cancelled your membership.  We hope to see you back soon.

Best Wishes,
MyFoodDiary.com

Broke. My. Heart.  I felt like I was leaving my best friend or abandoning my puppy or something ridiculous like that!  Where in the world did I acquire all of this guilt!?!??! 

Anyway, it's done, it's over with and I'm moving on.  I don't currently love Fat Secret for a number of reasons, but am trying to make due with it, reminding myself that it's free and that I don't really track most days anyway.  More on that in a future post.