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Rules People Have Tried To Enforce That Backfired Spectacularly

Corporate woman at work at desk
Photo by Microsoft 365 on Unsplash

Most of us have worked somewhere or attended a school where there were some ridiculous rules in place.

Nothing might bring us more joy than to see some of those rules backfire.


To have a laugh, Redditor TabblespoonFarmer3 asked the sub:

"People of Reddit, what stupid rule at your work or school backfired beautifully?"

The responses their fellow Redditors came up with were simply glorious.

Micro-Managing the Clock

"A boss was worried we were 'stealing time' by using the bathroom for too long. So being the nutjob he is, he locked all the bathrooms in the building except the ones he could see from his office door, shut off water to them, put out-of-order signs on them, and he would sit there with a stopwatch timing us between walking into the restroom and walking out (these are all one-at-a-time restrooms) and then would call out the time."

"This was STUPID over the top and almost positive is illegal but he never made a policy officially restricting bathroom time... he just wanted to make everyone feel uncomfortable if they took too long."

"I discovered that with my height, it was really easy to go through the drop ceiling and over the half wall and I was the only other person using the men's besides my boss, who is short... so I went in... locked it from the inside and did my business and climbed out the ceiling leaving the door locked so my boss could not get into the bathroom when he needed to go and was forced to use the ladies... which led to our female employees complaining that he was taking too long in their bathroom."

"To this day, I don't know if he ever figured out how I was doing that."

- geoffbowman

"My boss started putting 'all staff required to start 15 mins earlier than indicated' on the roster. I started keeping track of my unpaid overtime and stung her for three paid days off. That’s not required anymore."

- muthaclucker

"I worked at this company that had mandatory 1-hour lunch breaks. Since we ate on the premises, our lunch break was often 15 minutes or so."

"We tried negotiating having shorter lunch breaks so we could leave earlier and beat traffic. The next day, an e-mail was sent from the owner stating the fixed work and break hours for the whole team, and they were to be followed with no exceptions."

"Cool! Next week, a big client called about halfway through our lunch, and nobody moved. It rang and rang until the said owner took the call, talked to them, and immediately came to scold us. 'Sorry, boss, as per your rules, we are off until 1 PM, no exceptions.'"

"A couple of weeks later, we did some work on-site for the same client. They were, to be honest, one of the coolest clients I ever had in my life."

"They took us out to lunch, and while talking we ended up relaying the owner's rule. They had a big chuckle over it, and while the project lasted, they made a point to always call while we were at lunch break just to annoy the owner."

- LGMHorus

"A place I used to work had a rule that executive-level staff needed to be contactable when on leave, so they had a section on the leave form for the address of where you'd be staying and a contact number."

"Some knuckle-shuffler in HR decided it applied to all staff and the shenanigans began. People would put down the address and phone numbers of sex shops, sports grounds, and medical clinics. I gave the latitude and longitude of the place I was going camping and the UHF frequency channel my radio would be tuned to."

- Flight_19_Navigator

"My company used to be a small startup. In my first year, I was the Project Manager and Architect for a global system rollout."

"I put in my vacation days for 'Burning Man' six months out (in February), and my PTO was approved. Then a few months later (~June) my boss (who had been head of the IT department) got a new boss (new head of IT)."

"With a month to go until 'Burning Man,' the new head of IT told me that my project rollout was too important for me to be uncontactable at all and that I would need to take a satellite phone to 'Burning Man' or my vacation would be canceled."

"We were still three months from going live but he decided that we were at a critical moment that I had to be available for."

"However, neither my boss or the new head of IT wanted to carry out the daily $18/minute satellite phone calls with me, probably because they knew it was violating some labor law. So they got one of the guys in the London office to call me in the Black Rock Desert each day."

"I said I wouldn’t take the calls before 1 PM, which was 9 PM for our man in London. Every day he called, he had had a few beers, and didn’t give a s**t about project updates, he just wanted to know what parties I’d been to and what art I’d seen."

- blue-mooner

Questionable Measures of Productivity

"Management decided that lines of code written per week were a good metric for determining software engineer productivity."

"You want a 3-line function stretched out into 50 lines? I’m your captain."

- smares21

"Not mine, but an old roommate of mine was a senior developer for a small company. It was an open secret that one of the other senior devs, a guy who had been there since the beginning, would sometimes spend time looking at plastic surgery photos, before and after shots, photos of active procedures, etc."

"He did it enough that people would poke fun at him about it, but he didn't seem embarrassed about it, and it wasn't harming anyone."

"Well, one day a project manager said something to the CEO about this guy's ongoing plastic surgery obsession, and the CEO flipped. He said that going forward, no one was allowed to use their work computers to access external websites AT ALL."

"Anyone who's ever been a developer knows that half the job is googling stuff, so this policy pretty much halted productivity in its tracks."

"It only lasted a day before the CEO retracted the rule, but let everyone know that their browser history would be monitored going forward. After that, no one really changed their behavior, they just started remotely accessing their home computers to browse instead."

- Salsa__Stark

"I worked at Starbucks for like 5+ years before and during undergrad and at one point our district manager thought it was a good idea to implement a 'just say yes' policy, where we literally weren't allowed to tell the customer no."

"It lasted for about three months and in that three months, our unaccounted product and waste went up over 300% because when the system didn't have a way to punch in a customer request we had to just do it anyway."

"We also got complaints from stores in surrounding districts because they had angry customers who were requesting things that were against local food service code, and told them that we did it for them at our store."

"I knew exactly how that policy was going to play out and I just laughed every time management was freaking out about the problems it was causing."

- yunglilbigslimhomie

"My spouse's workplace realized they didn't have a policy about sending sexual images or jokes as part of their email acceptable use policy, so they added it."

"Except they made it a firing offense to send or receive sexual content (I think the intent was to stop people from subscribing to such content). They also said that your access would be immediately revoked until a determination was made."

"So someone got fired for something else and decided to send their whole management chain a graphically sexual image, then report it using the anonymous tip line. IT got the report, concluded they did indeed receive sexual content and did as required: suspended all the involved email accounts, including the Senior Vice President's."

"The policy has since been reworded."

- loljetfuel

"The bottom floor of my secondary school was a square that had a corridor all the way around. After some incident where a kid got knocked over, they implemented a one-way system."

"Unfortunately, they were Very Strict on enforcing it. If you accidentally walked past your class, you couldn't just turn around. They seemed very proud of their new rule... until everyone started showing up late for class because they had to do extra laps of the bottom floor."

- FrosnPls

Saving Money

"My old workplace had a control freak bean (money) counter."

"At one point, she decided that any purchase of equipment must come with documentation showing that we had searched around the internet and could prove we got the best deal. Honestly, it was unenforceable, so our supervisor just told us to ignore it and that he’ll deal with the backlash."

"So one day, I had to buy some tools for the workshop, and I happened to come across a bunch of coolers on sale. It just happened that we needed coolers to transport stuff, so I bought one."

"I brought it back, we measured it and found it was the perfect size for what we had planned."

"It turns out that time, the bean counter was watching us. She came strolling into my supervisor’s office with a printout from Amazon and the boss in tow, saying that she had found a similar cooler for cheaper."

"My supervisor took a look at the printout. 'So you found a cooler that’s 2 dollars cheaper.'"

"'Yes!'"

"'How much time did you spend looking this up?'"

"'Just one hour of work.'"

"And you think [our employee] should have spent one hour of his workday shopping for coolers?'"

"'Yes!'"

"'You do realize we pay Rum $17 an hour? We needed three coolers. Right now, he grabbed those coolers while out on a supply run. And you’d rather have him spent an hour of his day, at $17 per hour... to save $6?'"

"'And while we’re at it!'" The supervisor pulls out a broken vice grip from under his desk. '... this is the Cheapo brand vice grip you approved. Now, this is fine for your regular at-home needs, but we’re a workshop and need some quality stuff. We have been using a Goodstuff brand vice for 3 years. Cheapo lasted six months. Do the math.'"

- Rum_N_Napalm

​"I worked for a consulting company, traveling Monday through Thursday somewhere in my country. We had a pretty good hotel allowance (enough for 5-star hotels) and a great rule: if you stayed with a friend, you got an allowance (about a third of the hotel allowance) to buy gifts for the host."

"I got the rare treat of a 6-month project in the town of my best friend from childhood who was going to university. We made a great arrangement: I would crash at his place and spend the evenings drinking beer, watching movies, and playing video games. In return, I used the gift allowance to order dinner for the two of us."

"After submitting my first expense report, I was told by some HR drone that the gift allowance was supposed to not be used for food for myself."

"So I booked a room in a 5-star hotel, was upgraded to a junior suite because of my rewards status and invited my friend to evenings of beer, video games, and room service."

"After my second expense report, the project manager asked me about the tripling of the expenses compared to the first report. After explaining the situation and pointing out what sum of money it would mean over the six months, he got in contact with HR..."

"Two days later, the rule was rescinded. The project even got my friend (the then newly released) PS3 as a thank you for letting me stay with him."

- alphager

"I was working as a medical assistant at a private practice medical clinic. Our clinic manager wouldn’t allow the new receptionist to drive to the bank to deposit cash. Made her walk carrying the money bag so that she couldn’t 'drive away with the money.'"

"Bizarre. I know. That went on for a few weeks. Then the receptionist was mugged and over $1,000 in cash was stolen. She was allowed to drive after that."

- IndyMazzy

"The dealership I was working at decided they wanted to save money by not having the cleaning crew come in after hours. People started leaving the dealership to go home to go to the bathroom because they were disgusting."

"I lived pretty far away so I would just go use the General Manager's private bathroom."

- Jeheh

"We couldn't buy drinks at lunch with cash money, had to buy some vouchers. They were just cheaply made laminated pieces of paper."

"This was 2001, I was 13 and bored. Scanned the vouchers and printed them out on paper that kinda matched the color of the vouchers. and laminated them myself. They were horribly made and not even the right color on the backside. Also crudely cut out."

"I 'made' about a hundred of them and passed them out after I tried paying with them for myself and encountered no problems. Made some new friends and upped production."

"It took them about three weeks to find out but by then the fake ones had intermingled with the real ones and had already been resold to students via the student office. About half of the vouchers sold were fakes."

"Drinks were cash only from then on. They had no choice but to accept the fake ones for a little while longer though, as they had sold and charged for some of them."

- VloekenenVentileren

The protocols that are often set up at workplaces are questionable at best, but the stories told here are truly laughable.

Do you have any similar experiences with workplace or school rules backfiring? Sound off in the comments below.

People Reveal The Weirdest Thing About Themselves

Reddit user Isitjustmedownhere asked: 'Give an example; how weird are you really?'

Let's get one thing straight: no one is normal. We're all weird in our own ways, and that is actually normal.

Of course, that doesn't mean we don't all have that one strange trait or quirk that outweighs all the other weirdness we possess.

For me, it's the fact that I'm almost 30 years old, and I still have an imaginary friend. Her name is Sarah, she has red hair and green eyes, and I strongly believe that, since I lived in India when I created her and there were no actual people with red hair around, she was based on Daphne Blake from Scooby-Doo.

I also didn't know the name Sarah when I created her, so that came later. I know she's not really there, hence the term 'imaginary friend,' but she's kind of always been around. We all have conversations in our heads; mine are with Sarah. She keeps me on task and efficient.

My mom thinks I'm crazy that I still have an imaginary friend, and writing about her like this makes me think I may actually be crazy, but I don't mind. As I said, we're all weird, and we all have that one trait that outweighs all the other weirdness.

Redditors know this all too well and are eager to share their weird traits.

It all started when Redditor Isitjustmedownhere asked:

"Give an example; how weird are you really?"

Monsters Under My Bed

"My bed doesn't touch any wall."

"Edit: I guess i should clarify im not rich."

– Practical_Eye_3600

"Gosh the monsters can get you from any angle then."

– bikergirlr7

"At first I thought this was a flex on how big your bedroom is, but then I realized you're just a psycho 😁"

– zenOFiniquity8

Can You See Why?

"I bought one of those super-powerful fans to dry a basement carpet. Afterwards, I realized that it can point straight up and that it would be amazing to use on myself post-shower. Now I squeegee my body with my hands, step out of the shower and get blasted by a wide jet of room-temp air. I barely use my towel at all. Wife thinks I'm weird."

– KingBooRadley

Remember

"In 1990 when I was 8 years old and bored on a field trip, I saw a black Oldsmobile Cutlass driving down the street on a hot day to where you could see that mirage like distortion from the heat on the road. I took a “snapshot” by blinking my eyes and told myself “I wonder how long I can remember this image” ….well."

– AquamarineCheetah

"Even before smartphones, I always take "snapshots" by blinking my eyes hoping I'll remember every detail so I can draw it when I get home. Unfortunately, I may have taken so much snapshots that I can no longer remember every detail I want to draw."

"Makes me think my "memory is full.""

– Reasonable-Pirate902

Same, Same

"I have eaten the same lunch every day for the past 4 years and I'm not bored yet."

– OhhGoood

"How f**king big was this lunch when you started?"

– notmyrealnam3

Not Sure Who Was Weirder

"Had a line cook that worked for us for 6 months never said much. My sous chef once told him with no context, "Baw wit da baw daw bang daw bang diggy diggy." The guy smiled, left, and never came back."

– Frostygrunt

Imagination

"I pace around my house for hours listening to music imagining that I have done all the things I simply lack the brain capacity to do, or in some really bizarre scenarios, I can really get immersed in these imaginations sometimes I don't know if this is some form of schizophrenia or what."

– RandomSharinganUser

"I do the same exact thing, sometimes for hours. When I was young it would be a ridiculous amount of time and many years later it’s sort of trickled off into almost nothing (almost). It’s weird but I just thought it’s how my brain processes sh*t."

– Kolkeia

If Only

"Even as an adult I still think that if you are in a car that goes over a cliff; and right as you are about to hit the ground if you jump up you can avoid the damage and will land safely. I know I'm wrong. You shut up. I'm not crying."

– ShotCompetition2593

Pet Food

"As a kid I would snack on my dog's Milkbones."

– drummerskillit

"Haha, I have a clear memory of myself doing this as well. I was around 3 y/o. Needless to say no one was supervising me."

– Isitjustmedownhere

"When I was younger, one of my responsibilities was to feed the pet fish every day. Instead, I would hide under the futon in the spare bedroom and eat the fish food."

– -GateKeep-

My Favorite Subject

"I'm autistic and have always had a thing for insects. My neurotypical best friend and I used to hang out at this local bar to talk to girls, back in the late 90s. One time he claimed that my tendency to circle conversations back to insects was hurting my game. The next time we went to that bar (with a few other friends), he turned and said sternly "No talking about bugs. Or space, or statistics or other bullsh*t but mainly no bugs." I felt like he was losing his mind over nothing."

"It was summer, the bar had its windows open. Our group hit it off with a group of young ladies, We were all chatting and having a good time. I was talking to one of these girls, my buddy was behind her facing away from me talking to a few other people."

"A cloudless sulphur flies in and lands on little thing that holds coasters."

"Cue Jordan Peele sweating gif."

"The girl notices my tension, and asks if I am looking at the leaf. "Actually, that's a lepidoptera called..." I looked at the back of my friend's head, he wasn't looking, "I mean a butterfly..." I poked it and it spread its wings the girl says "oh that's a BUG?!" and I still remember my friend turning around slowly to look at me with chastisement. The ONE thing he told me not to do."

"I was 21, and was completely not aware that I already had a rep for being an oddball. It got worse from there."

– Phormicidae

*Teeth Chatter*

"I bite ice cream sometimes."

RedditbOiiiiiiiiii

"That's how I am with popsicles. My wife shudders every single time."

monobarreller

Never Speak Of This

"I put ice in my milk."

– GTFOakaFOD

"You should keep that kind of thing to yourself. Even when asked."

– We-R-Doomed

"There's some disturbing sh*t in this thread, but this one takes the cake."

– RatonaMuffin

More Than Super Hearing

"I can hear the television while it's on mute."

– Tira13e

"What does it say to you, child?"

– Mama_Skip

Yikes!

"I put mustard on my omelettes."

– Deleted User

"Oh."

– NotCrustOr-filling

Evened Up

"Whenever I say a word and feel like I used a half of my mouth more than the other half, I have to even it out by saying the word again using the other half of my mouth more. If I don't do it correctly, that can go on forever until I feel it's ok."

"I do it silently so I don't creep people out."

– LesPaltaX

"That sounds like a symptom of OCD (I have it myself). Some people with OCD feel like certain actions have to be balanced (like counting or making sure physical movements are even). You should find a therapist who specializes in OCD, because they can help you."

– MoonlightKayla

I totally have the same need for things to be balanced! Guess I'm weird and a little OCD!

Close up face of a woman in bed, staring into the camera
Photo by Jen Theodore

Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.

Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?

But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.

It would be so great to be sure there is something else.

But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.

Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:

"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"

Sensations

Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy

"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."

PeachesnPain

Recovery

"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."

"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."

"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."

good_golly99

Take Me Back

"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."

"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."

rayrayrayray

Free

The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy

"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."

TooReDTooHigh

This is why I hate surgery.

You just never know.

Shocked

Giphy

"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."

Admirable_Buyer6528

The SOB

"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."

"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”

1-cupcake-at-a-time

Colors

"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"

Hannah_LL7

"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"

huntokarrr

The Fog

"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."

"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."

Fluffy-Hotel-5184

Through the Walls

"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."

"She's quite alive and well today."

Hot-Refrigerator6583

Well let's all be happy to be alive.

It seems to be all we have.

Man's waist line
Santhosh Vaithiyanathan/Unsplash

Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.

The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.

Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.

Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:

"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"

Redditors didn't see these coming.

Shiver Me Timbers

"I’m always cold now!"

– Telrom_1

"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."

– r7ndom

"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."

– mr_remy

Drawing Concern

"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."

– dee-fondy

"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"

"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."

– LizardofDeath

Unleashing Insults

"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”

"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."

– alanamablamaspama

Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight

"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."

– KeltarCentauri

"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."

– KatMagic1977

"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."

– Jaew96

These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.

Shopping

"I can buy clothes in any store I want."

– WaySavvyD

"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."

– ganache98012

No More Symptoms

"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."

– colleennicole93

Expanding Capabilities

"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."

– Ramblonius

People Change Their Tune

"How much nicer people are to you."

"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"

– LiZZygsu

"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"

"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"

– awholedamngarden

It's gonna take some getting used to.

Bones Everywhere

"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."

– Princess-Pancake-97

"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."

– bekastrange

Knee Pillow

"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."

– snic2030

"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."

– Strongbad23

More Mobility

"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."

"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."

– dma1965

People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.

But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.

That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.