Well, I don't have to go back a couple of years, but rather a couple of months when I:
Never deep conditioned or used a leave in;
Never used a moisturizer;
Used a hood dryer on the "extra hot" setting and let my hairdresser use a super hot blow dryer to "straighten" my roots afterward; and
Brushed my hair DAILY for added volume/fullness (yes, lots of hair would come out too).
Amazingly, with all of the above going on, my hair had grown to its longest point (a little past shoulder-length) over the past year or so
Haven't figured out why, but am starting to believe it's because of my switch to a high protein/low carb diet last fall (not for weight loss, but weight maintenance)
. Lots of chicken, fish, vegetables. Any sugar from fruits alone. Maybe there's no connection between the diet and the hair growth, but I'm thinking that must have been it b/c apart from weekly washing/conditioning and sleeping in a satin cap, I was doing nothing special to my hair.
Anyway, the growth got me interested in learning how to take care of my hair . . . which is when I happened onto this site and had my eyes opened about all things hair!