Progress Pictures!

Thanks again :)  Not bad for $50, eh? :D

I am curious as to what you did to "put myself into maintenance, so I have no one to blame but myself." You always seem so diligent...so at 7 months out, I would like to know what to watch for in case this happens to me. Thanks so much! :-)

Sure.  In late February we found out that my dad's cancer had gone to his brain and he needed to have brain surgery in March.  Then, in April, he had cyber (or gamma) knife radiation, I forget which at this point.  And then he had to start chemo again since his cancer started growing in his liver again.  As a result of all of this, and the summer travel I had already planned, I wasn't home for more than 10 days in a row between February and August.  

So things started with me saying, "it's okay to have a snack when I drive up to my parents' place."  And I think that would have been fine if I had stayed with visiting every 6 weeks.  However, with everything that happened, I ended up making the trip almost every week (or some other trip).  So what started off as a snack every 6 weeks became snacking every week.  And then, since I was snacking in the car, I started snacking outside of the car too.  And then it was just snacking, snacking, snacking.  

And, honestly, I didn't want to deal with it with everything else going on.  I just didn't care and told myself that I'd deal with it later.  I wasn't gaining weight, just maintaining right around 180.  

I think it was a good thing in a strange way.  I'd been having lots of body issues - borderline dysmorphia stuff, and being at 180 for a while really let me get reacquainted with my body and adjusted to it.  I'm pretty grateful for that.  

Once I felt like life was settling down again, or that there was an end in sight, I made a pact with myself to only have "healthy" snacks when I felt the need to snack.  Cheese and nuts mainly.  That let me start to curb the snacking urges.  Then I decided to do something radical and go back to my pre-pre-op diet of protein shakes for breakfast and lunch.  I had wanted to avoid that, since mentally it's not a good place to be and I don't think it's healthy to go back into diet mentality, but it turned out to be what worked to break out of the bad food habits I'd fallen into.  

And now it's the end of August and I'm feeling back on track.  I'm losing again and I'm feeling proud of myself for getting things under control.   I don't think success is what you do under ideal cir****tances, but whether you can pick yourself up again when you fall.  And I feel pretty successful :D

(Sorry, this was longer than intended.)

Thanks, Gwen...I appreciate your transparency and honesty. i do agree with you...that long-term weight loss success is based on whether one can pick onself up again when one falls. :-) Kay

You're welcome.  Being honest here helps me to be honest with myself in general.  

You look great!  47lbs in a year is awesome!  Congrats on your success :)

Thank you :D

Awwww, great job Gwen!! You look fantastic. Keep up the great work!!!

Thank you very much!