I forgot to publish a final update. I am well under goal now. I am now tipping the scales at a lean mean 213 now. I think I may be able to drop a couple of more. I's like to hit 206 so I could say that lost 200 lbs. We'll see if the body lets me get there.

I went out the other day and got a suit for my wife's 20th year high school reunion. It was a 42 long and basically fit me off the rack. The only aterations I needed were cuffs for the length (which every man has to do on a suit) and they had to put extra padding on my shoulders to hide my collar bones WHICH WERE STICKING OUT!!!

I can eat normal meals now.  I am basically a normal person.

I am at 25 weeks post-op and weighed in this morning at 231. I only have a 11 lbs. to get to my goal weight. I now weigh less than I weighed my freshman year of High School (which, for those keeping score, was 23 years ago).

I am running yet another 10k this weekend.

I am eating and eating and eating...but for the first time in my life, I am eating healthily....where I would once have two double cheeseburgers on the way home from work...AS A SNACK, I am now eating lean, high protein foods, fresh veggies. I am so damn happy!Now my message: Here is how I did it. I shut the hell up and stopped second guessing. I ate what they told me to eat and kept the bad crap out of my mouth. I didn't get crazy, read every label to make sure it was low in sugar and fat. I ate when I was hungry and I pushed the hell away when I knew I was approaching fullness.

And I moved. I ran. I biked. I walked. I LITERALLY worked my ass off....WHY????

Because I have been given a second chance at life. A chance to tell all the people who have given me dismissive looks to go to hell. A chance to not be sweaty walking up a flight of steps. A chance for every woman who never saw what was inside of me to regret it and a chance to finally lose the freaking monkey that has been on my shoulder my entire life.

I will never, EVER allow myself to be as out-of-control as I once was. I am strong. I am quick. I am LEAN!!!

Time for an update So, I am 4 and a half moths post-op. I weigh 252 lbs.

I have dropped 137 lbs. so far. That's over 80% of my excess body weight gone. I only have 32 more lbs. to go to hit my goal weight of 220 lbs.

I am now wearing XL shirts and they are starting to get loose. I am wearing 38 inch pants. This week I picked up new pajama pants and they were a large!

Exercise is a joy now and I feel horrible if for some reason I miss a workout. I am eating like a normal person, just with small meals. My nutritionist actually said I am going to need to increase my food soon to stop losing weight. Trust me: It is a problem I am more than willing to deal with.

Well I am down to XL shirts now and I am wearing a 38 inch waist.

Well, here I am at 3 months since surgery. I weighed 285 this morning, which is down 104 lbs. since surgery.

I am fitting nicely into XL clothes on my lower body. I still have my barrel chest, so I am somewhere in between 2X and XL on my shirts. My feet are getting smaller in width, and I have had to re-tie the sneakers I slip into to work-out twice this month alone.

I weigh less today than I did when I played football my freshman year in college. Were I half my age, I would make weight to wrestle in a heavyweight match (they raised the upper limit to 285 a couple of years ago).

Here are the next thresholds that I looking to:

275: The weight limit for heavyweight wrestlers when I was in High School. I am hoping to hit this mid-March.

260ish: I wrestled around this weight my senior year (although I did drop some pre-season weight to get there)

245: What I weighed in 1993 when I married my ex-wife.

I will update as we get to them.