Well I am a year out. Down roughly 100 pounds. My lowest was 180 and I am back up the mythical 10 pounds that everyone seems to re-gain that I was SURE I wasn't going to gain......but here I am. 190ish is okay. Still a size 16 and I am working on letting that be okay. Sure I could work out more, I could go back to REALLY low carb, like maybe 20 grams per day, and I would probably go back down to 180ish, but I would still be a size 16 and after all is said and done, I believe that it is a quality of life issue. Things may change (like perhaps my attitiude) but it hasn't done so yet.

So, for 20 years, my husand has repeatedly told me that my weight doesn't matter, he doesn't care, he is just concerned about my health. I was CONVINCED he was lying....how could he be honestly attracted to a 300-pound woman?

Know what? He was telling me the truth.
Swear to God. 
He spent a month or 2 feeling kinda disoriented because my body had changed so much. Now he's used to it and says it's "good". But that's it. He is just as delighted with me as he was 100 pounds ago. It's comforting and sweet. I mean, I know that....
1) He's not that good of a liar afterall, and
2) If I ever developed some horrible disability or disfigurement, (God forbid)  he would really be okay with it.

But it woulda been more fun to have him be really excited...like showing me off to his friends, or bringing me home bikinis or something. I guess you can't have it both ways.

I am having trouble walking through doors. You know, the kind of doors in office buildings and stores that have those panic bars on them that you just sort of lean on and the door opens....at least I used to sort of lean on them without much thought and the door would open. Well now I sort of casually lean on the door and nothing happens. Stopped dead in my tracks, I stand there and take a beat waiting to figure out what's happening and trying to recover from the shock. Really gotta get my feet under me and PUSH the door open, but I expect them to open as easily as they used to and it still suprises me every time. I guess I have discovered the only real-world function of excess body fat. 100 Pounds of momentum behind you makes opening those big heavy glass numbers pretty easy.

A couple of months ago, when the weight was really dropping dramatically EVERYTHING was suddenly too big. Bras, Jewelry, panties, clothes, the distance between me and the sterring wheel in my car was crazy. Just everything got too big, almost over night. So I was trying to get used to it, and trying to not do stupid stuff like sucking it in going through the turnstyles, you know adjusting. I wasn't paying a lot of attention I guess and still trying to adust to the new dimensions of the world and I took a full, upright stride into a parking lot tram at Disneyland. Mind you, I am a Disney dork that has been in the park every week for probably 10 years. I should be able to navigate a parking lot tram in my sleep. But I was trying to start expecting that everything would be too big now and I didn't duck my head appropriately. Slammed my head into the roof of the thing so hard I almost knocked myself out.

You mean I didn't get shorter??

I can't really say if the job situation is any better. I mean, I am not recognizing any dramatic absence of discrimintation now. Who knows what job opportunities I was denied because of my weight? Who knows what new things I am being allowed to do now that I am normal? It is a very nice thing to meet someone face to face for the first time. For example, at a job interview after talking to them on the phone first. It is really nice not having that akward first few minutes while they adjust to how big I am. You know, that initial "Oh, wow.." moment?

I am selling Cookie Lee Jewelry just as a boredom buster and a distraction from a job I hate (but that is another blog entry isn't it?). It is still Orange County California and the jewelry ladies are almost as perky and pretty as the sales girls at Macy's or the Mary Kay ladies.....perfect perfect. I fit in with them okay. At least I am normal size and not what a good friend calls "circus fat" anymore. Another example of the lack of akward moment thing. 

There have been a few times when I ran into aquaintances on the street, said hello and got ignored. I really got my feelings hurt once or twice until it dawned on me all at once that they DONT RECOGNIZE ME. Sheesh. Now I sort of use it to my advantage. When I run into people on the street, I only have to deal with the ones I want to. When I don't feel like making nice with, say the president of the PTA from my kids grammer school, well I just don't have to. Don't make extended direct eye contat and shazam!! I am invisible. That's worth the price of the surgery alone.

No health problems at all. None. My blood pressure was like 90 over 70 the other day when I saw my regular primary doc.. I had to ask "Isn't that dead?" Nope. Totally normal. My surgeon hasn't had one abnormal blood test result since the anesthesia wore off. Not one. No low blood sugar, no anemia, no vomiting. None of it. Of course, I have followed all of the directions exactly. Oh, and I was anemic at my 1 year check cuz I ran myself out of iron and I can't remember to take the damn things. But it stays normal when I follow directions.

I am still waiting on the major emotional upheavel that everyone promised me would happen. I swear people, even some post-op WLS people practically BEGGED me to get therapy to "deal with" everything that would "come up" when I "can't eat anymore". One of the deciding factors for me to have surgery was that I knew that I never would be able to figure out what serious emotional problems I was covering up with food. I knew that I hadn't been able to figure it out yet as hard as I was trying to,  I figured I never would figure it out as long as I could keep eating. Guess what?? It's not a giant emotional deal. I eat when I am bored. I am totally into the whole reward thing, like you promise a little kid..."We'll get donuts if you are good" and I am very good most of the time : ) ! It isn't some festering emotional disturbance, though. 

I think the most suprising thing about the whole process has been that the surgery cured the "eating disorder" that erveryone assumed that I had, but I never thought I had. But I couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with me. I still need to move the bowl of chips away from me. I still WANT the cookie or the chocolate, but I can distract myself or put it out of sight and it's okay. The obsession was gone when the anesthesia wore off and hasn't returned. That sit-on may-hands-and-cry until I finally cave in to the internal DEMAND to eat that thing whatever it is....that is gone. I used to choose the "healthy" thing on the menu and then feel so deprived and pouty. Like if I didn't order the vanilla shake that I really wanted I would CRAVE and obsess over it for days and the only cure for it was to go get a shake, or 2, or one every day for a year. Now I don't want it most times, when I do want it I get one, and toss it out when I am done with it, which usually happens before I have finished a small one, and I am over it. Or I want it but I have eaten too much junk already today and I just skip it. Not a big deal.

Oh, and the depression and anxiety never came back the way it was either. I swear, at some point in my life time, they will figure out what causes obesity. Either they will find the gene or the stomach chemical that leaves our 'hungry" switch stuck in the on position. And the way they treat the obese now, the way they tell us that we are emotionally disturbed or whatever, will sound like the stories of when the REAL mentally ill people were treated like they were posessed by demons. 

If I am such an emotional cripple and that is what made me obese, how did surgery cure it?? I mean it was cured when the anesthesia wore off, before I had lost a pound. There is something to this...genetics, hormones, something. Why do some people only get to be 100 pounds overweight and others 1000?? There at the end, I would eat anything and everything and my weight would stay pretty stable at 280-290. How come others weight 1000+? My surgeon will only say that "We are just beginning to understand how the stomach talks to the brain" but I guess there haven't been enough studies for him to assert an opinion officially. 
In any case, if you decide to have surgery or not, try not to be so hard on yourself. 

Okay, so I suck at keeping my profile up to date. I will get some pictures up and update again. I have a big trip to do some missionary work in Uganda at the end of June and I will post a blog entry and some pics of that for sure!!

Four months out today.  I am down 78 pounds and in a size 16. Totally unbelievably unreal!! I have put off updating my profile because I haven't had time to take pictures and get them uploaded to post here.  I will get some up by the end of the week, I swear.

We just got back from vacation about 10 days ago.  I never needed a seat-belt extender before surgery, so no difference there. But I am MUCH less claustrophobic on planes now that I fit better.  This was the first time I was able to fly without narcotics. Ever. We flew from home to Cape Cod to see a cousin get married. Then flew from Boston to Memphis, Tennesee.  We saw Graceland, which is something everyone should see.  But, being a California native, I was suprised to see that Graceland was a lot smaller than I imagined.  In California, the houses are consdered "large" only if you can land a plane in the livingroom.

We toured the Sun Studios in Memphis. Actually stood in the room where Jerry Lee Lewis recorded " Whole Lotta Shakin Going On" and Elvis recorded "That's Alright". U2's "Rattle and Hum" was recorded in the same studio. There is still a hole in the linoleum where they used to put the stand-up base.  Amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience. 

I couldn't eat any barbque, of course. Damned sauce is almost pure sugar. Like 35 grams per tablespoon. This is food that Memphis is famous for, kind of like going to Louisana and being allergic to shell fish.  I did get some fried catfish one night, and all the restaurants had steaks.

We drove from Memphis, North through Arkansas and into Missouri.  Got to see Laura Ingalls Wilder's house. The real place where all of the books were written. In the museum there, they have Pa's fiddle and Laura's sewing machine.  Brought home pictures of the actual people.  I tried to explain it to my husband, but I don't think he got it really.  If you are a girl, they won't let you out of the 4th grade if you haven't read all of the Little House books.  Its a law or something, I think.

We spent about 5 days in Springfield, Missouri. The purpose of the trip was to scout around and find a neightborhood to move to and set up a hobby farm/homestead next year.  We just fell in love with Springfield. Lots of Amish folks in Mansfield and in Seymour, south of Springfield. There is a very active HOG (Harley Owners Group) chapter, and some great quilt shops. So the countdown has begun.  11 months left and we will be out standing in our field.

I measured out 2 scoops of protein powder for each day that we were gone into a zip-loc bag and threw in the scoop.  I took my hand blender, a cup that was big enough to blend protein in, and a one-cup measuring cup.  I took a handfull of protein bars with me, just in case but didn't eat any of them. I made sure I had a bottle of water every night so that I would have something to mix the protein in every morning.  I had another giant zip-lock bag full of vitamins and a sandwich baggie in my purse.  Every morning, I would count out the right vitties for each day into the sandwich baggie in my purse so that whenever I remembered to take them, I would have them with me. And if I forgot what I had taken already, whatever was left in the bag was what I still needed to get down that day.  All of the airports and convienence stores had those little Crystal Light to-go packets.  If I was to travel again, I would take my own with me. We found a nature trail through the forest in Springfield. A beautiful place to get some excercise!  We didn't know how to act when they didn't charge us $10 to park and $27.50 for a day use pass like they do in California.   I bought a  trashy looking Harley Shirt from the Graceland Harley Davidson store in an extra large.  I was all excited about wearing this tiny t-shirt, until we drove into ultra-conservative Springfield and I felt the need to explain to everyone on the street that I am really not this slutty, I am just drawn that way.

I probably ate too many calories and/or too many carbs on some days. But, there wasn't too much that I felt left out of or deprived of, and overall I think I did pretty good.  I even ate about half of a bisquit and gravy and the Heart Break hotel, because how can you pass that up for breakfast in the South? It Totally made me sick. Fajitas are a good thing to order in a restaurant, it is essentially a big plate of meat with a couple of bites of things for variety in texture.  You can get chef salads from just about anywhere, including airports. Eat the egg, cheese and meat, have a tomato slice or a cucumber and leave the lettuce. All restaurants have soup, most of it is pretty good. We had some GREAT, memorable meals and I came home about 3 pounds lighter than when I left.

I am starting to have some intensely jiggly loose skin.  It gets really scary and then tightens up a LITTLE over the course of about a week, then I loose more and I get jiggly again. The only thing that shows to the general public is my upper arms.  It is pretty gross, but just another stage in the process, I guess. I haven't lost any cup sizes. That is, to say that the band size of my bra is about 8 inches smaller, but no actual boobage has been sacrificed.  This is a pleasnt surprise because I really expected to loose all of it. My hair has started to fall out.  I am sure this would be alarming, if I allowed myself to think about it much.  I don't look like I am going bald, and everyone I have ever asked about this phenomenon has said that it all grows back. 

I am surprised how quickly it all begins to feel normal.  I mean I have adjusted to being smaller really quickly.  I still pet my collar bones and my hip bones compulsively. I look at my tiny clothes and just KNOW every morning that they will not fit.  I mean I hold them up to put them on and prepare myself for the disappointment that I know is coming when they don't fit.....and they always fit. But the face I see in the mirror today looks familiar and looks like me.  It's the faces on my Disneyland pass and my Drivers' License that look weird. I am still surprised when people react and comment on the weight loss. Thier reaction is so dramatic, but I still feel like me. Like I forget how different I look and I am startled that people are shocked at how different I look.

It has only been 4 months and.....

I am only 3 pounds from an "overwieght" BMI
I am only 8 pounds from wonderland
I am only 22 pounds from being a member of the century club, which is my   doctor's goal for me.
I am only 38 pounds from normal weight for my height (which will either happen or it won't. I am surrendering to the process and I am not living to get down to 160. Hell, I don't even know if I WANT to weigh 160.)

Some of the changes are startling.  Disorienting.  Disquieting.  But no big discomfort and no big shockers. It is all totally worth it and I would go through the whole surgery process every year if that was what it took to get these results. I totally feel like I am getting away with something by only needing to do what I have done so far, yet seeing such good results. God hlep me to always be grateful for this.

Eight weeks out. A few days shy of the official 2-month mark. A few weeks shy of my 39^th birthday.

Before surgery, I had lost 50 pounds, down to 238. I kept it off for the most part for a few years, but I gained it all back over time. That was one of the last straws that pushed me over the edge to get surgery. As of last week I have lost the weight back down to 238, which was my first goal.

Before surgery, I signed up for the Revlon 5K that raises money to fight womens’ cancers. When I signed up, they wanted to know what size T-shirt I wanted….I guessed at a 2X. This past Saturday, I went to pre-register for the walk and pick up my T-shirt. They looked at my paperwork and said "Oh no….a 2X is WAY too big for you! You need a XL!!".

My plan has been to get smaller clothes at thrift stores. When the small ones get too small, I planned to donate them back and then buy smaller sizes from the thrift store. A sound plan because I am shrinking a size about every 2 weeks. So 2 weeks ago, I went to a thrift store…..and actually found a few things that fit!!! (Generally, people GAIN weight and donate small-ish sizes, they don’t LOOSE weight and donate their larger sizes. So larger sizes are few and far between….)

I am not THAT much smaller, however, because I only found a FEW things second hand. Didn’t have enough clothes to get through the week, and couldn’t find enough second hand to fill in the blanks. I took a trip to Wal Mart last weekend. I came home with jeans in a size 20, and t-shirts in 16/18. Shirts from the NOT plus size department. Totally a thrill.

I knew I was right around a size 20, but wanted to try an 18. Found a REALLY cute, REALLY short skirt and a blouse that buttons up the front, very trendy, very "in", more clothes from NOT the plus size department. The 18s fit (sort of) and I stood there posing in the mirror, looking thin…..looking normal sized. Being excited and panicked all at the same time. I didn’t buy the outfit, cuz they REALLY didn’t fit when I sat down, and I decided I probably would want to breathe at some point. Anyway, the panic was a surprise. Why is that scary? To be thin? That was the point of this exercise, wasn’t it? What will it be like, to be say a size 14?? How will people respond to me? Will I get hit on?? Am I enough of a grown-up to deal with that?? At this point, I am thinking that it is a matter of gradually getting used to it…..learning to recognize myself in the mirror.

I have moved my watch band one hole tighter. My glasses are loose on my head, they used to dig into my temples and hurt by the end of the day. My Med Alert is loose, almost too big.  I am going to wait a littler longer before I send it back to Lauren's Hope for my one, free resize, though. I want to get my hair cut into the same style as Rory on Gilmore girls (this season), it's the same cut as Jessica Simpson's old cut. I am also going to get new glasses and my teeth whitened.  I can't decide when to do all of that.  When I get below 200 sounds like a good goal, but I am going back east for a family wedding in June and I am tempted to do it early. I will post pics as soon as I have it all done, whenever it ends up happening....

NO ONE has asked me if I am loosing weight, or told me I look good/better/anything. People at work are just indifferent, I think. Much too self-obsessed. My mother is struggling with some jealousy I think. My success is translating into her failure, maybe? She is honestly being supportive in spite of whatever is causing the akwardness, which I appreciate. Maybe she sees it as her failure as a mother that I needed surgery to get to normal weight?? In any case, she seems uncomfortable when she first sees me, and we don’t talk about it. She did sign us up for the (hideously expensive) Donald Trump wealth seminar next weekend. We are going to go together and I am really looking forward to that. She may just be adjusting gradually, too.

Ok, ladies. Men are very concrete. If you ask your man to "be supportive" or to be "there for me", they won’t have a clue what you are asking for. If you tell them to take out the trash, hold your hand, or keep your car clean, THAT they get. Concrete. My husband was just beside himself before surgery and right after it. He nagged at me a few times about what I could and could not eat, and I almost took his head off. He was frantic to help me, but didn’t have a clue how to do it. We have been together since I was 16 and he was 21. He loves me, but at this point I am furniture in his life……I am just always there, you know? I have lost weight in the past, substantial amounts of weight, and he would just say "I see you every day, so I really don’t notice the difference". My feeling this time was "If I lose 135 pounds in less than a year, you had better @#$%^&* NOTICE!" So, I told him gently that the only thing I wanted from him was to NOTICE. This was a good thing to ask for. He is really paying attention and making comments…."I can wrap my arms all the way around you…..and put my hands together" "The bike handles much better, feels lighter with you on the back now" "Your skin is clearing up, really looks great" and this morning, "You know, your tits stick out more now". That last one has gotta be my favorite. Guys are so much fun!!

I had my labs done and saw the doc a few weeks ago. Everything is really perfect, except my iron is low, low, low. The symptoms of iron defeciency anemia are: Feeling cold all of the time, low energy/feeling sleepy, heavy periods (from hell), difficulty sleeping, and a VERY RARE thing called "pica", which makes people feel compelled to eat things that aren’t food…..dirt, laundry detergent, chalk, etc. Lots of women are mildy anemic because of menstruation. A very few women get pica sometimes when they are pregnant, because of the increased iron demand of hatching a baby. I only mention pica because with all of the related food issues, if one of us was unable to stop eating the laundry soap post-op, it might be really scary and impossible to talk to the WL surgeon about that little symptom. It isn’t further evidence of your inability to control your "eating disorder"…. get your iron levels monitored!!

When I saw the doc, he said that my ideal weight was 149!!! Excuse me???!! Doesn’t that seem awfully thin for 5’10" tall???? Then he says, he doesn’t expect me to reach ideal weight…..he expects me to achieve average results, which statistically is to lose 70% of my excess weight. On the day of my surgery, I was 135 pounds overweight. 70% of 135 pounds is 95 pounds. A 95-pound weight loss would put my weight at 190. That would be disappointing. I mean this is a lot to go through to end up 30 or 40 pounds overweight. But, if I could maintain that weight, live comfortably and not have to diet or struggle with it any more, I guess I will accept 190 pounds. The doc says that it is very possible for me to do better than average. We agreed that 100 pounds is a nice number. We will set that as a long-term goal and see how it goes. That does kind of take the pressure off. I mean, I am following directions exactly, and working out on most days. But I don’t understand what will change back after the magic "honeymoon" period that everyone talks about. I don’t understand what I should be learning now so that I won’t gain the weight back after this "honeymoon" ends.

Easter went VERY well. I GRACIOUSLY offered to have everyone over to my house for Easter dinner (because that’s the only way I could control the menu and ingredients!) A few people expressed some relief that they didn’t have to figure out how to feed me, "We just don’t know what you can eat"…I have explained it to everybody, I guess they just don't get it.

The menu:
Ham
New Potatoes in cheese sauce
Asparagus Vinaigrette
Spinach salad with strawberries
Corn Bread Muffins
Low Carb, Sugar Free Cheesecake

I bought a spiral sliced, honey glazed ham, but made sure the sugar content was low enough. This one was 3 grams per serving.

New potatoes (the yellow ones, NOT russet potatoes. Would probably work with red potatoes, too)

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup of milk
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
½ cup mozzarella cheese
½ cup cheddar cheese
½ tsp. Seasoned salt, pepper and nutmeg (to taste)

Cut the potatoes into bite-sized pieces and boil until tender, keep warm. Melt butter in a saucepan, add flour and stir, whisk in milk until smooth, add seasonings. Continue heat over medium-high heat stirring constantly until bubbly. Add cheeses and stir until melted. Pour sauce over potatoes and stir to coat. Top with more salt and pepper, Parmesan and breadcrumbs. 

Steam 1 pound of Asparagus (did mine in the microwave)

In a jar with a tight fitting lid:

2 tbl of extra virgin olive oil
2 tbl of lemon juice
2 tsp. of poupon style mustard
Pepper

Shake to blend, then pour over Asparagus (the actual recipe said to "toss to coat", how the hell do you toss asparagus??).

Salad: Wash and drain fresh spinach, tear into small pieces. Slice fresh strawberries, add to spinach. Toss with Raspberry Vinaigrette dressing (or blend extra virgin olive oil and raspberry vinegar). Add sliced almonds (would be really good with some Feta cheese crumbles, too)

Low Carb, Sugar Free Cheesecake. This was really good, but didn’t really taste like cheesecake.

12 ounces of sliced almonds
2 graham crackers
2 tablespoons of margarine, melted
2 – 8 ounce packages of cream cheese (low fat kind works)
2 2/3 cups nonfat milk
2 – 4 serving packages of sugar free, instant vanilla pudding

Process sliced almonds in a food processor until it resembles fine crumbs. Add 2 whole graham crackers. Add 2 heaping tablespoons of melted margarine. Press into a springform pan (or a pie pan) and refrigerate until firm (about an hour). (I had to tell people that it wasn’t a graham cracker crust and they didn’t believe me at first)

In the (cleaned) food processor, or using a mixer, blend cream cheese until creamy. Add milk, mix until blended. Add pudding and mix on high until it begins to thicken. Press this mixture into pie pan on top of the almond, graham cracker mixture. You could put slices of fresh fruit on top, or sugar free cool whip. Refrigerate for at least an hour until firm.

The food was all excellent, if I do say so myself. At least it was all a big hit.

The Easter Bunny brought the (teen aged kids) small stuffed animals, small goofy toys (bunnies on skateboards, a squirrel that blows bubbles, bunny "guns" that shoot plastic discs, super balls). One small Sees chocolate Easter Bunny for each kid (a family tradition) The 3 plastic eggs in each basket were filled with: one Cadbury egg, one "fun size" candy bar, a hand full of jelly beans. Enough candy to be satisfying, but not enough to fill the house with candy for DAYS like years past. Truth be told, most of the GOBS of Easter candy used to get saved until 4^th of July before it finally got thrown out. One is in the middle of track and field season at school, and is in training. And the other one is getting old enough to begin to be conscious of her weight and her size, she has expressed that she doesn’t want to be a "fat girl". I suppose watching their mother go through all the recent changes helps draw attention to their weight and what they are eating, too. NOBODY needed tons of candy for Easter, and I am pleased to say that nobody got it.

I am 31 days out today.

I have lost 32 ½ pounds, as of this morning. And not one person at work has mentioned that I look different, or that I have lost weight. Even after all the time I spent worrying and being convinced that everyone will know that I had WLS because the difference in the way I look was going to be so dramatic!! Those Pikers!!

I still can’t handle milk….still makes me sick.

I can eat just about anything else that I want. I don’t eat white carbs for the most part, a bite or 2 is okay and rare. I keep myself well below 10 grams of sugar per serving. I have vomited 2 times. Didn’t really empty out everything I ate, just had a little of the "foamies"….I don’t really know what this is from, I think maybe the food gets stuck going IN to my pouch because the saliva is what mostly comes back up. I am trying very hard to take pea-sized bites, and wait a bit between bites. (I discovered that the few times I ate in my car while driving, taking bites only at red lights, it didn’t hurt so much and less got "stuck"…so this is the pace at which I try to eat) But then again, I took a few sips of the broth from a homemade beef stew the other night and got that painful, stuck, ate it too fast feeling…..sheesh what the hell is that?? People on the boards just seem to know, with great authority, what is causing their problems…I expected to have these great revelations "Oh, if I eat too fast then this or that happens". Nothing seems to be consistent, I haven’t figured out very much of the cause and effect of everything and maybe I won’t ever figure it out.

I have forgotten my vitamins twice at home….so there were 2 days that I missed some doses. After a few weeks, I discovered that my water bottles are "1 pint, 9/10 ounces" NOT "1 Pint, 9 ounces" (I missed the decimal point. Duh) So I haven’t been getting in the 64 ounces of water that I need…but I get close and I keep working on it. I am averaging 750 calories a day (at least 200 of those come from protein powder), and 65 grams of protein per day (I actually did the math on my food journal, this is a real average). I am anxious that I am eating too much, and that I am not getting enough protein. 60 grams is my doctor’s minimum. I try to reassure myself that I am not that far out and everyone says it is a struggle to get it all in early on, and the weight keeps coming off, so I am doing something right. For the future, that magical time when the evil voice in my head is convinced "you’re just going to gain all this weight back again, you know", I will continue to weigh in every day and if the scale begins to go up then I will make adjustments as needed.

I exercise for 30 minutes MOST days, and am guilty about the days when I run out of time or energy, but try to reassure myself that the goal is to keep working on it. Missing a day or 2 does not equal quitting, and I won’t allow myself to quit, not ever.

I really expected to be the perfect, most compliant WLS patient. I had done tons of research, read several books, and got a really clear idea of what I was promising to do for the rest of my life. I did make those promises and was going to be one of those perfect people who "never cheated, never vomited" and I was going to be proud of it. It turns out that my best effort is the most I am capable of. And, even more of a shocker….that is good enough.

It is just so surprising to me that I am not dieting, I am not forcing myself to eat nasty food that I don’t like, I am not living on salads and low fat cheese…..but I am loosing weight……rapidly. After making 100,000 promises to myself to make the "lifestyle change necessary to achieve permanent weight loss", I was never good enough or determined enough, (whatever that elusive quality of character is…insert any adjective you like here) to actually follow through with it. Now my expectations of my ability to succeed are really low. This surgery thing seems to have been the answer for me. I don’t trust it fully yet, but here we are. 32 pounds lighter, sitting here in a size 22, making plans to go out for dinner with Ed tonight.

I am just surprised down to my toes.