Pretty sure I am exactly the same person I was before, I was never the flirty engaging type when I was MO and I can assure you I am not now. I have never understood people's need to get their dose of self esteem or whatever by having to flirt with absolutely everyone of the opposite sex.  I find it disturbing and usually desperate when I witness it.  You choose who you are and how people perceive you, and rather you care if they like you or not, it's your moral compass, you control it. You get to build the worlds perception of you.

Good Luck.

My husband had rny and has regained about ten pound more than he would like and I know he's upset about it.  I won't tell him what to do but I have made sure there is nothing in our house to snack on whatsoever, as snaking is typically the reason for gaining weight.  Really the only thing you can do that's not preaching is make sure his trigger foods aren't around and focus on really healthy choices.  It's not easy to give up everything but sometimes it's the only way to help.

I just wore a bikini at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas last week, a nice conservative bikini, but still a bikini and I was amazed at the fact there were all body shapes and sizes around.  I had my stomach and arms done but not my upper legs and they embarrass me, but with a towel and some careful planning I was able to walk around and not feel too uncomfortable.  The bad feeling about our bodies is really in our own head, even people we think look perfect feel flawed.  Enjoy your holiday and know everyone is feeling awkward.

I avoid chemicals like the plague, but I do use Splenda on occasion and always feel like I am going to die from some rare cancer because of it.  I try hard to eat clean, healthy, organic but I love oatmeal and I need it sweetened and any real sugar plus the carbs of the oatmeal would cause reactive hypoglycemia so it's Splenda or nothing.  I tried stevia and disliked it.  Splenda is really not good for you,  I just read of a new study and a link to leukemia so I stopped eating oatmeal but I know someday I will want it again.  I don't eat red meat or pork or gmo's or food not grown organically if I can help it.   I search out healthy restaurants in San Diego where I live but we travel frequently and that's not always possible, in that cause I typically always get salad.  I eat the low end of the spectrum on protein because I don't believe I need to tax my kidneys processing all that protein.  I disagree with taking of chemical supplements, I choose to eat my vitamins in my food, hence the fresh vegetables, fruits, yogurt and lean chicken are my foods of choice.  Others with less healthy diets will explain why they need to keep pumping chemical ****tails into their bodies to be so-called healthy, that is their right, but I choose not to and my labs are perfect as is my bmi at 11+ years out. You do what works for you and listen carefully to your body.

And young children morbidly obese at 7 years old that are diabetic, does that bother you?  Those statistics are on the rise.  Children's lives cut short by their parents lack of dietary discipline.  This child was physically handicapped by her weight, she struggled to walk, she couldn't fit into children's size clothes so she had to wear adult sizes to cover her body.  She was a sweet young girl who's parents are murdering her slowly.  She needs help.  

You probably look the other way when you see homeless people or stray animals, I don't, I stop and try to help.  I made hundreds of blessing bags to give to the homeless here in San Diego.  I spent my vacation in South Africa trying to give back to local tribes.  Are you aware people are forced to live with a bucket in their house to defecate in and have no clean water to drink?  I was horrified.  I insisted we needed to help.  I cannot look away.  Maybe you can.  You have to live with your own narrow, unfeeling, uncaring view of the world, I chose to try to make it better.  This is one instance outside of my ability to offer help and this child haunts me.

I never ate at work, I have RH and eating cake made me sickkkkk and was sure to plunge my blood sugar.  I very rarely ever eat cake, it's really just too sweet.  And I don't actually miss it.  I always read the dessert menu at dinner, pick out my choice, eat my dinner and my husbands asks if I am gonna get the dessert I chose earlier and I say if course not.  It's a game I play with myself.  It's like I can eat anything I want but I won't.  Occasionally I eat fruit based desserts.

Thanks it has been an amazing year, I just returned from Kauai where I convinced my husband to take a biplane tour of the island.  So amazing.

I created this picture from my Red Baron flight with the man I would most love to meet.

I can honestly say I never got any donuts that night, I left after the lady and her daughter left, I couldn't eat, I just wanted to cry and scream and make this mother stop.  I had a friend who grew up in a morbidly obese family, everyone was big, it was her families normal and she was normal, never had any bad body image problems at all.  I was always so envious of her for that, she didn't let her 480lbs stop her.  She had wls several years before me, she did so very well, got down to size 4 clothes.  She wasn't able to remove the skin but she was happy and seemingly healthy.  She divorced her husband and got a new man and a new life that included drinking and smoking.  She moved away about 5 years ago and we had lost touch.  Last fall I got the most devastating news that she had gotten up in the middle of the night and her boyfriend found her dead on the floor.  She was 49.  Her father died at over 500lbs and even he lived into his 50's.  Life is a previous gift, seeing a child's life destroyed by bad choices is just heart wrenching.  If her parents were giving her crack the authorities would take her away, there has to be some line this level of morbid obesity crossed.  I don't have any answers but I wish I did.

Recently I said to my husband that I hadn't had a good jelly donut in years and not any since moving to San Diego.  It was 11 pm and he said he knew of the best donuts around and we should go try it.  I was game.  I can't eat a whole donut but I enjoy a few bites if it's good.  So we get there on a Thursday night and the lady in front of us is morbidly obese as is her 6 or 7 year old daughter.  The child was so obese in hampered her walking, she literally waddled.  I felt horrible for the poor little girl, and her mom was having her choose a dozen donuts for the family I assume.  It was just very sad.  To me this is abuse, this child is literally being murdered slowly by her weight.  At 6 or 7 she cannot make proper food choices on her own, her parents are providing the food.  So what should be done?  Obviously all I could do is smile at the sweet little girl, who probably weighed close to 200lbs.  I felt dreadful. I mean seriously,what is wrong with parents allowing their children to suffer such anguish.  I was a chunky kid, I know the pain, my grandmother fed me cookies because my parents got divorced and my father abandoned me. When my mother became diabetic when I was 7 everything changed, I was put on a perpetual diet to keep me from getting overweight.  I entered high school at 136lbs, and got engaged and married at 20 and over the course of that year gained up over 200.  I know the suffering of weight, I know my 20 years of being morbidly obese ruined my joints.  I knew when my son was born to never make food into the reward system, never make him eat past full or crave food.  I never made him sweets or cake or anything bad, he had the healthiest diet on earth while I hid my binging and purging and the reason I was morbidly obese.  I am ashamed of the role model I set for my son, he grew up with a mother with eating disorders who was trying anything to keep him away from obesity.  I made my son diet obsessed, thin obsessed, exercise obsessed, he hated fat as much as I hated being fat.  He once called his friend fat and I read him the riot act about bullying and fat shaming and treating people with respect and dignity, treat them like you want to be treated.  Funny none of it really clicked until he got a job as a busboy and he saw how ****ty people can be.  It made him humble and thankful and sincere.  He will never have a weight problem and probably all my trying to keep him from food was irrelevant because his father was naturally thin and my son is probably genetically engineered to be the same.  But I really only wanted him to be healthy and happy which is what I believe all parents want.  So honestly what can be done for this little girl I saw, morbidly obese so very young, arrest the parents? send the family to fat camp?  I know those things aren't possible or right but it just breaks my heart seeing this young life hampered so horrifically from such a young age.  What is the solution?

Thanks.  Enjoy traveling, it's great.  My new husband is a travel buff, he's been to 55 countries and counting.  India is our next big adventure.  We went to South Africa in May, Kauai in June, headed for Atlanta next week, Yellowstone and Churchill to see the polar bears in the fall.  Everyday is something new.

Thanks Kathy.  You know me I gotta check in just to see what's rocking here at OH, or to rock the boat, I forget which.  lol

It's been over 11 years and still going strong without return of my diabetes, perfect blood pressure and labs and normal bmi.  It's not easy, it is life altering, I get easily over heated and have reactive hypoglycemia, so fluids and a proper diet are mandatory at all times.  But without rny I doubt I would have the life I have today, free to travel and see the world and not worry about fitting or worrying about finding places to rest.  My life is completely different than it was 11 years ago.

I created some before and after pictures just so I can always remember where I started and why I needed surgery.