6 months out before and after

I'm 6 months out from my RNY and 80 pounds down.

Before: 250 pounds, size 22 jeans

Probably the picture of me I hate most in the world.





(I was in a play, don't ask.)





During: 190 pounds, size 14 jeans




Now: 169 pounds, size 10 jeans

Same shirt. I'm a broke college student.






Insanely saggy arm skin -- with actual muscle underneath!


I was experimenting with not wearing glasses. I realized that I used them to create the illusion of angles when my face was fat, and now my face has, well, real angles. Ignore the glamor posing, I was trying to eliminate any possibility of a double chin shot.



I wish I had actual full-body shots, but at the same time I'm worried about what I might see -- loose skin and twenty pounds left to go.

This has undoubtedly been the most difficult experience of my life. I've had an absolutely hellish adjustment period, and I'm still trying to get my head right about food and body image. But my PCOS is gone, my diabetes is gone, my GERD is gone, and I have so much to be thankful for.

(I'm really nervous about posting this. I still see myself as the fat girl, and I think on some level I probably always will. So, be kind?)

 You look incredible.    Unbelievable all in 6 months!   So pretty!

You're gorgeous! You look amazing! Way to go!

 I think you look great in all the pics! Congrats on your loss.  I would love to hear more about that play though... Is that Rouge?

 Oh man...it was actually part of a student theater collaboration project. We wrote and performed one episode of a sitcom a week. I go to a very small rural school, so the weekly performances were THE social event. Pretty much the entire student body showed up. Very nerve-wracking since I'd never acted before.

My character was called Mrs. Cornchubble. Being the ironclad fat girl I thought I was, I told my group we could write all the fat jokes we wanted at the expense of my character. After that meeting the theater teacher came up to me and told me it was "good I was being honest with myself". Yeah. That...stung.

 Wow. Just wow, that sucks. But great comedians usually do make stereotypical jokes of themselves when they start out. I'm pretty sure it's a "comfort zone" thing. After they find their "voice" you really don't hear the fallback jokes so much (margret cho, kal penn, Jeff foxworthy). 

You're a braver person than I, I have to be drunk to get on a stage. Haha!

It's totally a comfort zone thing, you're right! Something I've noticed is that as a "normal" person I can't make the same jokes that absolutely killed when I was obese. I used to put on this big act of being super confident and frankly sexual, always making jokes about how hot I was. It was funny because it was so unexpected -- a fat girl who thinks she's hot, crazy! But now when I try to fall back on the same jokes, the reaction is not the same. People actually get uncomfortable. I think it's similar to fat guys being able to flirt with pretty women -- they're seen as so nonsexual, so nonthreatening, it's a joke. So when a "normal"-sized woman jokes about being pretty and getting ass it's not funny like it is when an obese woman jokes about the same things.

I still don't know how to feel about that.

 Socially acceptable prejudice in action. Humor is really where you see it at its most honest... There's a term paper in there somewhere.

Sweetie, it isn't hard to be kind about your pictures. You are a gorgeous woman! You have beautiful bone structure in your face, like model kind of one structure. Please know that I don't blow smoke up people's asses just for the sake of making a compliment. I tend to be very honest and if a compliment isn't deserved, I just try to be kind. But you are truly beautiful. Eventually, and with some work, you will learn to feel it inside and out. It will likely be a life long project, so don't expect overnight miracles, k? But you are worth the effort.

You look GREAT!!! Awesome job!