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When did this happen?  I am so busy that I have not been on the OH site... I have been so busy the tv doesn't come on till 8 pm.  (If at all)  
I have been busy every night after work... and my calander is filling in with things that have to be done.. need to be done, and I want to get done!  
My weight has finally started inching down agian.  I swear my last stall lasted four months. (Of course with the weight gain and loss  while greiving my brother included in that time.)  As the weather changes and I am out with the lawn mower and weeding the garden... having company drop by and doing my yard sales... I get up and motivated to move more, and I get sore feet and sunburned, LOL.  But, I will take that over the too tired,,, to stressed.. to much attitude of not giving a damn, which is where I was before.  
When I do hold still and sit in front of the tv... that is where I fight my demons of food.  I noticed last night  that the other demon hide out was at the bar.  I went out for  a drink and to shoot pool with a friend, and in the corner of the bar sat a demon I knew as 'drink and eat.'  
I guess it is like the same demon smokers have... where after a drink or two you need to order something battered and deep fried.  I did aviod this... I kept doing my mental check.  I seem to be getting a grip on the mental food check .  I think I have been really practicing with the tv demon.  Enough so that when I am out and have a slight buzz... I automatically do the mental check.  It is becoming habit!  That is good news.  I have been wondering if these demons and food addictions will always be a step ahead of me and find every back door into my world.  I can see now, with unrelenting vigilance and mental check points ... I really might win over food addiction.  ( I think the fact I openly use the word food addict helps too.)  
I finally had that WOW moment.... th one where someone who hasn't seen you since before surgery has the big shock of seeing you now.  This lady was the wife of a former co-worker.  She hadn't seen me in a year and a half.  She saw me from behind first, let out a big "OH MY GOD!"  I turned around to see who it was, and she was mouth opened shocked.  She said, "Carol? Is that you??"  I said yes.  She said, "Wow!   I told her  how much weight I had lost and that , that was the biggest reaction I have ever gotten.  She said, "It was a good WOW."  
We both laughed and she told me she couldn't wait to tell her husband.   I thought it was cute and funny.  She has always been a size 8.  I am still a size 18 to 22.. depending on what I am wearing.  LOL  I guess I need a new photo update.  
I am gearing up for Las Vegas.  I leave in just 4 days... My yard sale was to get moneys for the trip....everything else is paid for by Dad and my lil brother.  My family and neighbors donated items and we had a good 150 visitors.. I made plenty of money to go and have fun.  I even had the director of where I do volenteer work come by and make a donation. I thought that was so nice.  Everyone was slipping me dollars and saying, "this is for a drink or meal."  Everyone knows this is something that would not happen to me in normal life.  It hasn't come easy.  I had to make arrangements for my daughter to get 'out care' for the 4 days, and my family and neighbors will check on my Mom for me.  
I have learned something more in this last year than just how to lose weight and fight demons.  I have learned to except help graceously, to say thank you and show appriciation when others try to help me.  I have learned it on a hard back road.  I used to be so stubborn and do it all myself.  That ment sacrificing everything for my pride and shame.  Now, I know how important it is to the self to let others in.  That there is no shame in opening up to gifts from others.  Everyone says I deserve this break.  That I do so much for others.  Although the words make me step back still, my defenses don't go up .  Now I am old and wise enough to know those words don't mean I am weak,  They mean even the iron bar needs to be layed down once in a while,,, even the iceburg gets weary and breaks apart when it takes on too much.  So as I have learned to lighten my body... I also have learned to lighten  the load I carry in life at the same time.  I am not ashame to say, I do need a break.  and I shall take it in Las Vegas, LOL. 

I guess my feelings should be hurt.. but, I know it is the truth.  A co-worker and his lovely wife were out at a party I was attending... and she told him I was looking beautiful.  He told me what his wife said.. and then he added... "you just don't know it yet. "
I know what I look like.  I know how I feel.  I just don't value looks and body perfection crap like others do. (I did RNY after having a mild heart attack, it is purely about health  for me.)  I still.. actually do get offended when someone comments on my looks.  I am aware that men look longer than normal. That co-workers seek my where abouts to see how much I have changed and what I look like now.  I am also aware I am still over 200 pounds and that I look like hell in the mirror when I am naked, LOL!   ((Maybe that is what keeps it real for me. ))  I guess I just don't take myself that seriously... or think looks are THAT  important.  I certainly do not want to meet a man that thinks so.  I don't care what he looks like.. I care about how he is to kids and pets and my mother and the human elements of life.  So, does that mean I have to be grateful that people stare at me now.  That heads will turn and men will flirt.  Since when does the fact a man comes on to me mean I am obligated to flatter him back.  I certianly would not be being honest if I did.  I don't want to think I have a chip on my shoulder.  I want to believe my attitude is from a intellectual understanding of the human nature and self preservation.  LOL  Or maybe I am just crazy!!!!!

Okay, the good news is:  I have taken off the 15 pounds I gained after losing my brother and his wife.  I went to the doctor and instead of going on Anti-depressants... we upped my vitamin intake and I pulled out my old Weight Watchers points book and started tracking my daily intake with the points system.  The pounds came off as easily as they got on me.  (WHEW!!)  I am also feeling better.  Vitamins are amazing.  
the unfortunate part is I have eaten into my window of time to lose weight... But, I have decided I am not going to fret and fuss over that.  There are those who lose 100% of their excess weight.. and there are those like me who lose 70%.  I will take it!  I am a whole different person now.  The person who emerged after my second stopped weighing me down.  I feel free.. and I feel good about myself.  I guess the trick to that is not to compare myself to others who have ended their journeys with different results.  My life has changed so much in the last year.  With volunteer work, gardening, staying busy all evening instead of sitting and watching TV all night.  I was just commenting to a freind about how I dont sit down and unwind after work anymore.  I have so much to do!  The truth is, all these things were here to do, but I always ignored them because I  just couldn't cope.  Now, I see things I can do, one thing at a time.  I love it!  I am alive again.  I want to make my brother proud of me.  I dont feel lazy and when I am tired... I am really tired!  Both my daughters have lost weight.  Both do more because I am taking them with me.  Can it get any better than that?  LOL 

Holly crud!  I have gained 15 pounds in the last month!!   I know I am depressed because of the loss of my brother and his wife.  I know that work is horribly slow and my hours have been cut lately.  The doctor told me to come in if I am still having trouble sleeping and felt depressed at one month after my brother and his wifes passing. 
Well it has been a month and ... well, who the hell would feel better and normal by NOW?!  My Birthday is two days away and they won't be there. A birthday for me, and he was one year older than me.   Easter was bad enough.  
As much as I tried fighting it.... it is so uncontious a behavior to turn to food.  I "catch myself" eating when I do not need to.  I try to keep busy and then end up skipping my meal time and then over eat... or grab and go.  That is a big no no.  Really, I ma having a hard time working at my food issues and staying on track.... just as I feel derailed with everything else.   I will make an appointment this week to see the doctor and get on anti-depressants as I work through this.  I don't want to loose all control... I don't want to go back to the old me... ever!  
Really, I am not too worried.  Just aware this is bigger than myself. 

I am getting ready to go back to work now.  I took two weeks off for my brother and his wife's passing.  I am starting to feel human agian.  I know things are going to be okay.  I'm just taking my time.  On a good note, I am watching how I eat and being extra good with the vitamins so I stay healthy and do not add to my stress. I think the only negitive is how much coffee I have drank in the last two weeks.  So, yesterday I bought some bottled water and put on the kettle for  herbal tea.  I do not want to use my grief as an excuse to do folly to all my work.  I have enough of a struggle keeping to task!  LOL   Thanks for all the hugs and prayers, I am strong enough to be going back into life agian this week.  
I know that in lifes pattern, when something moves and changes, life replaces it with a new path or person.   I have a feeling this great loss of family will send the rest of our paths in new directions.  My other brother and his wife are taking me on a trip this year.  Just me.  Giving me a break from the full time care I give our mother and my girls.  It will just be three days.  But, IT WILL BE THREE DAYS!!  I have never been away from them for that long.  I always have someone in tow.  Truthfully, I cannot imagine how this trip will play out.  I am making arrangements now for their care while I am gone.  I have a lot of people waiting to repay me for help I give.  So, I know I can be covered for three days.  LOL  
The nice thing is the trip is two months away.  They have given me something to look forward to that lifts my spirits now.  I will be saving pennies so I have spending money.  They covered everything else.  
I did go to second hand stores this week and buy some tank tops and shirts.  for summer wear.  It is funny to hold them up and think they won't fit and then put them on and button them without getting a puff at the bust line!  (With exception of a red shirt that looked bigger than it was and once over the bust... the material ended.  It was great for a laugh.  Yes, my chest is still big.  I knew it would be since it was there since third grade, and I was not fat in third grade.  LOL 

My life is devastated by the news today.  (On news.. two hikers dead on Mount Rainier.)  this was my Brother Bob and his wife Annette.  Two lovers of the great outdoors.  Annette slipped and fell in a river while crossing a bridge and (Of course) my brother jumped in and tried to save her.  Please pray for my family.  We lost two very loved members of ourt family, and if you know me well enough, you know family is everything!  Thank you for letting me cry on your shoulder.  I need something to lean on right now.  
My heart is broken in two ...

(two days later)

It has been a rocky year already!  Please tell me we will bury no one else I love .  I don't think I can handle much more!   The interview was hard, but I kept my dignity.  Before they turned the camera on I told them what I would and wouldn't answer.  My brothers son is also interveiwed on another channel.  I feel like my  world is emptying of all those I hold dear.  We all love the outdoors so much (duh, mother earth)  I don't want to fear the great outdoors for what has happened, It would turn everything about me upsidedown.  Thanks for your thoughts.    

Okay family and friends.  I have heard you ask the question a hundred times now, so here is my answer to the question..."Why I don't take off the blinders".....answer:  " My life as a food addict":
You can stop yelling at me now... I get it, I missed another one.  Let me tell you this. 
Here it is, the real truth why I do not notice the men around me looking at me.  This truth is why I am not picking up on social clues that I am looking better.  This is why I still walk with my head looking forward and down and still DO NOT  scope my eyes around the room.   
I enter into a new enviroment and My nose picks up NO scent of man, When I enter the room... my eyes go straight for his Whopper. ( its a triple, and there is cheese, onions, and no mayo.) I am the one who notices what was the last food in the room.... someone made garlic bread.... someone is carrying a mocha with whip and sprinkles. (yes, I can smell the whip!)   There will be No eye contact,  I have been trained to avoid them for years. My relationship is with food , and it is so strong, I get personal with it, even when it isn't mine! I think I am breaking a Commandment....   (and facing this, I cannot say anything about a mans eyes going straight to my triple D chest.)
My friends want me to take off the blinders I wear and start to see the world around me in a new light.  But, It is hard enough to control the food in my controlled world.  If I take off the blinders, I have a whole new battle to fight.  The wide world of American portions and Calories in the triple digits.  I am just not ready!!  (I start to sweat just thinking about the pressure involved in such a daunting task!)  
I said I wanted to work on myself for a year.. then get back into the much overdue dating scene... I am still not ready.  I am fighting 20 plus years of bad habits and strong addictions.  I am no good to another if I am just pretending to listen to him tell me about himself but I am really daydreaming about what his corn dog taste like.   
Oh, I don't mean men themselves aren't attractive.  You could blindfold me and I would pick my next date out of a lineup.  But, he would be the one that smells like Movie theater popcorn and juicy-fruit gum... not Axle cologne.  This is an ugly cycle of addiction.  So, my confession is out there... my pain in it is real, although I splash a lot of humor into it, I am being very honest about it... go head and intoduce me to a new guy.. and I will tell you the color of  food stains are on his shirt, but won't remember the color of his eyes.  I am working on it!  Okay!!

 The question came up on Food changes... and I am reading up on addictions since I have one.,A BIG ONE, called food. 
I struggle with "change" every day.  
The first 6 months after surgery, Losing weight was easy and there was so many changes coming so  fast it didn't take a lot of thought.  As I venture further out (Now at one year)... I spend more time fighting my urgers, dealing with social eating, and avoiding eye contact with banners and fast food places.  
Food addiction is NOT the same as others.  Simply because I cannot aviod food 100%. A person  can avoid alcohol, cigerettes, and other addictive habits to help break the cycle of addiction.  But, EVERY TIME I PUT FOOD IN MY MOUTH, I have to think about when I shall stop.. if it is  a health choice, and what will I busy myself with after I eat so I do not graze uncontiously.  That is my reality to food.  I have to be on guard to what I am doing.  I have to develop new activities and mental pleasures so food is not the only satisfaction I am getting from life.  Then I have to repeat them often enough that they come to thought.  Food is so vast a variety.. that it takes a variety of different pleasures to distract a 42 year olds mind from it.  Just one activity is not enough.  
But, I am making it.. understanding more about healthy food and food volumns.  This is not the easy road, but it sure is an educational one.  I don't think I have ever known myself better.  

So, the scale finally fell two more pounds.. WOW! : )  
 That was a long stall. I panicked at 120 pounds lost and went into a all out mental war with myself.  
 ( I went all out protein the last week to get it moving. ) 
I really thought I was going to lose it, both liking where I was body wise, and fearing the new journey I was about to enter.  Being less that my best years weight.  (the 20's) 
 As worried as I was... my Mom and Freind Renee stayed positive for me.  They were sure it was just a point of the body catching up. 
I was sure otherwise.  I know the battle going on in my head.  It was a feeling of fear.  Fear of becoming too thin.  Fear that I now weigh what I did when I started having  kids.  I weigh what I did at the age of 23.  I am talking 20 years ago!!   I know I was eating too much in the ;ast 2 months.  I used the Holidays as a an excuse.  I was eating because I was freaked out ... .  I was eating too much because I had lost so much weight so fast.  Once I realized I really did lose the weight, and I really did look different.... I froze!  Mentally I was asking myself these questions....
Did I REALLY want this???
Am I ready for the changes I see happening???
Am I going to be able to handle the male attention I am getting???
(which was something I am really uncomfortable with and it unnerves me) 
How far do I really want to go in this weight loss??? 
(I want to lose 50 more pounds, there are others in my life that are fighting to keep weight on... )
Will my eating disorder become just another eating disorder and I lose all control???
If you think it is too late for me to ask some of these questions, maybe it is.  But, at one year out.  they are all coming to me now.  I did not have to face them before.  They are just sorta creeping up out of the woodwork and I now am facing them. 
Now that I understand what my fear is, I feel better and feel I can move forward.  Now my scale reads 122 pounds lighter.  Happy for me!!!

I am stuck.  
I have not lost any weight.  (other than losing the 3 pounds I gained in December.)  and I have a feeling of contentment... which I don't want to stay with me since I have another 50 pounds to lose.  I have noted mentally that I look like the lighter side of my family, whom is all obese by nature... so I still feel like I fit in with my kin.  I am fighting the fear of becomeing too thin... and of not losing to goal.  It is a battle of mental wit.  I know it is all in my head.  I just need to find the way out and forward.  Head hunger doesn't even begin to decribe what I am fighting.  It feels like a war of change.  I have taken myself hostage! 

I have taken a good look at myself... and I do mean looking at myself in the mirror.  I stare.  A lot!  I am visually excepting the skin and sag and differences I see.  But, come on... it freaks me out a little.  I look old.  Saggy and baggy!  Everyone else tells me they loves what they see.  I don't think it looks like me.  My co-workers, all refer to me as the new me and old me.  Fat Carol and skinny Carol.  I really hate it... only because I am not skinny and it rubs me the wrong way.  (Thus the critical side of myself and the content side of myself in armed battle agianst each other.)
My children are adjusting to a parent they have never known.  One without the huge belly to lay their heads. They make comments to my face.  Kinda sounds like complaints but with humor.   Oh, I still have a belly... but, it is nolonger larger than my boobs.  They now look at themselves differently.  Everyone always tells one of them that she look like me.  ( So as a child, I was her image of self.  That is what kids do.)  Now, she looks more like me than when I had a full face.  So, her personal image is changing.  I really believe she likes her own look better, now that she likes the way I look.  She wants me to go with her everywhere.  She holds my arm and keeps pace with me.  I can tell she isn't ashame.  Not that she was before.  But, I knew she had a war of words For many years  with kids who would see me and tease her about the "fat mom".   I know she told them not to judge and that I was a great mom.  I know because she shares everyting about her day with me.  I know she loves me .  She even told me their moms weren't that different from me.  But, I knew they were because I was willing to face the truth.  I was Super Morbidly Obese all through my kid's lives.  
Now I feel like I have given them something.  I have givien her new hope and less stress.  Her guard is down.
I guess the contentment is just a phase.  All the changes are catching up to me and I am absorbing the new surroundings.  I am reflecting on the social and personal light that is upon me and my girls.  I am glad for the positiveness.  Tell me this fades away and I will continue on my journey.