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Check out my new photos. Daughter Kira took them. I'm now down about 70lbs. and what a difference! Went from jeans size 48 to a 40, shirt size from 2X to plain regular L. Everything in my closet is either way too big or 10-20 years old and fits.

I'm going to have some publicity photos done for my new career as a franchise business broker and will post those. One will be my Indiana Jones persona that I'm using in live presentations about the adventure that going into business is. Hope to be doing 2-3 presentations a week by August to people in transition and those interested in adding a part-time business they can do from home. Or seniors who want some income after they retire. Actually getting a lot of inquiries about retiring from Minnesota and opening a small business somewhere in the Southwest. Sounds good to me!

My weight loss has slowed down and I have to get busy with exercise. Once my business is on its way I'll be able to focus on that. Actually looking forward to getting outside, swimming and biking. Now if I can get the yard work done I'll have time to do that!

Take care,

Stefan

Hi everybody. I'm doing a short post to say that life is finally moving forward. I've been involved in a job search for months and just decided to start my own small business consultant practice specializing in franchise business brokering and support for new entrepreneurs. I've owned seven business in my career so this is a natural thing for me to do.

I'll post more about my new business once the details are worked out. Also, I should be able to visit the support groups again now that I'm not doing so much job hunt networking.

Meantime, I'm just melting away! My current weight is 212 which is down by 57 lbs. Lately, my progress has been fairly slow and if I ate a bit less and got more exercise I'd be losing faster. But I'm well satisfied with the changes in my eating behavior. I know I can keep my loss going and do it with a minimum of emotional issues. It's not a big deal anymore although I miss a lot of foods and feel I've given up some social enjoyment around food. But really, that's my head complaining and the reality is I'm doing fine with it.

Here's my current ticker. I'm more than halfway to my goal!  Take care.

Stefan

Seems like the month of April flew by and I haven't been here to let you know what's up. So I'm OK and while my loss has slowed I'm now down to 218 pounds. That's down 52 since I started.

Actually, I've been focusing on my job search to the exclusion of almost everything else. Probably eating a bit more than I should but I'm still getting a loss and, of course, I can't eat much anyway. Just haven't been as rigerous about planning and portions as I'd been. For May, I'm making a new commitment to "watch it" and get in more exercise. I want to get back to a loss of 2-3 pounds/week and make progress toward my goal of 165.

But its been great to go to my closet in the morning and find that almost everything in it fits. I now have 4 business suits I can wear and a half dozen pair of good wool slacks that fit. Most are even too big. Its also amazing to see that things I used to wear constantly like jeans and sweatshirts are now too big. I have a growing pile of "can't wear anymore" clothes that needs to go to the resale shop or be given away. I've also shrunk into some clothes and with continued losses, they're now too big.

For those of you in the support groups, I'm sorry I've been unable to attend but I'm in job search groups that meet Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings. I've had to make those my priority for now. But I'll be back.

So I've had a month to enjoy the changes. Now its time to get back to work. Have plans for a large garden and that will be good exercise. Take care.

Hi all. I haven't posted for a while so I figured it was time to say something. My loss rate slowed considerably in March. I'm actually down a couple pounds in the past two weeks but that seems like very little considering how little I'm eating. Feel OK but my weight seems stuck around 220-225. Keeps bouncing around. But I've lost a lot of inches. I'm into clothes I haven't worn in 10 years! So I'm happy and feeling good but disappointed at my slow loss rate.

I do need to exercise more. I've put a lot of time into looking for a job and that's been my primary focus now that I'm mostly over the surgery affects. I'm also not able to get to the weight loss support groups due to job hunt commitments. I'm in a lot of networking groups that meet at the same time.

As the weather improves I want to get out and walk, ride my bike, and generally up my activity level. I know that will help get
me unstuck from the plateau I'm on. Still, I'm pleased to be approaching 50 lbs and know I'll eventually get to my goal of 165lbs. I'm almost half way!

Thanks and I'll post again as my loss rate increases.
Stefan

I've been on solid food for about a month now. At 224 lbs. I'm down to a level I haven't seen since 2000. Its been fun trying on old clothes like they're new -- and amazed to see that they fit! I have a whole new wardrobe, some of it purchased "a little tight" and then never used so its brand new. I'm wearing sweaters that haven't seen the light of day for more than 10 years.

My loss slowed recently even though I'm continuing to lose inches. The interesting thing to me is the change in what I want to eat. Because eating too much protein makes me feel bad I'm tending to prefer things like cucumbers,  tomatoes and yogurt over fish or meat. Foods that are moist and soft work better than dense and dry. Its a new dimension to making food choices. We made a pound of fish - Cod - last night for the four of us and there was almost half of it left. Used to be 1.5 lb. would be all eaten at a meal. (Guess who must have eaten 3/4 by himself?) Good thing...our food budget has dropped considerably.

I have a long way to go but I like the new place I've reached. On a recent trip to Florida I sat in a window seat and could use my laptop with the tray table fully down and there was still room between me and the tray. For years I couldn't do that. Makes me want to go somewhere again, soon.

I'll try to get some new pictures up. Keep forgetting to do it. Approaching the half-way point -- see my ticker:



 

Hi everybody. Haven't posted for a while because my weight loss has slowed now that I'm on solid food. I'm down 40 lbs now. Its weird. I'm not eating much, still a cup or so max per meal, but it seems like my weight loss has slowed significantly. Been bouncing between 230 and 233 for about 10 days. But I've also had a bad cold so maybe that's had something to do with it.

Getting better at drinking water. Got a 32 oz. Nalgene bottle that I fill up in the morning and usually finish by lunch time. Now I'm focusing on upping my exercise. I'd be more motivated if it weren't so COLD! Excuses, excuses.

Thanks to everyone for your support. I'll be a thin guy by summer.

Stefan

Made the transition to solid food today. But it still amazes me at how little food I am eating and still feeling satisfied. I tried a few things today and it stayed down so am looking forward to an expanded set of choices in the days ahead. Overall, I'm down 36 lbs since my surgery back on 12/30/08. I'm going to lay on the beach in Palm Beach Florida the last week of February and am looking forward to losing another 15 lbs by then. Glad seafood is on my diet!

But to experience self-control is the amazing thing to me. I had spaghetti with a turkey meat sauce tonight and put a cup's worth in a bowl, then didn't finish it. That to me as an amazing breakthrough and gives me confidence that I'll have a new way of eating that will let me keep the weight off.

 
 

I'm down 30 pounds! Hard to believe but that's what it is. My clothes are really big on me, Sweatshirts hang low. Its quite a change. Feeling pretty good although I still have some "left side" pain from the surgery. Blood sugars are almost normal and I'll be off diabetes meds shortly, according to my doctor. So the desired result is already happening.

Otherwise, I'm working toward feeling normal. Eating a pureed diet of about 800 calories/day. Not hungery. Trying to get more exercise and keep drinking as much fluids as they want me to. Also adding some protien powder to my diet to make sure I'm getting enough.

So its all going according to plan. Going for 40 pounds for my next post. Thanks to you all for your support.

Figured it out. See my up north ticker, below. Its about 10 degrees right now heading into a blizzard later today with wind-chills of -25 and less. Typical January in Minnesota! I can usually see bunnies out my kitchen window.

Time for a nice warm1/4 cup of tomato soup. Somehow I'm not excited. Not hungry either. That's one of the big challenges I've found so far. I'm spending a lot less time with food - making it, talking about it, eating it. Leaves time for other things. Its a big adjustment. Happy to be down 22lbs and tomorrow I'm only 2 weeks out. The 40-50 lbs. people talk about in 2 months actually looks possible.

Thanks, everyone, for your support so far. I really appreciate hearing from you. Have a great week.

Stefan

I'm still sore and pretty tired of cream soup and yogurt. But I've lost 17 lbs!

Been getting out, going to meetings and driving around. Finding that I'm having a lot of incision pain and now I have a cold -- the sneezes are awful! I'm here leaning on a pillow to try to minimize the pains. But I see real results and am thinking of how to add some spice to my diet. Put some basil in some tomato/roasted red pepper soup today. It was a nice change. Tomorrow I'll try to get a taco flavor out of it.

Trying out a tickerfactory chart, below. I really had trouble getting this to work and still don't know what I'm doing. If somebody knows where the instructions are, please let me know.

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