For years and years I've been obese, since I was eight years old.

I tried everything, from the sensible to the slightly insane to try to lose weight.

After a year of diligent calorie counting and exercise failed to shift any weight, I spoke with my husband about possibly pursuing bariatric surgery. Pretty quickly, I started to gravitate toward a gastric sleeve, and did a ton of research.

I put off making that appointment for a consultation for months. Now I wish I hadn't!

Because, now I'm 5 days post-op and feeling incredible, and shrinking before my very eyes!

I had a very easy surgery and my recovery was fast--practically outpatient. I was out of the hospital the next afternoon. Three days after surgery I could go shopping for a little while, five days after, I could resume my walking routine (although I may have been pushing it a little).

I've had no trouble at all keeping to my full liquid diet, and have been doing really well so far! As of yesterday, I lost 12 pounds since my surgery date. By now, it is probably even more! I can actually feel and see the changes, they're happening so fast. This is so encouraging to me, that I can't imagine having any problem sticking to my diet.

I haven't had any "head hunger" which is great--it's something a lot of people struggle with post-op, so I guess I'm just lucky that there wasn't a big psychological component to my obesity that I didn't know about.

The only challenge I've come up against so far is drinking enough water. I don't feel thirsty, and my mouth isn't dry, but they say I should be getting about 60 oz a day. There's no way I'm getting that, unless you include the other liquids I "drink" like shakes, soups, etc. The nutritionist said I shouldn't count those, but it seems pretty unattainable if I don't!

My stomach is only 2oz big, I would have to fill and empty my stomach 30 times a day with water alone to get 60oz of pure water.

Blah.

I can't complain--I'm feeling astonishingly well, and am losing weight! It's like a dream!