Has it surprised you in any way where the weight comes off of you first? 

I'm not completely sure what I was expecting, but having no children, and being able to feel that most of my stomach fat was on top of the muscle, I had a reasonable hope that my relatively small waist was still under there somewhere. 

What I wasn't expecting is for all the weight to start literally falling off my stomach and upper thighs quite like it did without touching my booty (hurrah!) 

So this rambling post is all leading up to one thing: a celebratory jump for joy that my waist is now 35" and heading down, putting me in the healthy waist range again for the first time in years.  I went from 52-49-56, which blew my mind and made me want to cry when I saw it two and a half years ago to 45-35-46 now. 

7 inches off my chest, most of them from my back I and under arms, and an acceptable amount from my boobs, which still look boob-shaped and lifted*  My back isn't as "melty/bulgey" as it was before, and my ribs visibly go "in" under the bra, rather than my breasts sitting on top of my stomach.  I do have more issues with slipping out of the bottom of my bra a little if the band isn't tight enough. 

10 inches off my hips, whichever came mostly off the lower stomach area and saddlebags.  My booty has always been muscular, and only lost a thin layer of fat, which my wife says just defined the muscles already there more. Losing fat along my back also re-revealed the top curve of my butt, which is nice.  I feel cute in dresses again, but I've gone back to looking a little weird in floaty clothes, which is boo because I do like floaty Stevie Nicks Witchy Hippie Goth looks.  I don't measure my thighs, but they have definitely gone down.  My legs are more symmetrical, and the wife swears she can see muscle in the back through the cellulite.  Which is never going away, i know, but I'm okay with that.  I've made my peace. 

Then the big hurrah.  I lost fourteen inches off of my waist.  Some of it is from the stomach, some from the back, some from the flanks, so everyone chipped in, but I did not in my wildest dreams expect to recover my waist so quickly.  I got married in a custom Victorian corset two years ago when my waist was almost at maximum size, and my corset maker, bless her, made the corset for tight lacing, getting me down somewhere around forty twoish at the wedding with more room to pull tight.  I thought I'd never be able to wear the corset again, but I tried it on yesterday, and it just barely fits. The laces close all the way, and it just gently shapes my hips a bit and holds my waist in that particular corset shape, but it still fit, it was soooo comfortable, and it looked even better than it did on my wedding day.  I should get a picture of that. Maybe the whole outfit, which was steampunk and had the corset on top, so that should hold it together.

On the down side, when I was rushing to get dressed, I grabbed an old favorite retro dress that my wife wore to our ring ceremony (hers was a size smaller than mine, and mine was very tight at the time), pulled it over my head without unzipping, and looked down at what should have been a cute skull and roses dress, but was only shapeless skull and roses fabric gaping over my bra.  I'm still debating whether to have it tailored in or make pillows. 

What changes and discoveries about your weight loss patterns and changing shape have taken you most by surprise or lit you up with celebratory joy? 

* This was a huge worry for me, as I'd had breast reduction in 2013, and while I'd be happy with smaller boobs, I really didn't want to go back to flat, shapeless boobs, which run in the family.  Just not enough strong connective tissue in our lineage, plus that weird stretchy Celtic skin. Whew. I suspect I dodged it, because the surgeon removed as much non-glandular tissue as he could while trying to preserve nerves and glands, so that's may have left me with relatively de-fatted boobs, in case anyone was considering a breast reduction BEFORE gastric surgery.  I was 42J+ at my most extreme, 38E at surgery, and now 36DD or DDD, possibly 34..  I haven't gone bra shopping in a while.