AthinnerAmy

I am 9 weeks post -op and I am really starting to get excited. I am allowed more food than I am eating right now-- but the scale keeps moving down so I am going to stick with what I am doing. At Christmas I weighed 284. Just before my surgery (January 14, 2013) I weighed 264. I wish I had measurements but I never took them. Today I weigh 210. So since surgery I have lost 54 pounds. FEELS AWESOME. Can't wait to see how it feels to lose the next 54.
 
I have not shopped yet for any new clothes and I think it is time. Everything is really baggy. I was trying to wait for the god forsaken weather to get warmer. I do not really want to buy winter clothes because by next winter I will be even smaller. And for the first time in my adult life- it will be soo fun to buy spring and summer clothes -- I hope.

I have 33 more pounds to go to goal!!! 135 ---> COMING TO GET YA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO

I don't know about you, but the 2 most important work rules I know of are:
 
1. Don't take another man's tools without asking first.
2. Don't F with another man's food.
 
Violating either rule can put you in dire jeopardy of losing blood, skin, hair or at the very least, finding a nasty surprise in your lunch kit the next day.
 
But my current workplace is a bit looser about those rules - being that it's mainly ladies and has more of a community atmosphere compared to the construction sites I worked in the past. So it's not uncommon to find that your friends have raided the fridge and at least part of your lunch was donated to the cause.
 
It was one of those serendipitous moments yesterday that I learned exactly how to protect my food in the community fridge. My director had stashed a piece of Italian Cream cake in the fridge - leftover from the previous day's birthday celebrations - in between two balloon print paper plates.
 
The top plate had a simple message printed in bold black Sharpie on it,
 
"Please do not eat me."
"P.S. I already licked it!" - Kyle
 
Pure genius!
 
Have you any tips on how to protect your food/stuff/things from being "borrowed"?

On May 17th I will hit the 5 month mark on my weightloss journey. I've officially lost 63 lbs since surgery, made it into Onderland (at last), experienced the dreaded stall, had my pants fall off because they were simply too big (I call it the Pants on the Ground Phenomena), cursed my scale which I swear was broken for a month, had my rings fall off my hand, gotten tons of great compliments, rediscovered mirrors, stopped hiding behind people in pictures, flown on Southwest planes where people actually chose the seat next to me even though there were many others open, been ushered out of the plus sizes section at a department store by a well meaning sales lady who thought I was lost, started wearing high heels again, eaten too much too fast and puked, gotten very drunk off of very little alcohol, learned how much I love solid proteins, started exercising again, and have started reaching out to old friends as part of my reconnection plan - which was part of my New Years resolution. My life is 100% happier. I cannot imagine NOT having this surgery. I look forward to what lies ahead, and I although I expect that I will be cursing my scale again at some point, I have faith that the remaining 73 lbs will be worked off in time. In many ways, I've restarted my life at age 40!

For the last three weeks I've felt a little blah - well a lot blah. I have MS and unfortunately had a relapse. For those of you who don't know - that means going on IV steroids - the very ugly little suckers that made me gain all this weight in the first place. I usually gain 10-15 lbs during the time I am on steroids. Well, I am happy to report from the other side and tell you that I actually lost 4 lbs this past week while on the steroids! I absolutely LOVE my sleeve! I did have some wacky food cravings - but found that I could eat so little that it wasn't hard at all not to gain weight.
 
The second cool thing - today I wore to work the suit I was wearing on 9-11-2001! Seriously?!?!?! And what is even better is that it looks awesome! There are a couple of pieces of clothing that I have kept over the years - mostly for sentimental value - but I always said I was going to wear them again when I lost weight. I cannot believe that it is actually happening!
 

 
6 month face progression...So amazingly happy!

I'm going to lay out some thoughts I've been having. My intent is not to minimize the experience of anyone else, but simply to offer my own thoughts and beliefs. I know this journey is different for all of us, but I am always saddened when I see a post about how a pre-op person can't wait to "be skinny" or "look hot" or "feel good about myself again". Skinny does not equal happy. Skinny does not equal hot. Skinny does not equal feeling good about ourselves. There are just as many skinny people who are unhappy, unattractive, and down on themselves as fat people. Happiness, feeling attractive, and feeling good about oneself are characteristics generated from within, not without.
 
A few years ago, at a very low point in my life, happiness seemed to me like a foreign concept. I could not remember the last time I had felt genuinely joyous or happy about anything. Intellectually, I knew that there were many things in my life that were desirable. I had a good job, a comfortable house, a dependable car, some money in the bank, food in the fridge, etc. But despite these things, I was unhappy. Now, I had good reasons to be unhappy, or so I thought. My marriage was failing, I was coming to grips with the fact that I would never be a mother, I wanted desperately to change my life but felt completely stuck, and so on. I remember reading somewhere that happy is a verb...it's an action, not a passive condition. I began to wonder...if I truly felt that there was no spark of happiness or joy in my life, who's fault was that? Who was responsible for my happiness? The answer, of course, is me. I was failing myself. I was not loving myself, or being kind to myself.
 
I decided that if happy was an action, I was going to try and exercise my happy muscle. I was going to try and find one thing to feel happy about for a few minutes every day. My goal was 3-5 minutes a day of active happiness. I thought that would be super easy. After all, I had been able to identify good things in my life, so how hard could it be to think about them for a couple of minutes every day? Well, it was actually harder than I expected, but I stuck with it. I had to set a timer in the beginning, but I made myself do it every single day. Gradually, I noticed it got easier. Some days all I could come up with was something like the weather, or the fact that my bills were paid on time, but damn it...if that was all I had, then I was damn well going to focus on it & feel happy for 3 freakin' minutes.
 
I eventually began to notice that I felt happier overall. I'm not sure why, because by this time I was just divorced and trying to figure out dating at 270 lbs & maintaining my new house, etc, but regardless, I felt happier. After meeting the man who has become my 2nd husband, he said that one of the things that attracted him to me was that I always seemed happy. I'm not saying that this is somehow a magic bullet against bad stuff happening, but holding happiness in my mind for a few minutes every day helps me to deal with the inevitable downs of life. It seems to me that consciously taking time to feel happy each day has somehow made a state of happiness more accessible in my brain.
 
It's been almost 7 years since I began my happiness quest, and I can honestly say I feel happier today than I ever have in my life. To quote Charlotte in the Sex and The City movie, "I feel happy every day. Not all day every day, but every day I feel happy." In choosing to have the sleeve, I absolutely do not expect it to make me happy, because I'm already happy. I feel pretty good about myself today, this minute, at 300+ lbs. Yes, there are things I want to do, but I can't right now. Yes, I have pain every day & difficulty walking, but I still feel good about who I am and what I have to offer in my small corner of the world. I am aware that I am probably judged negatively by some people because of my weight, but I don't even really notice that. Today, I find it so much easier to find things in my life that make me genuinely happy. I am definitely looking forward to weighing less and seeing an improvement in my mobility, but I don't think it will make me somehow better or more acceptable or a more worthy person. I am enough, right now, just as I am. We all are, and we are all so very precious. Today, right now, at this very moment, we are beautiful, and we are valuable, and we are enough. I believe that with all my heart, and I hope you do, too.

Yesterday was my day, I was on point with my inner skinny girl.
 
I found a dress that did not cling to all of my rolls, it just fell across the body. Not to brag but I looked good, I even rocked my 4 inch sandals! I received so many complements, all the while I as thinking, "Wait til ya see m 100 pounds lighter".
 
To have been successful in keeping the 25 pounds I lost off and working successfully to have more off with weekly excerise classes has been a blessing.
 
Mind you I have no desire to wear skinny girl jeans, but I am looking forward to adjusting my wardrobe. I striveto have a day like yesterday once a week, especially since my clothes are fitting better it should work.
 
Continued success to everyone on this journey.
 
Karen

I'm down 8.2 lbs on my 11th day of the liquid diet. I'm actually feeling the loss in my clothes, which just makes me more excited and pumped up to have the surgery and get even MORE off. I had my pre-op app. with my gp and she's 'signed off' so there's no stopping me now. I'm understanding that need to chew issue that I read about. But the V8 satiates my need for salt pretty well (I would HOPE 920 mg of sodium would do the trick!)
 
Right now I'm feeling absurdly narcissistic and completely wrapped up in ME ME ME. I feel a bit badly about this, but I think I'm feeling weirdly about it because I never have thought about ME in the past; it's always been about my husband or kids or parents or students or anybody EXCEPT me. I've neglected myself and it shows in my excessive weight.
 
I feel differently already and wonder if people can SEE the change in me.