9 Months Out!

A typical 9 month gestation culminates in an 8 pound baby, right? Not for WLS, baby!
Take a look:

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Start with a 327 pound woman, subtract an Angelina Jolie amount of fat, and presto! You have ME, today, 9 months later, with 130 pounds gone forever!!


Right now, you can buy an ounce of gold for $606 dollars. If I had shed gold instead of fat, I'd be sitting on a motherlode!! I've lost the equivalent of $1,260,480 of gold bullion!!


As we always said in Weight Watchers, 1/4 pound is equal to one stick of butter. In the last 9 months, I've taken off 520 sticks of butter!!

Or, if we think back to the baby analogy, I've lost approximately 16 newborns (although I would be DEAD if I actually had to take care of 16 newborns!!!).





Which is all to say that I'm VERY VERY VERY happy with my weight loss thus far. If I can keep my current loss (10 pounds/month) going, I'll be almost to my first goal at my one year anniversary! This fit club is definitely helping that--I am working out A LOT and really pushing myself during those workouts. I can already see an increase in muscle tone in my arms and a thinning in my waist/stomach.

Eating is going well, too, although I do need to freshen up my meals--I tend to eat the same three or four things over and over--chicken salad, beans, cheese, protein bars, and protein rich frozen dinners. I need to spice it up a bit!

That's all for now.

Before/After

Week Two of the Fit Club results are out--and I posted 24 points last week, which rocked. But, so did Becca, my sister in law, so she is STILL 9 points ahead of me and in the lead! Since the difference between 1st and 2nd place is about a $100, I'm determined to whittle away at her lead!!

I was looking through my photos and I thought I'd post a few of the more interesting before/after shots for ya'll.


On the left is me and Jacky at the Law School Prom in 2003. I think I was even down about 50 pounds from my highest weight here. On the right is me and Jacky on her birthday party night last week. Probably at least a 100 pound difference between the two.


On the left is me on my cruise in October 2004. I'm about 310 here--20 pounds less than my highest weight. I remember this day was all walking through ruins in 100 degree heat--I was NOT a happy camper that night--my feet were killing me and I was so hot (and not in the cute way either!!) On the right is me today. I'm at 198...and where size 18 pants and a XXL sweater. What I love about this is that I'm posing in front of my "Impossible is Nothing" poster in my office, and I really feel like I am living that statement!


I went shopping this weekend and was able to fit into all size 14 skirts, but size 18 pants. I was so disgusted with the state of my big, baggy stomach and batwing thighs, I didn't buy anything (but workout clothes). When I talked to Jacky about it the next day--she confessed that her jeans were two sizes larger than her skirt sizes as well. I guess because I've never really been able to wear "regular" sized clothes, I had no idea that skinny/normal sized people had the same size issues we do! I sorta feel like I need to get the Girl's Guidebook to Shopping in Normal Size Stores Where Your Sizes May Vary Four Sizes Due to Vanity Sizing and Weird-o French Labelling. So, someone get on writing that book, mmmkay? Thanks!

199!!!

Today is my half birthday--I'm 29.5 years old. And, to celebrate, I weighed in at 199 today!!! I'm so pumped! I've been doing this crazy fit club this week--I've worked out 555 minutes (9+ hours) since Sunday. I'm glad it paid off at the scale!

Speaking of birthdays, my friend Jacky had her 30th last week. A group of us went to Marrakesh, a Morrocan restaurant, to celebrate. Here's a pic we're dubbing "Charlie's Aging Angels" as the 4 of us are all turning 30 this year.


Heather, Jacky, me & Hannah

Yea for 199!!

Slipping?

Ok, so the further away we get from surgery, the harder we have to work to use the tools this surgery gave us, right? In fact, I've heard one WLS post op say that at surgery, weight loss is 100% surgery, 6 months out, it's 60% surgery and 40% us, and 1 year out, it's 100% us.

Being close to 9 months out, I'm really feeling this. I know that I have been wildly successful, but these last 40/50 pounds I want to lose are coming off so slowly and require increasing amounts of effort to make them happen.

Part of this, I think, is that, like all weight loss "programs", once you get soo used to it, it is easy to forget the basic rules that account for the success of the program. For example, when I was a Weight Watcher (I still am a weight watcher!), I knew points forwards and backwards--but would get careless on little things that started adding up--upping portions, "forgetting" to count dressings or a bite of someone's plate.

When I first became a post-op, I journalled every stinking bite I ate. Up until this week, I haven't journalled in MONTHS. I would never eat carbs, but now it seems like every meal I have "just a little" rice or "just a few" low fat crackers or "just" a FF tortilla. I mean, these are all much better choices then before, but not the "right" choices, you know? I also haven't been counting protein--I know I'm getting a lot (I had 10g for breakfast and 33g for lunch today), but am I getting the 80-100g per day my Dr suggests?

And drinking before/after meals. I'm terrible about waiting to do this.

Exercise--actually, I rock at exercising. I went from zero to almost every day now, and that isn't including the 1.5 mile walk to work, or the .5 mile walks to run errands, etc. that I would NEVER have done before. The only problem with exercise is that, for me, all this walking was new in the beginning, but now it seems like it's just a given, and I have to do even MORE exercising to keep losing weight. I know that makes sense logically, but emotionally, I am still looking for my gold star every day that I choose to walk to work. Does that make sense? Like, look, I'm STILL doing it--doesn't that count for something, body?

Vitamins--I actually am pretty good about all my vitamins except my calcium. I have to take calcium during the day (my Dr. says calcium conflicts with my multis, which I take one in morning, one at night), and I forget to do that a lot. But, everytime I go out to buy more vitamins, I'm always forgetting how much of each thing I need. Last month, I was taking 1000mcg (mg?) of B12 a day, this month I'm taking 500 mg? a day--just what "looked" right when I bought the bottle.

I'm going to talk to my doctor this month about getting another copy of his "rules" for the pouch and vitamins.

I'm trying not to make these recent observations of myself into a "I hate myself, I suck" session, and instead I'm trying to learn from them. I've lost 76% of my excess weight-- 124 pounds of my 163 pound loss goal, in less than 9 months! I am really really happy with how much better I feel, how much more normal I feel, and how much more (energy and activity wise) I am able to do. I just feel like this happy train is slowly coming to a halt and I'm not ready to get off it!

Maybe this is something that "heavyweights" can relate to, but even after losing all this weight, I am still in plus size clothes (hovering between 1x and xl, 16 and 18)! And, can one-derland PLEASE happen someday soon? Please? With Splenda on top???

People keep talking about how "skinny" and "thin" I am, but I'm like, hello?!? I'm still in the "obese" category--hold off on the extreme compliments, ok?

Anyway, this dark little thought cloud has been following me around for the past several days, and I figured it would make me feel better to post it.

I guess it's just really hard to accept that, just like every other thing I've tried, I'm not going to be "perfect" at this lifestyle change either. I'm just going to have to take it a day at a time.

Thanks for listening.