11 Months!

I can't believe I am almost to the one-year mark. In some ways it seems like I just had surgery, but in others my life has changed so drastically that it seems it was years ago. I think the biggest benefit of the surgery is that I am finally comfortable in my own skin. I have no illusions about how I look. I still weigh over 200 pounds and I will always have saggy skin, but for the first time in my life, I am happy with my physical appearance. I even wear a swimsuit without worrying about it. This is life altering for me in a way that is impossible to convey. As a child, I used to pray over and over that I would wake up and find that I had been living in a dream and that I was really thin. I would hope that I would find that my body was a fat suit that I could unzip and take off. In a way, I feel like that is what has happened this year. I have stepped out of my fat suit.

I often ask David to show me people who look like I looked or I try to compare myself to people that we see. David doesn't notice weight, so he has a hard time doing this. Yesterday, David and I were at a park and he pointed to a woman sitting on a nearby bench. He told me that he thought she was about the size I was before surgery. I was shocked. I wanted to cry - first for that poor woman who was trapped in that body and secondly because I couldn't bear to think of myself that way. I am so grateful for this new life I have been given.

The dress in my picture this month isn't very fitted and doesn't show my weight loss, until you compare it to it used to look like on me. The thing that surprised me the most is how long the dress is now. It's actually too big, so I don't know if I should wear it anymore.

Heaviest weight: 296.5

Surgery weight: 274.5

Today's weight: 206.6 

(I've been down as low as 205.4)
Total pounds lost: 89.9 lbs.

Starting BMI: 49

Today's BMI: 34.4

My only downsides are my continued hair loss and the fact that I think my face looks older. I have always had thick, beautiful hair and it is so thin now. Not just the fact that there's not much of it, but I also feel like the actual strands of hair aren't as thick and full as they used to be. It's okay. I'll take the trade off. On the plus side, my hair hasn't been this curly since I was a little girl. In the below picture, all I did was add some gel and run my fingers through it. The curls are 100% natural. I don't love the front of my hair though, so I think I'm going to cut it super short.

Highlights of the past month have been impressing the first graders with my jump roping skills and stick dancing at the Relief Society luau. I wouldn't have been able to do either a year ago. I even did a few cartwheels this month! I'm still hoping to be under 200 pounds by my one-year anniversary and I'll be running the 5K a couple of days before then. So here's hoping for a great month!

One challenge I worry about is my sweet Baylie. She is really worried about her weight. She worries that one day she will need my surgery. I don't know how to help her with this. Because I grew up so focused on my body, we have tried very hard not to do that with our kids, but we live in a body-focused society and she hears it somewhere. We're trying to focus on eating healthy and getting exercise and teaching our children that all people are built differently and our body shape doesn't matter. She still worries that her belly is too big and she even cries about it sometimes. I don't know how to undo that.