Hi Everyone,

What inspires you? Different things inspire each one of us. I know how difficult the Holiday Season can be once you have had WLS. Just remember this is a whole new life for you. You have made the choice to have the WLS or will be one of these days.

To have a new life you need to make lifestyle changes. Good choices when it comes to food too. This means you look at this holiday season in a whole new way. It is a holiday so Celebrate all the wonderful things that you have accomplished. You still can have some of the food, only in small amounts. Sometimes just having a taste of something satisfies your need to eat it. Take a bite and enjoy it, wait for a few minutes before you have any more of it. Sometimes just that one bite is all you need.

Anything is possible; you have proved this by having WLS. You want your life to be better, and you want to be healthy and you want lose the weight. DO NOT allow others to make you feel like you are different. You be the one to defines who you are. The journey is yours and you can be just who you want to be. Life is good be happy. Be the best you can for yourself and NO one else.

You are already successful, because you are on this site doing things to change your life.

Hugs and Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Suzanne

What motivates me is that no one in my family lives to be 70 years old. They all have died of diabetes or cancer. All the women in my family were over 300 pounds and all were diabetic. I was 257 post op. I have always enjoyed working out but could never keep the weight off. So my motivation is to break the cycle of obesity and diabetes in my family and have a long heathly life for my kids and someday my grandkids.

I really needed this post today. So THANK YOU! I have said this before but I am doing this for myself first, but my beautiful daughter second. I can not imagine her life to be anything like mine as I was growing up. I do not want her to look to her mother as an excuse for being over weight. I want to be healthy and full of energy and able to keep her weight under control by exercise and healthy eating. I am also doing this for my future children, when that time comes. Spending a life full of ridicule, hurt feelings, and negative thoughts is no way for any child to grow up.!

I love my sleevie because I can only take a bite of the things I love and walk away, I also hate my sleevie for the same reason. Last night all I wanted was some Diet Pepsi. I am still having that craving today! It's going to be a rough day. Especially because I stepped on the scale and am still stuck at 224.0 ! ARG! I almost threw the scale! I actually debated buying a new scale because I am sure this one is broken! LOL.

This is a great time of year, and without me focusing on the food I am focusing on all of the other more important things. Like how excited my 2.5 year old daughter will feel when Santa comes! Food is still controlling my every thought, but I am still pushing on and I will break free sooner or later. Love Your posts. Thanks for this one today.

I am 107 pounds down since last Christmas. This inspired me to schedule a family photo shoot for last Saturday with my husband, son, daughter in law and 2 granddaughters. I would never have done that previously. And yesterday, at the family gathering of my extended family (siblings, mom, etc.) I wasn't hiding from camera-holding relatives. In fact, in the group shot, my husband grabbed me around the waist and placed me more prominently in front of him. He said -"you don't need to try to hide in the photo this year - you are skinny".

The food at the celebrations wasn't a problem at all. I ate until my sleeve was full then stopped.It tasted wonderful, but I didn't want to just gorge like previous holidays. I had three bites of a sweet in mid afternoon. Wasn't tempted to over-eat at all. I was having way to much fun playing on the floor with the kids and talking to the adults.