Hello All,

It's been several years since I've been here. When I last was here I was going to go out of state to have the Lap-band done. Well, I had all the approvals in my hand and my surgeon essentially abandoned me. I have my personal speculations about why this happened as I've encountered several others who had the same thing happen to them. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

Any who, at the end of 2013 I decided to give weight loss surgery another go. I redid my research on all the procedures and settled on the Gastric Sleeve, which is the procedure I feel most comfortable with. I watched the videos of the actual surgery, I watched more videos on YT than I could count. Then I started to look for Dr's in my area. I found a surgeon and went to his seminar just after the New Year going into 2014. Met him at his seminar, with a room of about 30-40 people similar to me from all walks of life, short, tall, male, female, black, white, Asian, Catholic, Jewish, etc. This room was as diverse as it gets. A few days after the seminar I was called with my 1 on 1 consultation appointment. I laid out my expectations and the surgeon and his dietician laid out theirs.

Well here I am 14 months out from that appointment down 139 pounds to date, without having the Sleeve done yet. Surgeon tells me that I've lost more weight in 1 year w/o surgery than some of his patients have with it. I found my weight out sometime after my 1st consultation. The surgeons scale didn't go up high enough. I had found out my weight during a failed out-patient hospital procedure, 688 pounds. That was then and as of this past Saturday I am down to 549.

My surgeon wants me to continue to stay the course. He had a good analogy for me, I'm like a surfer riding a wave, why interrupt that now when I am doing so well. He's got a valid point too in that, the more I lose the safer surgery becomes and hopefully less painful the recovery will be. I see him in a few weeks and hope to bring him another good weight loss number. I'm slowly running into the problem of my clothes not fitting, my shirts are getting too big and my shorts are practically falling off of me. My dog saw a little more of my ass than she wanted to see. Made the mistake of not holding my shorts when I was walking in the house. LOL! It's both a good and bad problem to have. Good in that it shows results, bad in that buying clothes gets expensive still at this size.

I've been pretty vocal about my journey with my family and friends. They've been extremely supportive!! Words of thanks don't feel like enough of a way to say thank you to them all. It truly has humbled me in seeing all the love and support from people both online and in my community. The support truly has been my motivation and thunder to keep plowing forward with this. Being obese as I was I compared it too a prison sentence. Yes, I was free in the technical sense that I haven't committed a crime, but my weight confined me to my home most of the time, which is essentially prison. Well, before I write a novel, it's good to be back. Now time to catch up on what I've missed!

You are amazing and awesome!!! Best wishes for continued success!

All of us here know what a challenge it is.

Good luck!

Wow what an awesome accomplishment...keep it up!

You are amazing and awesome!!! Best wishes for continued success!

All of us here know what a challenge it is.

Good luck!

Wow what an awesome accomplishment...keep it up!

Thank you!!! It's definitely been a roller coaster ride thus far and I expect nothing different moving forward.

You are doing so great. I am proud of you and don't even know you. I think the best way you can thank your friends and family, is by continuing to rock your weight loss. You are obviously ready to make this lifestyle change. Congrats and keep it up. You are an inspiration.