When I began this journey at the beginning of 2018 I was 426 pounds. Can't tell you measurements because all my clothes were in X's and not inches. But for reference, I was in a 5x shirt from Casual Male. I only wore sweatpants and those were also a 5x. People only saw me in clothes and the comment I often heard was that I carried my weight well. Being 6'1" I had the advantage of being tall and heavy vs short and heavy. It was all an illusion.

Medically I was prediabetic, on CPAP, could only sleep on my back, had knee pain and sweated like a frog fresh out of the pond in any weather over 72 degrees.

7 months post surgery and I am down 139 pounds. My A1C is 4, off the CPAP, I can sleep on my side, I can walk all day and not have knee pain...unfortunatley I still sweat a lot.

My physical appearance has changed in visible ways. Prior to surgery, I use to measure my weight loss and gain by how close I was to my steering wheel. If I was rubbing it then it was a bad week, if I could fit my hand between my belly and the wheel it was a good week (I avoided scales, I knew I was fat and honestly just wanted to get by in life). I look down at my steering wheel now and I see the marks where my belt scratched up the leather. Now there are a good 10 inches between me and the steering wheel. I can get in a car accident and not worry that the airbag is going to kill me.

I can see the weight loss in my face:

I also see the weight loss around my body. My shoulders are boney, my arms have lots of skin, my butt sags, the skin just hangs everywhere.

I'm down to a 2x and my waist is in a 50 pant which needs a belt. I hold these clothes out in front of me as I'm about to put them on and I say to myself, "There is no way this will fit me" or "Boy this is gonna look tight" and the clothes fits perfect. Not tight and hides my sag well.

Overall I don't want to sound like I'm not delighted, but I'm realizing just how large I was...and honestly still am.

I wish I were brave enough to take a photo so I could show you what I mean, but I can't believe after all this weight coming off I'm still so big. I sit and there is a huge belly still in my lap. My thighs are huge. Maybe as I continue to lose weight these two areas will decrease dramatically, but it seems like there must be 150 lbs there alone.

I never thought for a moment that after my surgery I was going to have a thin, fit beach body. I hoped though that it would be less fat looking when dressed and in public. I almost feel like I want to tell people "Yeah, but just half a year ago I was..."

Edited June 12, 20197 yr by MikeIL
correction

You look GREAT! Waaay different from your first pictures where you already looked great!

ps I'm also digging the shoes...?

Well done Mike. Well done! So how does it feel?

Really fantastic to see you thriving and happy!

You look FABULOUS! Congrats to you!! Good job!

Thank you for posting this. I soooo hear you! Ive been sitting in very much the same boat. Even though Ive lost somewhere over 100 lbs since January, I still have 50 to go. I look down at my normal size L jogging pants and am happily shocked every time I can see that I definitely have two legs now. Not to mention a colleague (at my new job which only knows me after my journey started) said that I dont look overweight. (I too am rather tall at 6 foot, so I "carry it well", but heavy is heavy.) However, I can still go buy a security monitor in a store and still only see a fat person. Our minds play tricks on us, and we have to get the "adult" in there to win the fight and let the kid "play" enough to let us not get overwhelmed by the journey.