10 months out ...

Well it will be 10 months on Monday 8/31. I am 141 lbs right on the nose! No longer overweight, just inside the normal range for my height. OMG - I never imagined. Actually I remember last year trying not to daydream about what it could be like or where I would be after the surgery. I was very intent on the process at hand and trying to keep up with the doctors and the insurance.

I am here 10 months later, through a lot of bumps in the emotional road, but I am about 104 lbs down and from a size 20 - 22 - 3X to 8/10/12 - m/l. I am of course surprised by the smaller size range, but the cuts and styles affect the size far more now than it did when I was in the plus sizes. And of course there is a ton more options.

I would like to loss another 6 lbs before my years check up on 11/4. I would like to be under 140 even dressed for my weigh in. But if I don't make it, I will be back to the same old question of "can I stay here and be happy"????! I am driven by that BMI number and I want it firmly planted below 24.9! The dream range would be 130 - 135. But the okay range is 133 - 137. I say, "DREAM ON" !

How do I feel? That is a question that I get a lot. I don't "feel" different. I am still shy in a group of people I don't know. I am still uncomfortable with guys looking at me (the only difference now is that it not the chubby chasers looking, it's the rest). I am still uncomfortable in form fitting clothes that show my figure. Before it was covering the rolls, now it's covering how small I am. My body is here, but my brain still has not connected in many ways. Sometimes I do feel small and that bothers me A LOT. Like my one friend said, my weight/size was powerful and strong. I was powerful. Even one of my sisters said I looked like I shrunk (she was referring to my height). But it was the presence or space that I had. Now that it's all gone, is an adjustment and a bit unnerving. I need to find another way to be strong & powerful now that my size is gone.

I did a charity walk last week for OI, and I walked 5 miles. I went alone and only knew the people who organized the event (friends from RNY support group who lost their baby girl to OI). I would have never done that last year, not alone. But I did it and walked 5 miles in 1 hr and 40 minutes. That was a good feeling!

We did the amusement parks (2 different ones) this summer. That was a lot of fun! To not worry if I could fit, just to put my butt in the seat and strap in & hold on and laugh. That made me feel real good, it was loads of fun! I want to go on a haunted hay ride this fall. I have never been on one before, too afraid of being embarrassed or ridiculed.

Tomorrow is a picnic (celebrating my niece's 16th birthday) with people from my previous life. Not just pre-RNY, but many people from the time of my first marriage. My ex is not going (cause he's an ass) but there will be a whole lot of people that I used to know, that will not know me anymore. I could actually walk by many of them (including my ex) and they would not recognize me in a million years. I have never looked this ever. So I have mixed feelings of excitement and trepidation. Fear almost to the point of not wanting to go. Almost to the point in my previous life that I would not go at the last minute. Not this time! I'm going, even if I have to force myself to go. And I will enjoy the moment.

That's all I got for now....