1 YEAR MEASUREMENTS in Weight Loss Surgery

I think I skipped a month or something somewhere - oh well.

I don’t have my exact measurements from the day of surgery but I do have measurements from 6 months before my surgery - then two weeks after my surgery - then now at almost a year out from surgery.

So I’m gonna put them all beside each other to make this all a lil bit more dramatic.

Is IS dramatic anyway but whatever…

HW 296#s->May 2020 285#s -> (Srgry Dec 2021) ->Jan ‘21’ 264#s->Dec ‘21’ 205#s-> 91#s Lost
----------Chest—>51 in--------------------------->50 in-------->41 in –> Inches loss 10
----------Waist—>54 in--------------------------->54 in-------->42 in –> Inches loss 12
----------Hips —>60 in--------------------------->55 in-------->47 in –> Inches loss 13
----------Thighs—>?----------------------------->32 in-------->27 in –> Inches loss 5 each
----------Arms—>?------------------------------->21 in-------->17.5 in->Inchs Loss:3.5each
----------Neck–>18 in---------------------------->18 in-------->17.5 in-> Inches Loss: 1.5
----------Calf ------------------------------------>18in--------->17.5 in-> Inches Loss: 1.5
---------------------------------------------------------------------Total 46.5 inches lost!

I know my calcs are weird because they’re from different times and areas of my body but it’s the best I could do.

That’s almost 4 feet of wideness in different areas that’s off my body. Mainly off my stomach and hips/butt, but my tits took a hard hit as well.

It’s still hard to wrap my head around how I’ve changed. Cause on one hand - I KNOW what I looked like last year at 296lbs - and I knew that I didn’t look like “myself”. However, when I look at pictures of myself from that weight, I don’t recognize myself and still remember myself at the same time.

And when I look at myself NOW at around 200lbs, I feel like this is more “me”. What I thought I looked like - or should look like - in my head. This was my weight as a teen, and maybe where my mind was stuck even while I was ballooning up to almost 100lbs larger.

And yet - because I’m now 40, my 205lb self doesn’t look the same as 205lbs when I was 14, so… it’s still an unrecognizable new body - but in clothes, I feel more “normal” now that I ever did at 296lbs.

I hated being the “biggest” person in the room - and in many places I still am. But now I may only be bigger by 25lbs, instead of 100lbs - and that makes a big different to someone like me who desires to blend in with the crowd and be “normal” looking.

I have traded a taut obese body for a thinner, more deflated body. My full youthful cheeks for a droopier face and neck. Sometimes I look at my inner thighs or my boobs and worry that I just traded one unattractive feature for another.

But when I look at myself as a whole, I KNOW I’m healthier. I know I’m breathing and moving better. I’m no longer diabetic. My liver is no longer fatty. My internal organs MUST be better somehow from the weight loss - even if I’ll never get to see how.

In my mind I know it’s logical that I physically take up less space, yet when I see the room left beside me on the coach or a chair, I’m surprised at myself.

When I see pictures of myself where I actual have a neck at all, I’m flabbergasted. At where I was and where I am.

I didn’t reach the 100lb lost mark - and I don’t think I will by the end of the year. It’s only 9 lbs but I’ve been stuck between 205 and 210 for months so… I just don’t see it happening. And that stings because it’s a marker of success that I haven’t reached and it’s my own fault and so I’m sour about it.

But I don’t doubt that I will get there someday. Prob by the summer when I’m more active.

Will the 100lb loss be less sweet because it happened in 1.5 years, instead of 1 year. Prob not. And that’s not even my “goal” weight. I’d actually love to be 175 regularly - who knows when I’ll get there.

It sucks that I don’t let myself fully celebrate this. I’m always forward facing towards where I should be, or where I wanna be, instead of being fully present and happy with where I am right now in this moment. I’M HAPPY… but I’d be happier if XYZ, you know?

I’m really hard on myself and even I sometimes say I took “the easy way out” - although I wouldn’t have said this was “easy”.

It wasn’t hard like sweating in a gym “hard” - but certainly the process to get approved, the bills, and the recovery was hard and I’m still learning this new stomach.

The mental issues were and are still hard. I still want to binge, I still want to purge at times. I can eat EVERYTHING I used to eat before. I wish I had an aversion to rice or sugar like some people get after surgery! I beat myself up constantly and feel like I’m on a tight rope trying to not fall into disordered eating while trying to figure out what calories and nutritional levels are right for me to maintain weight loss, yet satisfy my appetite so I don’t binge / gain. Deciphering head hunger from actual real body hunger, etc. Relaxing into the fact that weight fluctuates and gains don’t mean the ruination of the whole day, week, month, year.

But overall it’s one of the best things I’ve pursued for myself and the only thing I regret is not doing it 20 years ago!!