The difference 12 months makes!!

I know there is a week until new years (Yeah, I know, I know, it's not even Christmas Day as I write this) but I need to look back now and see how far I have come.

I can't find ANY weigh ins from this time 12 months ago. I know that sometime in January this year I donated blood and weighed in at 154, so lets work from that.
I am now 106.9kg. That is a loss of 47.1kg. In one year. I KNOW that I wouldn't have achieved this without surgery. But even with all the complications and time in hospital, I am happy I went through with my gastric sleeve. Even when I hate it because I can't keep eating the yummiest food, I know I've done the right thing. It keeps me in check. It stops me sabotaging myself, or hurting myself with food as much.
I have dropped from a size 26-28 (stretchy 26s!! Denial!!) to a size 18. It took me a little while to realise that I was really an 18. I've even thrown out some size 22s cos they are too big. My self image is slowly catching up to my body. Even though I haven't lost much weight since September, (3 kilos compared to the 40 odd I had lost in the 4 months previous), the sizes are getting smaller. Some of this could be the muscle/fat balance changing me so that I'm getting smaller, but the scales aren't showing it. It could also be the fact that my stomach has stretched enough that I can eat a small meal, rather than the few teaspoons that I was eating at the start, so my calories in are matching my calories out, so the scales aren't showing it.
It's also me getting more comfortable with the smaller sizes. I didn't buy myself a scrap of new clothing until the shopping spree in September, so it's been 3 months of comfortably getting those numbers down. I'm wearing clothes that fit. I'm even getting compliments, so my taste isn't quite in my bum!! :-)

I am feeling more energetic, able to move freer, can cross my legs, comfortably do up my shoelaces, have both girls on my knees without struggling. My stomach no longer touches the steering wheel when I drive and I don't have to move the seat back if Ken's been driving my car.
I also feel almost "normal". I don't feel like a freak, the fattest person in the room. Not that I look for who is, but when I was in the 150s, I felt like I was being judged. I was probably judging myself really, but now that feeling is slowly disappearing.

I'm not going to do new years resolutions. I am going to enjoy the school holidays and when the girls go back to school, then I am going to get in the swing of losing the last 7 kilos so I can be in double figures. Then it's onto the 80s, then the 70s, coming to 75kg so I can have my victory photo shoot done!! :-)

Bring on 2011!!!

Til Next Time,
Ness.