I'm not a liar anymore!

I weigh exactly what my drivers' license says I do. Woo hoo! I don't think that's ever been the case before. I think I've always fudged the numbers by at least 20 or so.

Also, today I jumped over my halfway mark by a pound and a half. Onward and downward!

I'm only two pounds away from my goal of 75 pounds by the trip. We'll have to see if I make it. Either way, I'm feeling pretty good.

Played basketball!

Well, okay I shot some baskets, but I jumped a bit and ran around some. We had Family Home Evening last night and for our activity we shot baskets and rode bikes. Brad and I are borrowing a set of bikes from some friends here and we pumped up the tires and got them going yesterday. Mine doesn't have working brakes, so I only rode a short distance and very slowly at that.

It felt great to get out and do normal stuff. Yay!

75 pound goal

We're going to Utah in a couple of weeks and I'll see lots of people for the first time since my surgery. I'm hoping I can be down to where I've lost 75 pounds by then. Only 6 pounds to go. I guess I should exercise some more to help that out. I've been getting some walking in, but it's sporadic at best.

I'm feeling so good about myself these days. I enjoy getting dressed and doing my hair and makeup. I was told that I have sparkly eyes on Sunday. I was told you can't see that with my glasses on, but that my eyes sparkle without them. Nice compliment. :)

Still feeling blessed to be living my life every day.

4.5 pounds to go until halfway!

I'm getting ever closer to that halfway mark. Soo exciting!

June progress pictures in regular clothes

Since the before outfit is getting baggy and you can't see all the differences in my body, here are some shots that same day in my regular clothes.

February to June Progress pictures

Oops.

Today I got an email from a good friend back in St. Louis. She was updating me on her life and her new email address. I updated her on my life, told her about my surgery, gave her my blog address and sent it off. Suddenly I started getting mail delivery failure notices popping up. My heart sank. I had hit "reply all" for some strange reason (I never do that!) and emailed it to what must have been 100 names on my friend's list. I hurried and wrote a quick note saying, oops, I only meant to send that to my friend. Well, when I looked over the list, I knew a good portion of the people on her list from being in the same ward in St. Louis. Somehow this was even more embarrassing because all these people know me.

It's not that I'm trying to keep my weight loss surgery a secret, but I just wasn't ready to shout it from the rooftops quite yet. It was like having a conversation that I thought was private and suddenly I realize a whole bunch of people were listening in. Anyway, I've gotten a couple of sweet replies to my email, and I'm sure more will come, or maybe not.

So here's a special welcome, for anyone joining us here due to my little misclick today. Please post a comment on this message so we know you're there. Even if you want to stay anonymous, I'd like to know if people are actually reading here because of what happened.

I figure that I've let a bunch of people know personally now, instead of letting it spread through the normal gossip vines that run through our world. I'm less embarrassed now that it's been a few hours, but I was very embarrassed at first. Oh well, live and learn, I guess.

Lapband Support Meeting Tonight

I just got home from our first Goodland Bariatric Surgery Support meeting. A friend of mine who had surgery about a month after me, and I organized this group. We met at her home and we had six of us there. Three of us are recent lapband patients. One is hoping to have surgery soon, one is six years out from Gastric Bypass. She's not looking for additional surgery, just there for support. Also, we had the nutritionist from the hospital come and give us a little info on proteins, etc.

It was such an uplifting experience to spend time talking to these ladies and building each other up. I can totally see myself really getting into the support aspect of things. I just really enjoyed it.

It was really touching to see the prospective patient cry tears of hope as she listened to us talking about things that are now possible after having had the surgery. I'm so excited for her to experience the change that will come with this step she's taking.

I noticed tonight that I'm also feeling a higher level of confidence in social settings. It's reminding me of how I felt after my mission, and during my time living in the student apartments at USU and meeting and dating Brad. I felt very confident during that time and I really enjoyed who I am. I am starting to feel that way again. I hadn't realized that it was missing, only now that I'm seeing it coming back.

We plan on meeting every two weeks with this group. I'm guessing it will grow quickly. There is a lot of need for this out here.