It's official

This morning I stepped onto the scales and I have now officially lost one hundred pounds since last summer.

Yay!

Yes, I do feel completely different. Going from shopping in the large-size department to having to hunt for the smallest sizes on the rack is quite surreal, to be honest. I now comfortably wear a size 4 petite; last summer I was in a size 18. Some brands don't go that small. I've never in my adult life worn that size, and if you'd've told me last summer that I would, I'd have never believed you.

I'm not dieting, and I never will -- it doesn't work well for me. I like food that tastes good. My system has certainly settled down since I quit consuming all corn and potato products, so I will continue that regimen. This has resulted in fewer sweets, since so many processed sweets contain corn syrup or cornstarch -- but interestingly, I seem to have gradually lost the craving for sweets that I once had. I also *feel* better, which means I get more exercise just in general than I ever did. My knees, unfortunately, are as arthritic as they ever were, but maybe I was able to put off the total knee replacement surgery for a few more years now that I took a load off them.

I know that some people think that the way I took was the easy way. Well, it wasn't easy. But just for the sake of argument, let's just say it was easy -- if there is an "easy" way, why is it bad to take it? Twelve years ago I sought out the only answer I had left to myself to get healthy, and for a while it worked. It worked well enough even to allow me to conceive my son, who's now ten years old. Then it didn't work so well; it was an inferior procedure with inherent flaws, and it was only a matter of time before it caused me all kinds of internal scarring and swelling and problems. But at the time, it was what worked for me.

And then last summer, Dr. Stewart performed a biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch on me -- basically, I explain to people who ask, he rebuilt my innards. I didn't go to him with the desire to lose weight... that didn't matter so much to me anymore. I just wanted to stop throwing up all the time, and I did NOT want to gain even more weight. If I did lose a few pounds, so much the better.

I certainly didn't expect to lose a hundred pounds, nor did I expect to be smaller at age forty-two than I was in high school. But it's a very nice side effect, and I'll take it.