So, the regain sucks. That's it.  Months since my last entry and that's what I have.

I attended the Obesity Action Coalition's Your Weight Matters National Convention.  I was so lucky-it was in San Antonio this year-just 30 minutes from where I live! I emailed my mom and off we went! It was a fun girl's weekend, and I feel like I learned a lot.  If anything, it felt good to be with people that are like me.  They eat like me (opening up the wrap, eating just the meat inside).  They had a lot of the same concerns as me (REGAIN).  It was a great experience-from the people that were attending, to the businesses that were at the expo, to the presenters-awesome!!

But at the end of the weekend-still me. Still worrying about the regain.  I gotta figure this out somehow.  I will post again about the convention-I learned some really interesting stuff there.  But right now I'm struggling a bit.
Let's talk numbers.  After surgery I lost 110 pounds.  After a bit, 8 pounds creeped back on, then 15.  I paused there for a bit.  I was okay at that weight-I was doing a bit of soul searching, trying to decide if I was going to freak out about 15 pounds when I went back to work.
I went back to work after staying at home for 9 years with my kiddos.  The job was meant to be-I couldn't have planned the logistics of going back to work after so long-it had to be meant to be!  Maybe that can be another post, I don't know.  My point here is that I went back to work three years ago.  And have since gained 35 more pounds.  That's a 50 pound regain, for those that have lost track. Ugh.  50 pounds.
When I was looking into this surgery, I asked a doctor about the regain after surgery.  I remember so clearly that he said that the regain happens-it's part of it.  He said that if a person loses a lot of weight, then gains a percentage of it back, it can feel devastating. However, he was quick to point out, the health benefits of the weight that you are still down cannot be discounted.  In other words, I am still down 60 pounds-still a great achievement and way better than weighing what I did.
Most days I can show myself some grace and still feel proud of myself.  I can see that I am still in a good place.  I can still shop in "normal" stores, although it isn't as fun as it was 50 pounds ago.

So I've regained. That's the ugly truth.  Now for the plan..........................

That Thing

So I'm starting to do "That Thing" again.  That thing that I swore I'd never do again. You know what I'm talking about-
That thing when you are wanting to lose weight, so you look ahead and count the weeks until summer, or your trip, or an event-and you calcuate how much weight you can lose by them.  As in, "I have four weeks until summer. If I lose two pounds a week until then, that is eight pounds I could lose by summer!"
This, of course, started several weeks ago. And as each week passes and I don't lose any weight, my timeline gets shorter.
I hate this and it makes me so sad.
After my surgery (when I was in the honeymoon phase) I was just sure I'd never diet again. I would very happily mentally check out of any conversation my friends were having about diets.  If they were talking about the latest diet craze, or how so and so had lost this much weight doing that diet, I would smugly think to myself, "None of this applies to me anymore! I am not that person anymore!"

Except here I am, five and half years later, and I am. I am that person again. Feeling sad about my weight gain, and trying to find a way to lose it again.  Granted, I am still much smaller than pre-surgery.  Someday I'll post my whole story, but the short of it is that on the morning of my surgery I weight 269.  At my lowest weight I was 159.  Looking back at pictures, that was pretty darn skinny for me. (I'm 5'9")  My husband has even said it was too skinny. (Whaaaaaa?) A friend of mine told me I had chicken legs. (Ugh. That's a whole other post.)
I am currently sitting at 200 pounds. My weight gain has stopped, which is good.  Some days I tell myself, "Geez! Show yourself some grace!  You are still a good 70 pounds lighter than before which is still pretty awesome!"  But mostly I look at my muffin top and get very frustrated!

But I do want to lose weight. And I need to find a way.  With the surgery, I lost weight without doing the hard work-the emotional life lesson work.  Now it's time I dig in.  Just hang with me while I try and get there.

Chicken legs here I come!! (Oh, how I miss those chicken legs!!)

Wow.
How did I even get here??
That just might be the theme to this whole blog.  Which, if you refer to the sidebar, has been around since 2012.  We are currently two months into 2015.  Had I actually started blogging when I set this blog up, I would be pretty salty right now.

But here I am. On my first entry.
It's ok. It's all ok.

I want to share it all-how I decided to have weight loss surgery, what I went through, what it's been like since surgery, and a ton of things between.  There's just so much to say.

But here I am. On my first entry.
Let's not scare anyone away.

As of about two months ago, I have one follower.  Shout out to her-one of my Bobsey twin besties, my source of inspiration, my fellow football mama, and (proudly, of course) one of the World's Okayest Moms! I'm so lucky to call you a friend!

I'm not at a loss for things to say, but I worry that I am at a loss for HOW to say it all.  (Is that even written properly? Oh, let it go!)
I plan on letting go of that worry-I'm going to let it flow, let it all out and hope that someone somewhere will find something of value.  Something that might help them.  If not, I will look at all of this as cheap therapy!

So I have one follower.  That is one more than two months ago.  And I'm going to write this blog as if I have 1,000 men, women, girls, boys, whatever reading it.  I'm going to put my experience out there for these people to read about and learn from and even judge if they want to.

When I was going through the decision process, I googled and googled looking for weight loss surgery blogs.  There weren't many. At all.
I hope I can be what I was looking for all those years ago.
With all that being said, here I go! Here I go Denise!
First entry down!
Let's do this!