It's 8 months today since I started on this massive journey. Even though the op date was Feb 4th, I had to do prep beforehand and started on Optifast on Jan 26th (it was meant to be 2 weeks, but I gave myself until Australia Day), so I've been losing weight since then. I'm now only 700g off 50kgs and, hopefully, I'll break through that this week!
It's also a month until my birthday. If someone had told me on my 25th birthday that, in a year's time, you will have lost over 50kgs, I would have said they were mad. But it's true....
I don't know if I'll ever completely understand the full impact this has all had on my life because when I think I understand something or I knew something, it changes or I find out something else. I'm going to say that there's definitely a "honeymoon" phase with this kind of change, because I'm still in it. I've recently discovered that I can now sit on a chair or couch with one knee up and my foot on the edge of the chair/couch, which I find super comfy and something I've wanted to be able to do for ages. I actually like wearing my work uniform now because I can fit into it. I like wearing my high heels because there's now almost 50kgs less weight that my feet have to deal with, so the heels don't hurt as much anymore. I'm going to have to start resizing my jewellery soon because it's getting too big - I've already had to link my Pandora bracelet through my other bracelet so that it doesn't just slide off my wrist!
I remember talking to my nanna ages ago about my weight and I was saying how there are small things that I have to deal with that people without weight problems take for granted and told her how when I went out somewhere, I would always quickly assess how sturdy the chairs looked and try to sit somewhere with the sturdiest chairs so that it would handle my weight. My nanna has since told me a few times that she's never forgotten me telling her that and I'm surprised that she has remembered it because it's such a small trivial thing, but I think it put my situation into perspective for her and it's the trivial things that "normal" people don't understand.
I did the below photo comparison last month of me at the work ball last year and the work ball this year and it hit me that the old Lauren's smile didn't reach her eyes. It's not a genuine smile. And then I started noticing that my smile in a lot of older photos wasn't genuine. Whenever I see old photos of me now, I cringe. I hate the way I looked then and I feel super sad because I remember what the old Lauren felt like.
But everything is so much better now. I'm genuinely happy and I'm no longer scared to put myself out there in terms of what I wear or what I'm feeling and I (obviously) have no problems talking about my op and weight loss journey. Part of me kinda hopes that putting it all out there will help someone else who is in the same position I was and is debating whether they should actually do the surgery or not.
