Bariatric Betty's a shadow of her former self - PICS!

I'm blown away.  After seeing some pictures people had taken of them "wearing" a pair of pants they used to fit in pre-surgery by fitting both legs into 1 leg of the pants, I decided to try it.  So yesterday I dug through my old clothes and couldn't find any of my old size 20 pants - I donated a lot of clothes right after surgery.  But, I did find a pair of size 18 jeans and tried it.  It worked!  The funniest thing was that they were tightest around my calves and ankles, the THIGHS fit in easily.  So when I went to visit my father-in-law with my boys I had a documenting session.  This is the picture my son Justin took of me!

Seriously?  Holey cow. 

So, the second part of my documenting was the body tracing.  Flashback: the weekend before my surgery, my younger son Ian and I were talking and I realized that even though I thought I had explained the surgery really well to him, he thought I would be coming home from the hospital skinny, or at least signifigantly smaller!  So, in an effort to explain the reality, I laid down on a piece of posterboard and had him trace my torso.  Then I filled in some of the internal organs involved in red (a little hard for you to see on the pink posterboard, but it worked for him and that's who I made it for).  Then I used a blue marker to show where the cuts would be made on my skin, and what the surgeon would do on the inside.  Then I explained that when I got home, the outline of my body would still be the same, that is would take months of my new eating and exercise for it to get smaller.   I ended up cutting it out yesterday and laid it against a blue background.

About 5 months post-op I was curious to see how my "new" body would compare to the old one, so I laid down on the pink posterboard again and had my son trace me again.  That's the smaller outline you can see inside.  I was surprised (and pleased) to see that it had changed that much at that point.  Then I decided that when I had reached my equivalent of "goal weight" (my doctor never set a number, but I had suggested being in the 150s and he thought that was great) I would do it again.  That evolved into thinking that I would have my son trace me again on a different piece of posterboard and cut it out so I could lay it over the old me. 

Now I'm in the 140s (never really thought that could happen 8 months ago) and my guess is this is pretty close to my final weight.  I'm down to 28.3 % body fat I would like to see that go down a little (healthy is considered 25), but I think that will be more turning fat into muscle, so the scale won't change that much.  95 pounds down from my initial weight.  So, time for the tracing! 

OK, I have to say that my son's tracing must have angled in under my muffin top, my chest, and the rest of me, and apparently when I lay down my bat wings go underneath the rest of my arm.  I considered having him retrace me and tell him to try to make sure the chalk went straight down - there were a couple spots that his tracing seemed to have two different tracks (I cut on the larger one).  But then I decided no - he had done all the other tracings of me without directions like that - he might have been angling those as well.  So you can see from my picture at the top that my arms are not stick-like - so take this as more as a perspective, not reality - but WOW!

So after I spent a while wrapping my head around THIS I realized something else.  I lost 30 pounds BEFORE the pink one was made.  My pink self could have been BIGGER.

This shows me as literally a shadow of my former self.  But I don't see myself as a shadow.  I see myself as distilled, or concentrated.  The essence of me, with the excess and unneccesary boiled away by walking, jogging, swimming.  I am distilled.  I am high proof. 

Bariatric Betty's best NSV yet!

The week before my gastric bypass surgery, I found out something amusing.  Despite my best efforts to explain the operation and how I would be living/ eating afterwords, my 8 year old thought I would be coming home from the hospital skinny!  In an effort to demonstrate exactly what would be happening (and NOT happening) in the hospital, I lay down on a piece of posterboard and had him trace the outline of my torso in black marker.  Then I drew in my organs in red, showing how things looked on the inside right then.  Then using a blue marker, I drew in what the surgeon would be doing on the inside, and where my surgical scars would be.  After all that was done and I explained the entire poster, I said "See where you traced my body?  That will be just the same when I get home from the hospital.  The only thing that will change on the outside before I get home are the scars/ bandages where they made these incisions."  He was dissapointed and said "I thought you would be smaller because you lost weight."  I explained I WOULD be smaller, but not for months, and that maybe we could trace me again in 6 months and a year and see how I looked then. 

So.... On Friday I was 4 months post-op and my older son just happened to come upon the posterboard while we were cleaning.  So I thought "Why not?" and asked my younger son to trace me again.  I was hopeful it would show a difference, but tried to prepare myself that it might not be much of a difference.  I have always carried my weight in my torso/ abdomen, and tend to be as wide when seen from the side as when seen from the front. 

As I lay down again, I tried to help him center me in the initial outline.  "Can you see the line you drew before on this side?  Can you see it on this side?  How about my arms, should I move them up or down?"  He traced me, and for the most part I was lined up pretty well.  This is the result.

OK, so the new outline is drawn with a skinnier black marker and it's a little harder to see.  But, just look inside the bolder (older) outline and you can see the changes.  I was really surprised to how much my waist had come in.  It was great to see the difference in my arms as well, and that you could see a difference in my neck was almost shocking!  So now I have a new plan.

I had originally thought I would re-trace over the original one at 6 months and a year post-op.  Now I'm going to trace on new and different colored posterboards at 6 months and a year post-op and cut them out.  Then I'll lay the 1 year post-op on top of the 6 months on top of the pre-op and I should have a nice visual reminder of what I've accomplished.  Becoming a shadow of my former self.  Not normal, but extraordinary!  I think I might have it framed. 

If any of my readers are pre-op, I suggest you try this yourself.  While looking at the pre-op outline isn't fun at that moment, this let me see my changes in a way that felt very different from looking at before/ after pictures (although I recommend those as well).  Got to go, it's time to walk the dog and then on to Couch-2-5k training!