2 year surgiversary, 1-1/2 maintaning.

WOW - what can I say!!  Great job and fantastic success!!!  You are always inspiring to me and I enjoy reading your posts.  Keep encouraging all of us. 

Linda

Thank you, MzLinda!!  I like when everyone shares, because we all have so much to encourage each other with!

You look awesome!! Your arm tone really motivates me to start doing some serious strength training...my arrms are really flabby and it irritates me to no end..thanks for posting, you are really motivating..

Thank you and you are welcome!!

You know, since I knew plastics were not in my future, and it broke my heart when people worked so hard to get to goal and then turned their laser focus from dieting onto how dissatisfied they were with their bodies. 

When I work out, its like me and my body, we are a TEAM.  I inhabit my body differently than I do when I do not work out, I seem to need less input that I have done well, that I am *doing* well, than I do when I do not work out. 

And too, when I see a "flaw" my first thought is not "damn you flaw!!" my first thought is, hmmm, how may I help you? 

So much of all of this is a shift in our perception instead of just 180 degree change revelations you know?

Good luck to you!  Thanks for sharing my joy with me!

Thaks so much for posting these pictures...your body looks great. I been wondering if my body will fall into shape. I have been exerising about 4 days with a combo of cardio and strength training.

Bodies are amazing and more resilliant than we think!  Now some stuff is just only going to be what it is (like my tadpole belly and its skin, for instance :} ), depending on genetics, if we were heavy long enough to have to GROW more skin so we did not bust out :{ but you never can know *until you try!!!*

That is the encouraging thing I have found through all of this whole journey - all of the things we have made excuses for in the past?  We can still wallow around in them, or we can stop with the reasons why we cannot and holler out

WHY NOT!!?? 

Because we can *never know* what can happen!

Good luck girlie!!  Take pictures and measure yourself, because some things you do not see with your eyes in the mirror, but you cannot deny them when you see them in the pictures in front of your face!

Seriously, thank you Brandilynn for posting this. What an inspiring story and the pictures are so motivating!! I just took my before pics yesterday and what a freaking depressing moment!! But it's the 'after' that counts. I can't wait to get there.

You look amazing! Thank you for reminding us of what is possible.

Blessings!

YOu are welcome babygirl and remeber this NOBODY LIKES BEFORES WHEN YOU ARE STILL BEFORE!!  :}

But I was so excited, I kept thinking THESE ARE MY LAST BEFORES!!!
'
I have a lot of "befores" :{  booo. 

Its nothing but a line in the sand, a starting place.  Folks are NEVER sad they had befores, when they get to be afters, but they DO bemoan that they *do not* have them!! 

Also measure yourself friend.  Measuring yourself will help when the scale does not move, but your body is adjusting things.  Another thing people do not like to do when they are "befores" but wish they had done later!!

I am so excited for you.  This is not the same ol diet, you can learn so much more about you than you ever thought, when you remain open hearted and teachable!

And this board is a great place to learn good stuff!  :}

You look fabulous.  Your bat wings disappeared with lifting weights, not surgery?  That gives me hope.  I never thought my arms would bother me as much as they do.  And I've slacked off on weight training since I found pilates classes.  If you got those amazing arms with weight training, then it's back to the gym for me!  Thanks for sharing.
Janet

The only surgery I had was WLS.  I *knew* plastics were not in my future unless I had medical necessity.  I emptied out my personal 401k (right after the economy tanked and the personal 401K was now 1/4 what it had been - oy!!) so I was self pay and honestly - I risked my life and my relationship with my husband for this 1st surgery that was going to save my life - I was not keen on another risk that was not going to be medically necessary.

Yes, everything that was done, was done through weight training.  And the collage thing where I have written on the bottom, if you scroll the bar over so you can see the far right side, you can see that all the beauty muscle that I had built by November (but then stopped lifting because of pain in my hands with going back to typing for a living) that the picture in March, I had lost all of that mass I had worked so hard to gain.

So, know this!  The whole lifting thing is *not* a one time deal!  You do not have to work as hard to maintain as you do to gain, but its still another thing that needs consistence in maintaining!! 

Thanks for sharing *with* me, Mz Janet!