One year ago today I had 85% of my stomach cut out and thrown in the trash. At the time my goal was to lose 50 pounds and get to 125. Shortly after surgery I revised my goal to 115 because I wanted to feel "really small," and the last time I remembered feeling like that was at about 115 lbs.

Today, on my surgiversary, I officially feel "really small," so I am revising my goal back to 125 and declaring victory. I have met or exceeded every single one of the non-scale goals I set for myself:

My armpits are concave rather than convex
My thighs don't touch in the middle
I can see my collarbones
I'm wearing size TWO on the bottom and size 4-6 on top (I even have a couple of skirts in size ZERO!!)
When I go clothes shopping, almost everything looks great on me
Double chin is gone (turkey neck is here, but I'm having that fixed in July)
I'm working out 5 days a week and in the best shape of my life
Bust measurement has gone from mid-40s to 37.5 inches
Waist has gone from mid-30s to 29.5
Hips have gone from mid-40s to 36
Body fat percentage has gone from 41 to 27.5
BMI from 32 (obese) to 22.3 (comfortably in the middle third of "normal")
I've gone from being the biggest person in my tap dancing class to the smallest!
best of all, I'm not obsessed with food and eating all the time

So what's not be declare victory, right? I'm still losing about a half pound a week but I've decided I'm going to change my mindset more to enjoying what I've accomplished and maintaining it.

Happy surgiversary to me!  I know I started out much, much smaller than most of you, but believe me when I say that my weight caused me incredible amounts of suffering over the years and this surgery has been like a miracle to me!

And the obligatory before-and-afters:

About 6 months before surgery (NOT at my highest weight):

 

Yesterday, down 53 pounds: