January 11, 2000 (240 lbs): I want to apologize for not getting my January journal page up sooner...guess I'm not doing so well on my New Years Resolution to keep up journaling more often! I've keep an online journal for almost three years, and I'll admit sometimes it gets hard to keep up. And I've been on an almost 3 week plateau and it's got me a bit discouraged. I know that plateaus are normal and to be expected...but it's still discouraging none the less. I can't wait to get my pictures back from the processing tomorrow so I can post my two month post surgery pictures...even if the weight loss isn't so noticable, I think you'll be amazed at the difference a hair cut and color makes!!! I feel sooooo much better! I've been wearing make up every day to work and it just seems like everyone at work respects me more since I've started caring about my appearance. Like before I was just the new ugly fat girl at work, and now all of a sudden people call me by my name and a lot more people make conversation with me than before. I feel more of my self confidence coming back every day, even though the scale hasn't budged yet.

I wanted to add something to this journal entry. Tonight I was changing my web page around and I looked at my January 1997, 1998, and 1999 journals journals to see where I was this same time back then...Jan '97 I had started gaining back the weight I'd lost on phen-fen and had gone from 135 in October '96 to start 1997 at 160 lbs. January 1998 was 263 lbs and last year January 1999 was 258 lbs. I'm starting the year 2000 at the lowest weight I've been since 1998. That's something to be happy about! One of these days I'm going to go back over the last three years to calculate how many of the same pounds I gained and lost over and over again. Hopefully with this weight loss surgery, that yo-yo rollercoaster ride I was on will be a thing of the past.

January 14th (239 lbs): Yay! Officially moved out of the 240's finally after a few weeks of standing still. It was a great relief. I picked up my two month post-op photos the other day, I'm not real thrilled with them, I was hoping to see more "proof" of a change in my body in the last month, I really don't see it. Although the outfit I was wearing 12/6 was a 26-28 and the outfit I was wearing 1/6 was 22-24. I guess it's coming off, just not as fast as I'd like. I think my hair looks much better shorter...I've gotten a lot of compliments at work about it.

January 16th (238 lbs): I've been feeling a bit ill the last few days..thought I was coming down with the flu. Went to the doctor and found out that I have two ear infections instead. So now I'm on antibiotics for the next 10 days. This morning I tried mixing half chocolate milk and half regular milk and dumped big time. Ugh. Felt so bad that I went back to bed and slept for 3 hours. It's weird that sometimes I can tolerate candy and regular coke, but mixing chocolate milk and regular milk made me sick. Oh well... learned my lesson. No more chocolate milk for me!

January 20th (238 lbs): Not a whole lot to report over the last few days, just toiling along as usual. I've gotten a lot of really nice comments about my one month vs two month post-op pictures, it really made me feel good to have people tell me it's noticable. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I just can't see where the 62 lbs have disappeared. I wish now that I had taken photos when I was at 300 lbs to see if there really was that much of a difference.

January 25th (236 lbs): I bought a brand new car!!!!! I got a 1999 Toyota Rav4 in hunter green. It only had 75 miles on it and is absolutely the bomb!!! I'm so thrilled with it (which is a good thing, because I'll be poor for the next 60 months because of it *g*) Not much to report on the weight loss, things are still going along fine, sometimes I test my limit to see what I can get away with, and very seldom do I get away with much! I found out last week that even a child's size hot fudge sundae at Baskin Robbins is TOO much and will make me sick. Oh well...live and learn, I guess. I shouldn't be eating that stuff anyways!

January 30th (234 lbs): I went to see a surgeon here in Dallas to check up on my post-op progress...he lectured me about eating and drinking too much "junk food". He said even though my new tummy only holds a few ounces, I need to be in the habit of only putting good things into it until I get a better grip on my eating habits. I can understand what he's saying, but it's still easier said than done. I've really been lax lately in watching what I've been eating and I haven't been exercising as regularly as I should. I have three more months until my sister's wedding and I'd like to lose at least 34 lbs to get me below 200. That will take a lot of hard work, but it's not impossible. I did 30 minutes on the treadmill today, also did 30 minutes on Friday. My goal for next week is to do 30 minutes FIVE times.