In July of 2010 my husband took me to the mall, where we had a jeweler resize my wedding band, engagement ring, and mother’s rings. It’s now mid-January of 2012, and my rings are definitely ready for another resize. At my heaviest, my rings were between a 9.5-10. Now my rings are at a 6.5. I’m thinking I only need to go down a half-size, so even though I could go ahead and have my rings resized, I think I’ll wait until I need to go down to a 5.5. Plus I have my eye on a few cobalt wedding bands (who cares if they’re intended as wedding rings? They’re pretty!), and I don’t want to have to pay to have one of those resized as well. I want to lose another 10-15 lbs, and since I’m “only” 165ish, I do know that at this weight, a 15 lb loss will most likely have a bigger impact on even the size of my fingers than it did when I was 330 lbs or even 250 lbs.

Is it weird to feel vulnerable now that I’m of normal size? When I was 331 lbs, I was painfully aware of my morbid obesity and how much I stood out because of it. But at the same time, I felt protected. People had no interested in a woman who weighed 331 lbs and was clearly on her way to an early death. But now, at 165 lbs, I feel more vulnerable, not as invincible (or perhaps invisible) as I was before. Now, I’m not saying that I need my own personal bodyguard and home security cameras. But I definitely try to be more aware of my surroundings and the people in it. I always try to walk with confidence, as if I have a purpose, even if I don’t. Having more male attention isn’t always a good thing, you know?

When I was fat and severely limited on what I could wear, I did all that I could to deflect people from checking out just how I fat I was by going all out with makeup, jewelry, hair accessories, cute purses, etc. Of course that didn’t hide who I really was. What’s funny is that of course that didn’t detract from my fatness, and when I look back at old pictures I cringe at how I thought a bunch of makeup could knock 100 lbs of my body.

These days I still love jewelry, makeup, and accessories, but I don’t go as crazy over it all as I used to. In fact, there are days when my only accessory may be my favorite from my collection of feather headbands. Though I still love makeup and glitter – and as I say, everything is better with glitter!

Guess who ran out of protein powder this morning. My morning and evening protein shakes provide 25g-30g of protein (25g if I mix the protein powder with water, or 30g if I mix it with milk), and damn, that is a lot of protein to try to make up in other low-fat (or better yet, fat-free) ways. My first preference for protein is Isopure, but unless GNC carries it, I’m just S.O.L. until I order some from BariatricEating.com and it arrives (their shipping is anything but prompt). In the meantime I’ll get some regular “OTC” protein powder, though it’s usually sickeningly sweet, and doesn’t always provide as much protein powder in one scoop. Blah blah blah. First world problems, I know.

Early on Saturday evening I made a quick stop at Kmart to look for a pair of flash cards for my five year old son. While I was in there I happened to notice a bunch of really cute sweaters on clearance. I instinctively gravitated for the XL, then corrected myself and grabbed a L. While walking through the store with my son I kept holding it up and looking at it. Logically my brain was saying, “You know, Jenn, that large looks a little big, particularly around the shoulders and bust. Maybe you should go try it on to be sure.” But my emotional/mental/fat side was scoffing at the idea that I could wear a medium (nevermind the fact that I own three different medium-sized sweaters from Wet Seal that fit perfectly).

Finally, after making a circuit of nearly the entire store with my son, I went back and grabbed a medium and tried it on – and it fit perfectly. When I tried on the large for comparison, it did indeed bulk up and sag around my shoulders and bust.

Since mid-November I have bounced between 163 and 167. Up until the week before Christmas I was hovering between 163 and 165. I finally bought a scale last night (thanks to a sale at Target, it was just $15!), and the results both last night and this morning were the same: 165.5. While I haven’t really gained, I haven’t really lost, either. Argh. Who would have thought that these last five pounds would be the hardest to get off?

I started off this morning with some minor abdominal pain that is slowly but surely getting worse, despite using the bathroom twice (TMI, I know, but it’s worth mentioning because this pain is not related to my bathroom habits, mainly because the pain is coming from the upper portion of my small intestines, and not from my large intestines). I haven’t yet taken one of my prescribed painkillers (my bariatric surgeon gave me a prescription for 30 of them to hold me over until the end of this month, when I will most likely be scheduling surgery), because I’m hoping that for once the pain will just fade away, on its own, without the aid of nerve-blocking medicine.

But that aside, I’m having a good day. I’m currently wearing a new bra from Smart & Sexy (it’s a product review, which means it’s free, yay!), and it fits beautifully. Plus, my newly-colored purple hair contrasts nicely with my eyes, my black sweater, and my new lime-green scarf (a Christmas gift), if I do say so myself.

Did I ever tell you that for my wedding, I was not only fat, but pregnant? And not just a little pregnant, either – but a lot pregnant! I was nine months pregnant, actually – just 1y days shy of my due date (and 26 days shy of when I would actually give birth). My husband and I were engaged at the time, we had been for three years actually, and we were already living together, so we decided to go with a quick justice of peace wedding in order to tie the knot. And you know what? I have no regrets about that. What counts is who I’m marrying and why I’m marrying, not how I go about doing it. And as beautiful and whimsical as wedding shower invitations are, I am seriously okay with never having to worry about picking out the perfect design of them. Really.

Happy New Year! I seriously meant to post here on January 1st, but I’ve been busy this week, and it just kept slipping my mind. Sorry! In terms of the new year, I have one gastric bypass related resolution, and it’s an important one:

Drink two protein shakes per day.

By drinking two shakes a day, I will be taking in 60g of protein just from them (or 50 if I use water instead of milk). For the last year I have been very good at drinking at least one shake per day, but that’s only 30g – half of my minimum daily requirement. My thinking was I’d take in half from a protein shake, then make up the other half from regular, high-protein food. But it doesn’t hasn’t always worked out, especially on days where I didn’t have anything high-protein, was busy running errands, or simply forgot to eat (yes, it happens). By doing two shakes per day, I’ll have all of my protein bases covered – anything after that is just gravy.

So far I’m doing good, though obviously we’re only four days into 2012, so there’s plenty of opportunity for me to screw up. Ha.

Weight-wise, I have no clue where I’m at – my scale broke on December 23rd, and I haven’t yet replaced it. :/ I don’t think I hit my goal, if I had to guess I’m probably still in the 163-166 lb range. But I’m close, oh so close. I know I’ll get there!

Full-length pics of me (and my husband ♥) from Christmas Day:

I still can’t believe another Christmas has come and gone that quickly. It seems like all of those weeks of preparation and decorating and shopping and waiting flew by in the blink of an eye. What’s kind of funny is that it wasn’t until Friday the 23rd that I remembered the lingerie I had ordered from EdenFantasys:

That lovely little dress (which has an amazing and quite flattering fit, and does an excellent job at hiding the one area of my body I hate the most – my midsection!) paired with a set of knee-high red-and-white striped candy cane stockings (topped with a ring of white fluffy fur, no less) made for an amazing night with my love.

As always, I can count on EdenFantasys to carry an amazing stock of lingerie (and other goodies, too – sex toys, candles, massage kits, lotions, perfumes, and even makeup!), to have detailed size charts so I know exactly what to order with no guessing/finger-crossing, and to ship quickly and discreetly. They are my preferred online retailer for adult products, and they should be yours, too! Try them out yourself – use coupon code ES2 to save an instant 15% on your order!