I haven’t publicly talked about my Lose Weight Exercise loss much since I announced I was having gastric bypass surgery in mid-February. At some point I’ve needed to revisit the subject, if for no other reason that so many readers wished me so well in surgery. Frankly, I can’t tell you how much I appreciated the warm thoughts then — and still do appreciate those thoughts now.

But I’m reaching a couple of Lose Weight Exercise loss milestones, and one of these is related to the month of May, so I do need to revisit the surgery at this point.

So let’s begin with last May — 2007 — I weighed in at the Veterans Administration Primary Care Clinic at my peak Lose Weight Exercise: 296 pounds. To me, it was retching that I saw myself only four pounds away from crossing the 300 pound mark — a mark I never ended up crossing.

Today, my digital bathroom scale had me at 196 pounds. Granted, that was a clothes-less weigh in, and my May 2007 weigh in was one where I was fully clothed, but let’s say in a close enough for government work kind of way that I’m 100 pounds lighter than I was this time last year. And, of the 100 pounds lost, 40 of the pounds were lost before the surgery, and 60 have been lost since surgery day.

Beyond that, 197 pounds was my previous low Lose Weight Exercise since transitioning to Autumn in February of 2003 (I reached that low Lose Weight Exercise late in 2003). I’m in new territory — I’m actually not sure what my dress size will be when I (hopefully) stabilize somewhere around 165 pounds.

By the way, I’m 5’10″, and really am “big boned.” At some point relatively soon I’ll reach a point where, because of my breadth of my rib cage, further Lose Weight Exercise loss won’t impact the my under-bust measurement; I guarantee you that it will be a quite a ways from the Hollywood standard of “Size 0″ (which we all know is an “important” standard here in Southern California!).

Where does this leave me? Well, for me the most important reason for having the gastric bypass was for my health, but in taking my daily walks I’m finding I’m getting stared at. Being transgender, my first internal reaction always seems to be “I’m being read as trans,” but apparently what’s actually happening is when people comment to me at what they’re looking at, they’re focusing on features they find attractive. Mostly, I’ve received a number of comments from women positively commenting on my curly hair, and about as many from men commenting about my legs. No one was commenting when I was significantly heavier.

It’s unnerving. I’m middle-aged, and in my mind I’m supposed to be past the point where anyone looks at me as anything but an aging boomer. Besides, I play a mean game of Scrabble — aren’t I supposed to be appreciated for my mind?

So, not wanting to make my Lose Weight Exercise loss a regular topic of Blend conversation, as PHB is more about public issues than personal issues, this may be the last time I bring up the Lose Weight Exercise loss or my gastric bypass as the subject of an entire diary. I just wanted to let everyone know that the surgery has been doing its job as planned, my recovery has been without any physical complications whatsoever, and I’m thankful for everything about the surgery — including the warm thoughts from folks here at PHB.

~~~~~
Related:
* Surgery Set For February
* Under The (Hopefully) Tiny Knife Tuesday
* I’m Back! Well, Sort Of.
* Video: Autumn In The VA Hospital, Post Gastric Bypass
* Video: Autumn Gets A Stuffed Toy In The Hospital