On Losing 160 Pounds in 10 Months, or, "Does Your Husband Like Your Surgery?"

No. He hates it. He misses my chins.

It's been 10 months and 3 days since I had gastric bypass (and it's been 10 months and 17 days since the last time I had my ginormous "last" meal - a massive bacon cheeseburger with an egg on it, an order of onion rings, and an order of fried pickles, thank you very much, and I remember every glorious bite) and I've lost about 160 pounds.  (I say "about" because I stopped weighing myself religiously a few months ago when I started to strength train and learned that lifting weights is amazing and awesome but that amazing awesomeness doesn't always reflect in the scale short-term and I kept throwing my scale down in an absolute fury over a half pound gain.)

I've been open about my surgery, because I felt I had to be open in order to be successful.  I know lots of weight loss patients keep it private, and I understand that, as well.  Me, though -- I put my faith in my friends and family, that they would be supportive of my decision and new lifestyle.  And they have been.

Also, as much as being a morbidly obese woman chowing down on a huge plate of delicious food made me feel self-conscious, being a morbidly obese woman eating a mere 2 tablespoons of food per meal (because that's how it was in the beginning) made me feel even more so.  Like, I would fan myself dramatically and say, in a Southern accent, "Why, I've always eaten like a bird! It's how I maintain my slender figure!"

(Fat people are often funny.  We have to be.  It's self-defense.)

So, today, a picture popped up in  my timeline.  It was a picture of my husband and myself, a shot we had snapped (repeatedly, because "Oh my God, look at my double chin in THAT one!") before going to a friend's wedding.  I remember the day so clearly.

I had gone shopping at a plus-size store, and found a dress of stretchy material, in the biggest size the plus-sized store carried.  It fit, thanks to the stretchiness, but, being a specialty store, the price was tremendous...and I called my husband from the parking lot, after I had bought it, to confess what I had spent in case he wanted me to return it.

"No, babe, I'm glad you got it," he said, like he always does when I overspend.

And then I went to Walmart and bought a shrug even though it was June because the dress was sleeveless and my upper arms were reminiscent of Christmas hams.  And then I bought an off-brand Spanx thingie.  And a necklace and heels, because my wardrobe basically consisted of yoga pants in a size 4x and T-shirts in a size 5x, and shoes that I could slip my feet into easily, since bending over and tying laces was a challenge.

I got ready.  I did my makeup and my hair and shaved the wide acreage of my legs.  I maneuvered my body into my cheap Spanx and smoothed my rolls down with Spandex and told myself that the mirror wasn't very flattering and that no one at the wedding would be paying much attention to how I looked, surely.  I'd tell some jokes and my kid would be adorable and maybe I'd have a drink so that I could pretend I wasn't as fat as I knew I really was, deep down, but kept denying.

And my husband ironed his own shirt and shaved the amazing beard he had amassed over the winter and got his haircut and took a shower -- the man version of primping.

But you see, I was getting ready for the wedding, but my husband?  He was getting ready for me.

And since I was all fancied up and looked about as good as I could, I asked my husband to take a selfie of us, and then again, and again, and again, because with each snap, I thought, "Surely that's not how I really look."

And my husband patiently retook the pictures, and then told me how beautiful I looked.  And y'all, he meant it.

He has meant it every time.

He meant it when we first started dating and I was a relatively svelte size 22, and he meant it the day I told him we were going to be parents and my boobs ballooned to massive size overnight and I had to get my wedding dress altered, and he meant it that day, too.  And he meant it the day I gave birth, when I weighed in at 348 pounds and the nurse, completely careless of the fact that I HAD JUST GIVEN BIRTH TO A HUMAN AND WAS A RAGING MASS OF HORMONES suggested I consider gastric bypass.  He meant it when I dropped back down to under 300 (thanks, breastfeeding!) and he meant it when I gained all my weight back and then some (thanks, Sonic!).

He meant it when he took me to the emergency room over a year ago, when I weighed closer to 400 than I did to 300 and couldn't breathe because I had pneumonia and I was a smoker, and suddenly I had gone from  being "really fat but pretty healthy" to listening to a doctor tell me I had diabetes, needed to have a chest X-ray to rule out COPD (it was clear, thank God), and had high blood pressure and was actually in a lot of danger and needed to get my health under control right away.

It was at that point my husband listened to me when I said I should look into weight loss surgery.  Not because I was a size 32/34 and weighed well over 300 pounds and he was ashamed of me, but because he didn't want me to die young.

And that's what began my journey.  And because I had to quit smoking to get surgery, I quit.  And because I had to go on an all-liquid diet for two weeks that was just absolutely horrendous, I did that, as well.  And then I went and allowed a surgeon to physically rearrange my stomach and intestines in such a way that I have a much better chance of being successful - not just in losing the weight, but keeping it off.  And because the results have been pretty rapid and dramatic, I pretty much tell anyone who asks, or anyone I am going to be around a lot - I had weight loss surgery.  I can't eat much. Some foods make me sick.  Some foods I cannot have.

And because I'm open, people ask questions.  I don't mind.  I like questions.  I think it's interesting and weight loss is a big focus of my life and I don't mind discussing it, or swapping diet plans or workout plans because yes, even  though I had surgery, I still have to eat right, and I still have to work out - probably even more so, because when you lose that much weight, you are in danger of losing a lot of muscle, and so I have to work at that.

And when someone reaches out because they're considering surgery - that's my favorite.  I had someone nice enough to answer my questions, who cheered me on and told me I wouldn't regret it, that it would change my life, and she was right.

But I think my favorite question of all is, "Does your husband like it?"

And I always say, "Well, yes.  Of course he does."

And the reason why it's my favorite question is because it makes me think.  It makes me remember how my husband has never seen me as less than anything beautiful.  That even at my heaviest, he still thought I was beautiful, and so of course he thinks I'm beautiful now.

He thinks that I'm beautiful still.

The reason why he likes my surgery isn't because I look better, but because I feel better.

It's because instead of laying on the couch, watching Netflix and eating potato chips and fried chicken, I'm like, "Let's go take a hike!" or "Let's go fishing!" or "Let's go do something, anything!"

It's because instead of taking two different diabetic medicines twice a day, along with a cholesterol pill and a high blood pressure pill, all I take are multi-vitamins, instead.

It's because when I went to the doctor to see about a minor surgery, she casually said, "We'll do it in office.  You're young and healthy!" and I asked her to repeat the "You're healthy part," and she looked at me and said, clearly and firmly, "Your labs are perfect, your blood pressure is great, your heart rate is below 70 beats per minute, your oxygen level is at 100, and I wish all of my patients were half as healthy as you," and I cried.

It's because the ObGYN said she believes our fertility issues have resolved, and we can start trying for a baby soon.

It's because I have more confidence at a size 14 than I did at a size 32/34.

It's because I'm happier.

So yes, he likes my surgery.  He likes it because it means our odds of growing old together are much, much, much higher today than they were less than a year ago.

And yes, of course he meant it when he said I was beautiful yesterday when I, once again, pulled on my old pair of pants that were a size 34 and fit myself into one leg of them and stood there in the hallway while my husband smiled at me and said, "Yes, that's crazy, how amazing, I'm so proud."

And yes, I'm sure he thinks my butt looks a lot better, too.  It's just that it's all the other things I think about when people ask me, "Does your husband like it?" because I was lucky enough to marry a guy who loved me and believed in me even when I filled out both legs of the pants - who looked at me when those pants were actually a bit snug and I was starting to wonder what I would do when I was too big for even the biggest size at the plus-sized store and told me then that I was beautiful, too.

It's why I keep him around.