Hi there. I'm sorry to hear that your Mum is not well. I'd love to see you and if you can squeeze in a cuppa that would be terrific. My number is 0417960957.

Heya! You're looking great in fb photos etc - assume all is going well!? As it happens I am heading back to Perth late November (23rd onward) for two weeks as my Mum has been having chemo/radiotherapy. Would be good to catch up! Russ and I are on holiday in SE Asia in Feb, and we've booked a week skiing in France again in March, so sorry that Canada is a no-go. Hope you have a fabbo time. Let me know about Perth - not sure if I have your phone number I'll check. Otherwise I'll pm you with a number for us to to set something up.

Hello Pet!! Can you believe I am nearly 18 months out!!! You heading back to Oz any time soon? Or.....Want to ski in Canada in Feb?

Yeah doing well and I am really enjoying having the constant dip in my weight. Love it. Love it love it.
Getting my sorry arse into the gym more often - I quite enjoy it when I'm not so pushed for time, but struggle when I do the long days at the office.
I'm loving my sleeve big time.

I notice the weight is coming off for you. Everything going well?

Glad that my stats felt helpful. It's hard for me to remember all the points I had stalls or went up again a bit because I've tended just to post about my weight when it went down, not when it stalled. I know that lots of times it's got stuck for a couple of weeks or so (or three or four more recently), then hey presto it goes down again. I just had to keep telling myself that there was no way I was eating so little and not going to lose weight, and it turned out to be right. I know what you mean about it feeling nice that you can't eat much - such a relief to have something constraining your intake when we've been fighting ourselves in the opposite direction for so long. I know that some people DO stall before they reach their ultimate goal, but at your early stage I just don't think it means anything in particular - it certainly didn't for me ultimately. Hope you get some movement soon though, always a buzz to see it changing again. In the meantime, keep enjoying the lifestyle and eating changes as a positive vision for how the future can be. Cheers. x

You're absolutely right. I got down to 92kgs last Saturday and I've come up a kilo. I'm bouncing around the 92/94kg mark. Sooooooo frustrating, but I'm buoyed because as you say our stats are similar.
I kind of feel like my body is holding is breath in an almighty tantrum like a petulant toddler.
The food is a struggle but I love that I'm not eating much. It feels nice.

Golf lesson sounds great. Isn't it amazing that after such major surgery, we can do stuff like golf etc quickly. Having never had any surgery before, I really felt a newfound admiration for laparascopic procedures and how much better it is for patients.

Yeah, kept my head on straight and found I'd lost a little when I hopped on the scales this morning. I was dehydrated, so it wasn't simply because I was dried out. Upping the gym, walking to work and rowing at home, plus today had a golf lesson. All good!

Heya - I see you've dropped another couple of kgs. Hope that helped with getting past how you were feeling the other day. I didn't lose fast either, but slow and steady is fine too. It's the direction, not the rate, of loss that counts. Congratulations matey!

Good luck good luck good luck. Will be sending super sleever recovery vibes your way from the UK. Looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks - and will wait with bated breath for your post-op updates.

Yeah - keeping it vague. Thankfully I work with men who simply don't want to know. The women are harder, but I have invented a vague gallbladder issue and thankfully the only person who has had a gallbladder issue had a rough time so is completely sympathetic.....(but totally barking up the wrong tree). I reckon I can work something out.

It's probably worth having a plan A, B and C then because it will depend so much on how you feel after the surgery. Does your work think you're just having holiday, or are they aware you're having some sort of surgery? Having the possibility of shorter days and/or working from home would be a great backup in your first week back - I was able to do some work from home the second week post-op but got tired more and napped a bit during the day.

Hiya Helen - it's something that I've been mulling over. I'm certainly not married to the job so being away from the office is OK, it just that I'm on a project - implications of that is, that they are always tweaking the manning plan. If you're away for too long they look around to see who can cover for you and then start to wonder why they need you. The client, who is part of the team on our floor will do anything to keep the numbers down. That's why I'm checking..... I don't want to be dispensible.

Sorry for being nosey - read your interchange with Luke about time off work. Just curious as to why you are so keen to keep it so short. I am a person who has been very married to my work (to my detriment at times), doing stuff while I'm on leave etc, and actually I think it's really important to take not only the physical recovery but also the psychological adjustment very seriously. I did have zero complications and I could have forced myself back sooner, but having two weeks to adjust and plan and reflect, and get used to the early stages where getting your fluids in is a challenge etc was in hindsight really important. Are you worried about people guessing what's going on, is it believing that your workplace can't survive without you? Why not give yourself a break and acknowledge the enormity of what you're doing by having the surgery and take a reasonable amount of time off.