I have been having to resist temptation this week. Not food... but buying clothes..!

My girls have gone back to school and today my wife flew back for her work in China. So, this week, there has been a lot of time spent in clothing stores. I am quite excited to have bought two (but only 2!) T-shirts - being able to get them in size XL means I can buy shirts I really like instead of the best of the limited selection that fits me. But what I really need is jeans - mine are so baggy around the thighs! - except my waist size hasn't changed by more than one size so far. I am not prepared to waste money on clothes that will be so short-lived. (Although my wife is pleading with me to get something less baggy!) So I will wait.

Tomorrow, I will see the nurse at my family doctors' practice to get my blood pressure measured. I already know that my home wrist BP monitor has me at the low end of the healthy BP scale and I am beginning to believe that I may eventually be told to reduce my BP medication. Recently, I have regularly felt the pain in my feet and ankles that always signals the imminent arrival of a full-scale gout attack that would have me in bed for two weeks or more... except that the attacks haven't come (fingers crossed). I reckon that if I did better with drinking fluids, I wouldn't even get those base-level pains. So I'm really optimistic that the surgery is having a significant effect on my health. Which is what it's all about.

Next Monday will be the two-month mark after my surgery. I am within touching distance (just 4lbs to go) of losing 50% of my excess weight. It puts me in quite a reflective mood; it has all gone so fast and it is genuinely staggering to think where I might be in another 2 months.