Hey, everyone! I haven't been around here much -- I've been catching up on work that had taken a back seat to getting myself feeling and eating somewhat normal. Some updates:

• I've been working at the gym twice a week with a trainer because I really, REALLY don't want to lose muscle with all this weight loss. And so far so good: At my 2-month bariatric checkup, out of the 19 pounds I lost from the last time I was at the doctor (6 weeks), 18 of those pounds was fat and only 1 pound was muscle (or technically "fat-free mass") ... which is GREAT! There's really no way to lose 100 percent of your weight in fat; a little muscle loss is to be expected. But my goal is to try and hang onto every pound of fat-free mass that I currently have (which is currently 119.4 pounds) and perhaps gain even more. 
• Looking more at the printout from the super high-tech Tanita scale at the doctor's office (which is super cool because I love gizmos!), my my target body fat has been adjusted down from 30 percent in February to 25 percent now, and my predicted goal weight went from 172 to 159 pounds. Apparently the scale has a lot of faith in me! Point of reference: I weighed that in college and I THOUGHT I WAS FAT. Yeesh. 
• My weight loss was fairly slow the past couple weeks because I haven't been working out all that much, and I've been testing my pouch with more calories and different foods. The trial and error can be, frankly, nauseating as I find what foods work and what don't. So far, Tiny Tum-Tum really doesn't like solid animal protein but it does OK with ground-up ones, like ground poultry and even ground beef. I also think that it really doesn't like bread very much, so I should probably knock that off. It loves protein bars, cheese, yogurt and smoothies.
• I've found myself starting to stay up too late again and wander into the kitchen. But since I have slain the angry polar bear, there's not a whole lot of damage I can do, save for maybe a cheese stick or a quarter of a peeled apple. Still, I need to work on getting to bed earlier and staying away from the kitchen, just to clean up my habits.

But I've officially started my Countdown to Onederland because I'm only 17 pounds away!

(So, yes, that means I'm revealing my weight -- 217.1, as of today. It's been a while since I said how much I weighed.)

And here's a photo update that I did at the beginning of the month -- I'm actually 9 pounds lighter than that now:

 And if you're digging the workout capris in my "before" photo, I'm selling them on Poshmark right now.  They're by Fabletics, size 2X and incredibly comfortable.

The bulk of my too-big stuff usually gets sent to online consignment shop ThredUp because it's a lot easier and the site is desperate for plus-sized clothes, but I thought I'd give Poshmark a try for a few items.

Here is some free money for clothes!

When you join ThredUp through this link, you get $10 to spend on your first order.  I also have a $5 credit for you at Poshmark when you sign up with my username (GOGOGAIL) as your personal invite code on your own device. To earn credit, you will need to enter username GOGOGAIL as the referral  code at the time of registration directly within the Poshmark app.

I've been doing a LOT of closet cleaning, and let's just say my empty hanger collection is now huge. The purging has also extended to my bookcases, and I've been hauling boxes of diet books to the local library. Ain't nobody got time for them!