This blog could not have come at a better time for me! I had lapband surgery in March 2008 with the goal of losing 100 pounds. For the first 8 months or so, this seemed like it might actually happen since I was losing weight right and left. The first 50 went off so easily. Every pound since then I've really had to work for. It's a little over 13 months now and I'm down between 75 and 77 pounds, depending on what time I weigh myself.

Since December though, I've really slowed down on the scale. But, I've also started running and I joined a body sculpting class at my gym to firm up my muscles. I'm about to graduate into size 10 pants for the first time ever, so I know that I'm still losing fat. I guess you could say that I'm in the midst of re-defining what my end goal is. I was feeling pretty down about the prospect of not hitting that 100 pounds lost milestone. Truth be told though, I'm now questioning whether my goal should even be a scale number at all.

My body fat percentage is now approaching a more healthy level, down to 28% from a start of nearly 49%! To get to 25% only requires another 15 pounds, not another 30. Another 15 sounds a lot more do-able than another 30, but part of me thinks that's an easy out.

I'm still working on re-programming my thinking on this area of my life (among other areas as well); trying to not define my own success in the eyes of other people. Not losing 100 pounds does not equal failure. There is so much more that I can do now that I couldn't do before and I don't need to be a 100 pound loser to be a success story. So Thank you very much for the reality check!!