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Laurel wants to stop kicking butt and taking names.

She bought a new pair of shorts a couple of days ago, because her other shorts, which she bought not too long ago, are getting baggy.

She's now in size 8.

She spoke with her doctor and said that she's afraid she's too thin now. She's trying to combat it by snacking constantly through the afternoons. She still can't fit a lot of food in her tummy — she pays a pretty stiff price when she overeats — but I think it's fair to say we're doing some things at home to slow down her weight loss: I'm trying to get her into pastas and richer foods more often, and she's exercising with me to try to build muscle.

I've noted the possibility that the exercise might be limiting her ability to gain because she's burning more calories. But I could also easily make the argument that the exercise should be building muscle mass, which should appear to slow her decline. (I make both statements as a layman, with no specialized skill or knowledge with respect to the subject.)

I haven't tracked either of our weights in a while, but I can say that Laurel hit her goal, then went another 10 pounds past that to give a little "buffer" at her physician's request. I believe she's about 10 pounds past that now.

Laurel is still kicking butt and taking names. She slowed her weight loss over the past couple of months for fear she'd sail past her goal weight of 175. She's down to 174, and has dropped over 13 inches from her waist and hips. More deets:

Laurel is still kicking butt and taking names. She continued on her pace of roughly 15 pounds per month; she's down to 186, and has dropped over 12 inches from her waist. More deets:

Laurel entered "One-derland" this morning!

I could not be more proud of her! She's worked SO HARD for this. She reached this goal four months after starting her pre-op diet on October 17th. The photo was taken last night. She weighed 200 on the nose yesterday morning.

Laurel's goal now is to reach 175, and to start an exercise regimen to tone up.

Laurel is still kicking butt and taking names. She weighed in this morning at 199, which is down 15 pounds from a month ago.

From a weight perspective, her progress this month seems consistent with the progress she made from mid-November to mid-December. Check out the details:

Laurel weighed in this morning at 200.0!!

The bariatric community, which is a group of people who have had bariatric surgery, uses the term "One-derland" to describe life at weight below 200 lbs.

Laurel is at the border.

Who's got two thumbs and is wearing a size 14?

THIS GIRL!

Laurel is still kicking butt and taking names. She weighed in this morning at 214, which is down almost 15 pounds from a month ago (the previous measurements).

Her progress this month is nowhere near as eye-popping as it was in November, but this is to be expected, given her advancement through the various nutrition phases, and likely represents the more modest pace of weight loss we can expect moving forward:

Laurel was kind enough to allow me to post this split photo she made the other day.

At left is a photo taken of us when we were in Las Vegas in April of this year. At right, she appears as she did within the past few days.

WOW, huh? What a difference 40 pounds makes!

Time for the Laurel update! In the past ten days, she's lost about another 10 lbs. This morning she tipped the scales at 228.0. (The point I selected is her weight from the previous post.)

The big story — well, the smaller story, perhaps, is that yesterday marked one month since we had performed body measurements. Here's her progress:

Yesterday was also the first time she's chewed food since a month ago, when she started the pre-op diet; she's now in Phase 3, which allows her to eat soft foods and pureés. I imagine she'll be saying goodbye to soup for a little while — I'm sure she's sick of it.

Laurel's doing really well, I think. She'd been dropping about 2 lbs. per day until this past weekend. This morning she weighed in at 237.2.

She figured out her headaches were a function of caffeine withdrawal — I started bringing her up small cups of iced tea in the morning and that seemed to really help.

Her Week 2 Diet has been much easier on her — she particularly appreciates morning coffee with creamer, and pudding.

I'm seeing big differences in her face and body. Her face is definitely thinner, and she noticed tonight that the extra fat around the bra area on her upper back is now gone.

After what I think was a rough day or two, I think Laurel really started leveling out last night.

She's still getting headaches, which she's attributing to the flu shot she received while at the hospital and/or caffeine withdrawal. (She also had a couple of low-grade fevers (< 100°F) which can also be attributed to the flu shot.)

But starting last night, she started sounding like herself again. She took a shower a little while ago, and it kicked her butt. I recall the same thing the first couple of showers I took while recovering.

She is doing well with her Week 1 Diet. She's loving those popsicles. And who could blame her? She's back down to her pre-procedure weight.

Laurel had her surgery two days ago. Her surgeon was stellar; She estimated the procedure would last about 45 minutes, and right at the 45-minute mark, we were called in for post-op consultation. A woman of few words, she told us simply that the surgery went very well, without complication of any kind, and that Laurel would be in the recovery room for about an hour.

Laurel took some extra time in recovery because of nausea from the anesthesia — something the entire team knew before going in.

Nausea, gas pain, and possibly caffeine withdrawal would keep her in the hospital for an extra night, but today she is home, safe and sound. She can even sleep on her side. I find myself comparing my appendectomy recovery to her current progress, and she's kicking my behind in every comparison.

She has started her Week 1 Diet, which consists mainly of liquids for hydration: water, diluted juices, broth, popsicles. Clear liquids.

She left the hospital today weighing 255 — a function of the large quantity of intravenous fluids she was administered during her stay.

Wow! She's FLYING! Laurel's is down 10 lbs. since the start of her pre-op diet!

Laurel's now two days out from her surgery, so her water intake must now increase.

Laurel's feeling a little tired today. She thinks she's figured out that the diet is draining her energy — that is, the diet isn't providing the level of energy she's used to having: caffeine, protein from meats, sugars and so on.

Also, today she's really after something with some crunch. She's looking into a way she could finely slice a radish on her mandolin and bake it to create something like a crisp or a chip. She's been doing VERY WELL on her diet so far.

Surgery is Friday.

This is the inaugural post for Laurel's health and fitness page.

I'm hoping she'll post here directly, to accompany the graph data I plan to record here. I set all of this up because Laurel has started an amazing and brave journey: she's due to have a surgery that will promote dramatic weight loss. The procedure should last about an hour, and will involve only an overnight hospital stay.

In preparation for the procedure, Laurel has started a liquid diet. The diet is meant to prepare her digestive system in advance of the procedure. She's been telling me she's experiencing some pretty phenomenal weight loss just by this change in diet, and the data shows this to be true: she's dropped 7 lbs. in five days.

But this progress is supposed to be nothing like what she'll drop in the weeks following the surgery. STAY TUNED!!