A reader recently wrote to ask why I don't include my weight statistics in my signature line. A great observation and excellent question.

Typically in on-line weight loss communities a signature is written with starting weight/current weight/target weight ? so for me that would be (287/146/140). For a long time after WLS I did carry the weight stats on my signature line ? it was part of who I was and a measure of progress.

But the day came when I didn't want to be measured by those numbers any longer. I wanted to be about more than being fat and losing weight.

To this day, one of the most difficult things for me to hear is, "I heard you used to be really REALLY huge!" Ouch! I also used to be a newspaper editor and I am accomplished pianist, yet somehow that never gets mentioned. It seems, however, there are plenty of people around to remind me that I used to be really REALLY huge.

So one day unannounced I dropped the weight stats from my signature line. It was time to move forward from defining myself as a person who used to be really REALLY huge. Certainly I have not forgotten that person and I am humbled today by my small size and my good health. I am proud of my weight loss. But I don't need the numbers on my signature line to define or remind me anymore.

I don't object to others using the signature stats and applaud each pound that is lost in this after WLS living. But I submit that one day others, when the time is right, will say goodbye to the weight stats in the signature line ? moving forward and onward in new and better lives.

Today my signature line reads, "Welcome to Your New Life: You have Arrived." And that's how I feel each and every new day when I wake in my healthy, trim and fit body. "I have arrived". This motto is the name of the official Living After WLS newsletter: "You Have Arrived" because that's what we are celebrating. My wish for all WLS patients is to wake with the fabulous feeling "I Have Arrived."

Kaye Bailey is a weight loss surgery success story having maintained her health and goal weight for 5+ years. An award winning journalist, she is the author and webmaster of http://www.livingafterwls.com and http://www.livingafterwls.blogspot.com

LivingAfterWLS is a no-nonsense resource for people Living After Weight Loss Surgery. Our community is growing in numbers even as we are shrinking in pounds. Together we support one another in this lifestyle, that it turns out, is NOT the easy way out.

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