Are you ready to for a roundup?..Yea me too

Ok well I'm sure I don'’t have to point out which one is before and which is after.

The operation was done in April of 2005 the larger of these two pictures was done I believe at some point in early 2004. I believe that according to my records and what my doctors told me that I was about 70- Lbs heavier then the before picture on the left. This is one of the fattest pictures I have. At some point in 2003 I stopped allowing anyone but family to take pictures of me, and then only with the caveat that they could not appear in any online medium without my approval. This picture on the left happened during that time however I had it because they required a picture during a sleep study to make sure all the leads were in correctly or some such nonsense. At some point I guess I snagged it.

So there you have it I'm thin. Lets have a brief Wrap up for all the questions I'm sure everyone will want to hear.

How's my health? - Actually I feel just fine, I've already had a few cold's that didn't turn into bronchitis, I had a CT scan a month or so back during one of my trips back to the states, and there does seem to be some issue with some sludge or something that's blocking my Bile Duct, even more funny is that they cannot seem to figure out if I still have a gall bladder or not. So I may be looking at a future surgery down the road to make sure the duct stays clear and to figure out the case of the missing gall bladder. I just kind of think it's important to know what you do and don't have inside of you in case something goes wrong. The Bile Duct thing is not so surprising; since I had such a massive weight loss in such a short time a little sludge is not so surprising. If I do have a gall bladder it's a wonder it didn't explode.

As for my day to day, I feel great. I still have to work hard to make sure I'm eating enough and I don't always succeed, The operation is doing what it's supposed to , I have malabsorbtion of food and vitamins which is almost totally dealt with though multivitamins and the monthly B12 shot, if I didn't take Nexium , the heartburn would be a very very serious issue and now that I don't live in the United States anymore it's a bit of a trick to find it sometimes especially since my insurance doesn't work outside of the States, I end up paying dearly. So I'm trying to see if a combination of over the counter things can take care of that and not erode my esophagus.

How's the eating going? - Meh...I think that's the best face I can put on it. Oh I can eat, but I have found that one of the interesting things about this is that my ability to eat has allot to do with my stress level. If I'm at all stressed and by stressed that can be something as insignificant as being in a busy restaurant then what could have been a moderate plate of food turns into a spoonful with accompanying nausea. I probably actually horf (Vomit, puke, boot) what have you about once every other month, so I have learned to read my body's signals. I'm pretty underweight though and that does bother me. If you look at this picture here you can get some idea of how thin I actually am, (No comments about the package of smokes on the railing are solicited by the way). Also this picture shows my legs to a certain degree and you can see relative to my height there pretty skinny .

If I hadn't been wearing a sweater that morning you would see that aside from the blob of extra skin on my belly and arms which I may decide to have removed if the Bile duct surgery ends up happening (I also may not as the skin removal is really quite a serious surgery and truthfully I'm not that vain and am in the best relationship of my life.)

My ass does look like a Shar-Pei ..and I mean that totally seriously, even when I was 45 or 50 lbs heavier , I still had some pretty good cleavage action happening, I assure you this has not improved with time. But look you have to take it as what it is. I was in the upper three hundreds and closer to 400 then 350 at my heaviest. So some tits and a wrinkly ass is one of those trade off's you have to take with the good.

And so with that I end this blog knowing through the letters I received that I helped some of you get some honest answers. The things I really learned is it's a trade off. The whole thing, life, everything, when I lost the weight I lost allot of other stuff, Including for a good long time my mind.

I have known a few people who simply could not handle it. I know a few who have died making the decision and a few who killed themselves on purpose after the operation. And yes it's that serious, it can bring you to a suicidal state. Not just because you can or cannot eat. The whole thing is one gigantic mindfuck. You never really know how being fat affects your head until you’re suddenly and radically not.

I have so much compassion for those of us who have decided to stay on the other side of the fence. I still would never recommend this operation to anybody. I still believe it was right for me. But If I die in 5 years will that matter? To me yes, it's been a good few months since I made the decision to be the man I am now. I finally found the woman I'm really ready to spend the rest of my life with. And the best part for me is that this is someone who loved me still when i was fat, and would have taken me thin or fat.

I know from others and I know from the period of time when I was not acting my age but acting like a spoiled 5 year old that you spend allot of time wondering if this person or that person would have cared about you if you were the person you were before. The truth for all of us is and the thing that people need to understand is that under it all, you are essentially the same person.

Losing weight does not remove defects of character, In fact it enhances them. Losing the weight will cause insecurity and also takes away your excuses for allot of things. I started this thing to do two things the first was to give an honest outline of my experience the good and bad. The second was to give people a look inside my mind as the process for good or bad took place.

I am honored to have made many friends off of this blog, but it's time for me to stop being an attention whore and just live my life. I moved out of the United States as I mentioned before so if the apocalypse happens while I'm away I wish you all the best. I also don’t want to be public about this anymore, I want to be known for something else then being the guy who had an operation and lost weight. I thought long and hard as to if I should make this final post or not. I came to the realization that I owned it to people who followed this blog to give you an idea of how it all came out and what i actually look like. So there you have it. Anyone is still welcome to email me, you can write to blogger at fatjewguy.com or bleiblog at gmail dot com and I'll answer you. But publicly I felt that the posting of the articles good and bad were a bit much so a few weeks ago I trimmed it down. I felt leaving the ones about the bad experiences were ok since I never and this was so very important to me, I never wanted anyone to make a decision about if they were to do this to themselves based upon how I looked or if I advocated or not. Only you know what is right for you and the best way to spend the time that the universe has given you. As for me, I’m finally happy; The happiness in the end had nothing to do with my size. That was about health. The happiness in the end was the journey that I took to stop doing the things that the universe was telling me not to do, and doing what the universe wanted me to do. To stop thinking about my decisions and relying on my gut, no matter how small. It was also about growing up and being aware of what you had and not throwing it away. I tried to defeat myself so many times on so many levels. Not just when I was bigger but even thin. The biggest lesson was doing the right thing, as an adult and as a man and thinking of myself first and being aware of who was really there and who was not. I'm getting married soon and for the first time in my life thin or fat I can say.

I'm a happy man.

I'm also a wealthy man but not talking about financial wealth I'm talking about doing what I'm meant to do and being fufilled and satisfied.

I hope you all find what your looking for and hope for everyone that you find half the happiness and fufillment I have. even if it doesn't last forever. Even if I did this too late and I only have a small amount of time left. I'm doing the right thing for myself and the people around me. I'm finally the man I was supposed to be. Be good to each other. .