Six Things I have Learned after losing 60 pounds

Victoria Cairl
3 min readApr 2, 2023
My before on the right and my “in-between” on the left

Earlier this year I wrote about having gastric sleeve surgery and vowed for it to not become “all of who I am”. I initially planned on not writing much more about it, but honestly, I wished I had more to read from other people who had been through this process. After all, it’s not just about the “before” and “after” but about the “in-between”. And the in-between is the weirdest part.

Here are the six things I have learned as I am solidly in the middle of my journey.

1) Slow and steady can win the race- My weight is coming off slowly by most standards and I am fine with that. I have gone through several stalls where the weight doesn’t go down for a week at a time. The good news: I am seeing less loose skin so far and I am focused on building strength over shrinking. I have chosen to lift weights, and this slows the pounds falling off, but I prefer to feel some control over what is happening to my body.

2) Daily tasks are easier- I can easily buckle my seat belt on a plane, run upstairs on the subway, scoot by people when grabbing my seat in a theatre. I have lost many “inches”, and this makes the whole world easier to navigate and less embarrassing to deal with.

3) Nothing is going to fit right for a while: figure it out- I am down about three sizes since my surgery in late November. It…

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