A reader recently wrote to ask why I dont 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 didnt 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 dont need the numbers on my signature line to define or remind me anymore.

I dont 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 thats 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

An award winning journalist and former newspaper editor Kaye Bailey brings expertise in writing and personal experience with gastric bypass surgery to EzineArticles.com. Ms. Bailey developed a passion for writing at an early age. As a teenager she found writing her feelings about obesity helped her cope in a world that is often cruel to overweight children and adults alike.

Ms. Bailey says she found out she was fat in kindergarten when another child told her she was fat. “I didn’t even know what fat was but I could tell it was bad and I didn’t want to be fat. Until that day I had been unaware I was different. But there I was, a five-year-old girl sitting cross-legged on the floor learning a new word that would define me.”

At age 33 she underwent laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery. For the first time in her life after multiple failed diet attempts she lost weight. She said the decision to have surgery took courage, nerve, and a little bit of plain old faith. But she learned surgery was the easy part. Dealing with newfound emotions, struggling with food choices and fighting to keep from regaining weight were unexpected bumps in the road following massive weight loss with surgery.

Having spent most of her life overweight Ms. Bailey is strongly empathetic toward the obese, particularly overweight children. This compassion compelled her to found the website LivingAfterWLS.com, a fast-growing resource of information, understanding and support for the weight loss surgery community. While weight loss surgery is publicly perceived as an easy fix to obesity Ms. Bailey maintains the struggles after surgery challenge the vigor of even the most dedicated individual. As WLS becomes more readily available patients are finding there is a lack of long-term aftercare and support from bariatric centers.

The LivingAfterWLS.com site is complimented with daily blog. The blog, livingafterwls.blogspot.com offers readers the chance to comment or leave feedback about fresh content added daily. This site contains success stories and recipes as well as general information and WLS inspired topics. Complementing the site is a monthly newsletter titled “You Have Arrived” available exclusively to people who subscribe through the website or the blog. The path forward includes community forums, nutrition and fitness tracking tools.

Ms. Bailey makes her home on a ranch in the Rocky Mountains with her husband of eight years who has been her consort in life after WLS.