I started my pre-op diet today so I can shrink my liver a little bit before I have my surgery. It's basically Atkins. High protein, low-carb. My surgery is next Thursday, which means I have ten days of doing it. Hell, I can do that standing on my head!

I went over to Linda's yesterday and she took me to her studio and took about two dozen 'before' pictures of me (she's a professional photographer, so guess who's going to be doing my lingerie photos when I lose some of this weight??? lol). She took several shots with all my clothes on, from different angles and in different poses. Then she had me strip down to just my bra and panties and she took some pictures of me that way (good thing she's a good friend, or I'd have been entirely too self-conscious of how fat I am for THAT to have happened!)...same angles and same poses as the ones with clothes on. Then she took the card back to her house and she did a 'skye at 200' modification to one of the photos. It was awesome and she made it look so easy! She made my tummy smaller and my legs littler and she even took some of the flab off of my arms. She is so stinkin' good at what she does, I'm telling ya!

About half an hour later she called to see if I was home...she brought over all the pictures she'd taken, made up as 4" x 6" color photos! I was totally just expecting her to send me the files as an attachment to an email, not print them out on photo paper for me! And she even brought over the 'skye at 200' picture so I have something to look at for inspiration. I immediately put them in my DietMinder food journal.

Linda is so awesome...I am *so* thankful to have her as my friend...she is truly my inspiration. Her lap-band was done almost three years ago and she had only about half as much to lose as I do (she's diabetic, as well). She's within 15 pounds of her goal and she looks so dang good! I've seen the total transformation take place within her...not just in her body as it's shrunk and toned up, but also the transformation in her head. She now sees herself as thin and it's bled over into all facets of her life. I count myself lucky to have been invited to share her experience with her.

And now it's MY turn for the transformation. The cool thing is that Linda's going to be there every step of the way. Yeah, she's definately awesome!

I'm having a co-worker at one of my part-time jobs make us matching bracelets. I'm going to give it to her when we are on the plane, along with a card that tells her how much she means to me.