My first weigh-in was this morning, and I'm down a whipping four pounds. Woo! It felt good to get on the scale this morning, and that's not something I'd ever thought I'd say. And the loss is just a motivation to keep it up. Luckily, with all the zero- and one-point snacks I've got around the office, stay on plan won't be much of a challenge.

A sour note on the day: the hospital, the doctor's office, the various technicians involved... everyone has begun calling asking for their money for my surgery in February. And since I don't have $13,000 in my back pocket, I have very little to give them. To catch everyone up - I had to have emergency surgery to remove an ovarian cyst that was interfering with the blood supply to my ovary, and even though I was insured at the time, my insurance company claims it was a pre-existing condition and is refusing to pay. I'm trying to appeal, but in the mean time I have to give all these people something so they don't send my bill to a collection agency. That's the last thing we need just a few months from starting to look for a house and a mortgage. I've been handling it pretty well, but something snapped today and I had a good cry about it.

Anyone have a few thousand dollars I can borrow?