AvaFern

That is SO COOL!! I wish someone had taped my surgery!

@Ava324- I could also totally live with that scar picture on your post! I'm going to show that one to my doctor. @CowgirlJane- Thanks for answering my question- I feel much better knowing that no one notices your scars! @Scamp- Thanks for posting the pictures- your scars look great! You make a good point about being friends with your scars. My breast lift scars don't bother me and my abdominoplasty one is something I've gotten to be ok with, but I suppose I'm more concerned about people noticing them and commenting about it. Only my three best friends know I have a sleeve and only my closest friends know about my other plastics, but I feel like doing my arms is something that suddenly everyone will know I've had work done and people can be judgey. I know I shouldn't care, but I do! Thanks to everyone for your thoughts- I really do appreciate it! I called my PS this afternoon, and he said he had no problem adding the brachioplasty to my thigh surgery and he should be able to place the scars where I want them. So, now I guess I need to make a decision, lol. Oh, one more question- for those of you who had your arms done, do you remember if you had any issue with using your hands afterward? I need to be able to type. I can technically do it in bed if neccessary, but I can't completely just lay around for more than a few days without being on a computer working. That's something I should have thought to ask before.

Have you tried CrossFit? I have always found that to be a very welcoming community and a great way to tone up. Also, what Forsythia said...no one is paying attention to you at the gym. I used to think people were looking at me when I was larger and I tried to work out at a gym, when in reality everyone is so focused on their own thing, they could care less about you, lol. Good luck!

@deedadumble Thanks for your story! You mentioned that the scar placement is one that you can't really see from the front or the back...could you possibly send me a picture of one of your arms so I can see where they put the incision? If I could end up with that result, I would be SO much less worried about it! @@CowgirlJane Thanks for the info and pics! If you don't mind me asking...where are your scars placed? I'm relieved to know that after a year they have faded to something that no one notices! Thank-you everyone for your thoughts- I appreciate it!

My current dilemma is whether or not to have an arm lift done. In August I had an abdominoplasty, breast lift & augmentation, and lipo, which ended up being great- I am a fan of plastic surgery. In November I have a groin incision thigh lift scheduled, however I have been back and forth on the brachioplasty. I am afraid of the scars. Everything else I’ve had done can be hidden under a bathing suit, but those scars are not easily hidden and even with excellent scar therapy, they will be visible to some extent. So, for those of you who have had an arm lift, do you regret it at all? Do you prefer having the scars over the wings? I have always had fat arms….in college, when I was normal sized before I gained and lost a few hundred pounds over the course of 10 years, someone called me “the flying squirrel”, and my arms weren’t even that bad then! I am worried that I might be trading one cosmetic deformity for another and I don’t want to end up being even less attractive than I started out as! I know this sounds like I am insecure, but ok, I am, and I’m kind of shallow…I like feeling attractive. The thing is, I can’t decide if wings or scars are the lesser evil. Also…one last thing. These will be the only scars that anyone can see. Very few people know I’ve had the other procedures done. For those of you who have had an arm lift, or plastic surgery that a lot of people know about, was anyone super judgey about it? Thank-you for your thoughts!

You've done a great job so far! Maybe considering weighing everyday? Then you won't wake up one day and realize you've gained 15 pounds. I weigh once every morning so that I know when I start to gain and I can immediately make adjustments for it. I feel like if I gain a pound or two I can easily get it under control in a day or so, but if I gained 5-10 pounds., that's going to take at least a month to fix during which time I'm going to be upset about it. Weighing every day prevents that from happening. Good luck!

I can appreciate how you feel. I'm 8 pounds from goal and I've had most of my plastics done and I still look in the mirror and am not terribly happy with what I see. I am almost at a weight where I feel like I look decent (at least in clothing!) but the only thing that really got me to that point is getting close to goal. Everyone told me I looked great when I was heavier too, although I suppose that was in comparison to my starting weight, lol, which well, short of gaining weight, almost anything would have looked better! I look in the mirror and I see flabby arms with batwings that I can't decide if I should fix or not (is the scar or the flab worse?)...I see a fat butt that no matter how much I lose isn't going to get any better unless I have the back part of the body lift (I did the tummy tuck, and breast lift and augment) and I see all the scars from my other surgeries and just remind myself that it is totally cool to only ever be naked in the dark! I don't like what I look like...but it certainly gets me to the gym everyday in the hopes that I've come this far, I can still keep improving. Much as I think the advice to just love yourself is not incorrect, the best advice I have is to keep on keepin on. You may not think you look great now, but use that as motivation to keep working. I had a wedding to go to back in March and I was around 170-ish at that point, which is not hot, and when I saw my pictures of what I looked like then, I used that disgust to really get over the plateau that I had hit. It might sound a little harsh, but if you use how much you dislike what you look like to motivate yourself to look better....that has always worked far better for me than convincing myself I looked great when in actuality I was kind of a chunk. Sadness doesn't have to be bad....it makes the happiness at the end all that much better.

Since you like working out at home so much, maybe you'd like the new online spin class idea. I've been back and forth on buying this product. Link below: https://www.pelotoncycle.com/bike I know I like spinning classes though, so maybe try a few out at your local gym to see if you even like them first. They're a good workout!

@@NewLife'sGr8 I thought DDD would make me look ridiculous, lol, but fortunately they're not as monstrous as I imagined. I actually wanted a C cup and in hindsight I'm glad the surgeon was as knowledeable as he was. If you do decide to go for it, the surgeon will have a good idea of what results you want and how to attain them. I almost asked him to go to a smaller implant the day of surgery and I'm glad I didn't. On another note, I can appreciate the difficulty of meeting someone, but why not just get the surgery for you? This is going to sound horrible, but I will admit, I totally walk in front of the mirror every morning now, naked, and think, girl you don't look half bad! Get the surgery because it will make you happy, not because of what anyone else might think.

So this is probably a dumb question, but do you need his approval? I've never dealt with Candadian healthcare, but is there any reason you can't just go to Mexico and have it done on your own? If you're paying for it, I see no reason you have to tell your family doctor...what business is it of theirs? It's your decision, so if there isn't any legal requirement, who cares if your doctor likes it or not.

I didn't feel like dealing with insurance, so I self-paid. I didn't want to go to Mexico because I was afraid I would need follow-up care, so I used a surgeon in my city and the fee was $20K. If you have good credit, most doctors accept some form of medical financing so you may not have to pay everything up-front. My doctor also had a form of insurance that was included in the fee that covered any major complications. In hindsight, I had absolutely no complications and if I had known my surgery would go well, Mexico is a FAR cheaper solution and their doctors are just as qualified as American doctors and often have a lot more experience.

@@NewLife'sGr8 To answer your questions (I think you were asking me!)... my insurance did not cover my sleeve or my plastic surgery. I paid fully out of pocket. I would agree that it is a big investment- I'm 30, so I felt a little guilty about spending on that money on myself, but I feel so much more confident now. As for the pain, I can honestly say I felt next to none. I was on Percocet for the first 3 days, every 4-6 hours, and after that I didn't take anything because I really had no need to. I watched the surgery on YouTube beforehand and I thought the pain was going to be excruciating, so I was very relieved when it wasn't at all. I had a worse time after the sleeve because I felt so sick the whole time- compared to that surgery my 6 hour plastics procedure was cake, lol. I was walking several miles at a time by the my second week, so fortunately I didn't have much of an issue with pain at all. 400 cc's the size of the implant, which totally varies in what cup size you get afterward based upon what size the girls are to start off with. I was a 36DD before surgery ( a very saggy, hanging, flat, DD) and after surgery I am now 34DDD. Trying to figure out what size you are based on the implants seemed impossible. I also thought DDD was going to be absolutely massive, but I love my new boobies. They are so nicely shaped and perky that they really don't look all that large at all. I chose sillicone because it has a more realistic feel and I went under the pectoral muscle because again, it looks more realistic. I wasn't crazy about saline because if one ruptures, you instantly have a flat boob, which can look like a deformity until it's fixed. The new sillicone implants are insured for up to 10 years, but if one does rupture, it stays in place...it doesn't ooze around or all over your body like they used to. I figured if I had an issue with one I would want to have a few months to prepare for surgery to fix it as opposed to having a saline implant rupture and be stuck with an obvious problem until it could be fixed. Your surgeon will be able to provide you with a lot of answers during your consultation.

Your post is interesting to me, because I totally eat whatever I want, just never much of it. I do keep track of everything in MyFitnessPal though so by the end of the night if I'm getting close to my calorie max, I try to stop eating. I will be very bummed if this plan stops working for me though! Thanks for your post!

No I don't mind, feel free to ask anything you want! My first surgery was the tummy tuck, breast lift and augmentation with 400cc silicone implants, and then lipo on my hips, thighs, and lower back. The cost for that was almost exactly 20K. If I remember the breakdown correctly it was 11K for the abdominoplasty, 8K for the lift and augment, and then $1500 for each area of lipo. I think I got a multiple procedure discount so the grand total was $19,999. That procedure is a 6 hour surgery and adding the thigh lift would have put me over the amount of time a plastic surgery patient is allowed to be sedated in my area. They do longer surgeries for reconstruction, but 6 hours for an elective procedure is the cap. My next procedure is the groin incision thigh lift, which will leave the scars in the groin area, but not running down my legs. My doctor felt my knees were not as fat as I think they are, haha, and that my legs could be fixed without the longer scar. I may have more lipo on my lower back- I haven't quite decided on that yet. My next procedure is 6K for the groin incision thigh lift and $1500 extra if I want to do more lipo on my back. I chose not to do the full body lift because I didn't want the scar on my back and because I don't really mind my saggy butt that much, lol. I don't love it, but there is nowhere near the amount of extra skin in my back area than there was on my stomach, so I just decided to leave it alone for now. I really dislike the batwings I have on my arms, but the only way to fix that is with the scar to the elbow and I didn't want to do that just yet. I'm holding out hope that I can tone my arms up a bit more and that skin won't bother me as much.

I am on the list of people who only regret they didn't do it sooner! I am very pleased with the results of my sleeve. The first few weeks you will likely wonder if you just ruined your life, but it gets better and better. I spent the first two weeks feeling completely miserable and I was sure I had just done something terrible. I am now 13 months out, 100 pounds down, and about 8 pounds away from goal. All of the hard parts were more than worth the end result. Good luck!

Hello! I had my mommy makeover at the end of August. I had tummy tuck, breast lift, implants, and lipo on my hips, thighs, and back. So, to answer your questions... 1) Should I rent a recliner? Rather than plop on my couch or bed with lots of pillows? I wouldn't bother with it. I was sleeping very comfortably on pillows after the first two nights. I had purchased a wedge from Amazon to put under my head, so it simulated a recliner, but it wasn't really needed after the first two days. I used about 4 pillows under my head and two under my knees for the first week, and that was more than comfortable. 2) How much weight did you lose from the procedures? The day of surgery I was 153, immediately after surgery I was 161 thanks to all the Fluid, I balanced out at around 148 a week after surgery, so I'm guessing I lost maybe 5 pounds from the procedure. Then because I couldn't work out and my compression garment made it hard to eat I dropped down to 137 by last week, which is about 7 weeks post-op. 3) How many days until the pain subsides? I was lucky in that I really felt very little pain. I took my Percocet prescription every 4-6 hours the first 3 days and I didn't need anything after that point. I felt a little twisting every once in a while if I moved to much, but overall the pain I read about online was not at all what I experienced. 4) Did the procedure help you continue to loss wait (i've read some studies where this continues to aid weight loss) I'm not sure yet. I've lost weight because I've probably lost some muscle and because I knew I couldn't workout for a few weeks so I was really careful with what I ate. I've been very happy with the procedure. I ended up developing a seroma that is refusing to go away, but it's really not a huge deal. I have the rest of my procedures (thigh lift and more lipo) in November, so at that point the doctor will just stitch my seroma closed. I was afraid it was going to be the most painful experience ever, and it was not at all. The Percocet those first few days is likely the reason for that, lol, but I was walking a few miles at a time the second week after surgery without any pain, which was nice. Sitting around all day gets boring. Good luck with your procedure!

I would agree it really started getting harder to lose at around 6 months out. I am lucky if I lose 5 pounds a month now and I very rarely eat over my calorie limit. The closer you are to goal, the harder it will be to lose, but for some peope the further out you are from surgery the less restriction you may feel. I don't think your "marathon not a sprint" idea is the wrong approach at all, but now that you've gotten through the first six months, you can start to venture into new exercises and new foods. Good luck!

I'm 13 months out...my average is now about 5 pounds a month and as I get closer to goal I imagine I should consider myself lucky if I lose that!

Have you considered surgery in Mexico? The cost is very reasonable and you don't have to jump through any hoops. I paid for my surgery out of pocket and went to a doctor in the city where I live because I didn't want to have to wait for my insurance to possibly deny me. If you only have to lose a pound at each weigh in, maybe read some of the forums on weight cutting. If you aren't gaining weight and you're mostly maintaining, you can easily drop a few pounds the day before a doctor's visit to meet the requirements of losing weight by using some of the techniques that wrestlers use. It isn't pleasant, but if it gets you what you want, it's worth it. Good luck!

I returned to my desk based job one week after surgery and I was fine. I was a bit tired the first few days, but I had no problem keeping up with a reasonable work load. Ultimately, only you can tell when it is best to return to work. If you don't feel well and you have the time to use, then take your time recuperating. If you may be short on vacation days or don't want to be out of work for very long, you may be fine being back at work in a week. Good luck in your journey!

Forever fluffies made me laugh. I've been a yo-yo dieter so I've been up and down 60-80-100 pounds a few times. I chose my goal weight based upon what I thought was realistic. My entire life 120 has been the goal, however I am never ever getting to that weight, lol, so I went with 129 because it seemed possible. I really wanted to be under 137 because that was the point at which I would have lost 100 pounds and it is 1 pound smaller than I've ever been as an adult over 21. Also, it happens to be the number at which I move from "overweight" to "normal" on the BMI chart I've had since I was a teenager. 129 seemed like a good goal because then I can say I am under 130, and it gives me a little wiggle room in case I gain a pound or two, to still remain comfortable with my size. Picking a goal was kind of a process for me- I feel like most people have a magic number in their head and they stick with that or what their doctor suggests.

Did he give you a date when you should be able to return to working out? I do understand how unhappy you are though. I had plastics 7 weeks ago and a few things took a little longer to heal than I had planned on. I cannot WAIT to go run again and I feel like sitting around doing nothing for 2 months is driving me crazy. On the flip side though, giving yourself time to heal will allow you to make much more significant gains in your fitness in the future without having to worry that you re-injure yourself and end up benched for even a longer amount of time. This is what I keep telling myself, and granted while I did it to myself and your issue is nothing you did to yourself, maybe that line of thought will help you a bit too.

It sounds like what you are experiencing is normal! It was months before I could take more than a sip or two of Water at a time. It feels like the water is a mouthfull of rocks making it's way down your throat? I'm a year out now and I still can't chug an entire bottle of water like I used to be able to, but I can take a decent 4-5 gulps without feeling anything abnormal. Also, don't worry about the scale yet- you have plenty of time to worry about that after you've healed! Your loss so far sounds completely normal though. Enjoy the process! This time next year you will feel like a completely different person.

You look awesome! I just hit my 100 pounds down mark this week too, so I can appreciate how excited you must be. Love the white dress!

I do..it's part of the dumping process. If I eat the wrong thing I get really hot, my heart starts to beat fast, and my skin gets flushed. It happened a lot right after surgery and occassionally it still happens, however you learn which foods tend to trigger it and it doesn't freak you out as much because you know it will go away in 20-30 minutes.