forgetmenot

I had my sleeve done Jan '17 and then a Tummy Tuck exactly a year later. At that time, I was also considering a breast lift, inner thigh lift and an arm lift (with the skin tightening extending down to the arm pits). For the most part my feelings are mixed.

The stomach area looks great and I have been able to squeeze into size 00 pants. I get plenty of compliments about my figure when wearing a figure hugging outfit. Having said that, there were some complications with the surgery with a somewhat disfigured belly button so I don't usually wear bikini/crop tops. There is another aspect that I didn't anticipate. When you are overweight and/or you have extra skin, an extra inch doesn't make too much difference. Now that I have a tiny 24'' waist, a "little" extra, whether it's from just bloating or a ever-so-slight relaxation of my diet, will eliminate the possibility of wearing something that clings to that area. Finally, the surgery and ensuing complications took me out of commission exercise-wise for at least three months and even now I still do not have much core strength at least relative to my other muscles.

As for the other areas that I did not get surgery on, a diligent weight routine combined with intermittent fasting has helped. There is still loose skin in the upper arms but muscle has filled out most of the space such that when I wear sleeveless tops it looks comparable to an "average" female. The part of the legs that would show past a skirt or shorts are very toned with no trace of loose skin. For both the arms and legs, I would say that it would not be worthwhile to get the additional aesthetic benefits from the surgery when you consider the resulting scars. The only problematic area remains the under arms. If I raise my arms above my head, you can see the muscle definition (again from doing a high amount of resistance training on the back muscles) but in a normal position the loose skin bunches. As a result, I still don't wear anything that reveals the area like spaghetti strap or strapless tops.

29 minutes ago, The Dora Milaje said:

Do you have a lot of loose skin?

You bet, mostly in the mid-section. I just had the Tummy Tuck last month.

29 minutes ago, The Dora Milaje said:

Do you have a lot of loose skin?

You bet, mostly in the mid-section. I just had the Tummy Tuck last month.

I'm 5' exactly. One year post-op I went under 115 for the first time and I'm still losing. It looks like I will end up 105-110.

I am one month out post lower body lift so there is quite a bit of swelling left still. I was size 4 pre-op and I fit into size 2 or 0 depending on brand even with the swelling, compression garment and the gauzes/dressings tacked on to dam some belly button leakage so I think I'll end up 2 sizes smaller. Of course, I also had a butt lift but I started out so small there that even with the enlarged butt it still doesn't put a restriction pant-wise.

Hmm, my experience was different. I was only given general guidelines for the liver shrinking diet, like lots of Protein. Egg drop Soup was definitely ok along with steak, etc. Of course the liquid diet was a different story but I only started that in the day before surgery.

Also OP- I started with similar height/weight as you and even with the (apparently lax) rules I was given, I am pretty sure much of the unhealthy junk I was eating in the few weeks before surgery was not considered liver shrinking. So I definitely knew that there was a risk that my liver could be too fatty to do the surgery safely but according to the surgeon's notes, everything was completely fine so I assume that I wasn't sufficiently obese to have a fatty liver. Of course I am not recommending that you play fast and loose with the rules like I did but I also wouldn't be paranoid about the liver either.

I just had the TT done with plans to have kids down the road. Most Plastics Surgeons will tell you that they have many patients who have the procedure and go on to have children without undoing the TT results but obviously these guys have an incentive to tell you that. Of course, medically the procedure has no effect on the soundness of your pregnancy. Given the TT is not easily performed a second time, I guess it will just have to come down to how you feel about your ability to recover (though having good genes, exercise, diet, etc) from the skin stretching that comes with pregnancy.

I just had this done in conjunction with a Tummy Tuck. If you've gone to a PS consultation already, they they probably already told you that it's one of the procedures with wildly variable results.

I think it's just called an extended brachioplasty. Here's a post from real self with before and after pictures.

https://www.realself.com/review/el-paso-tx-30-yr-extended-arm-lift-breast-lift-amp-augmentation-separate-review?tags=9580&offset=0&sle=0#

Let me know how it goes. I am considering the exact same procedure myself.

Re: pricing - my LBL procedure is costing around $14k including a comparable level of hospital stay and the post-op nurse care, food, meds, etc. I also did a consultation with a surgeon in Miami and the all-inclusive price came to around $12K. It looks like the Mexico option is cheaper, but the dollar difference is smaller than I had thought.

I had a very similar issue (10lb weight gain at 6 weeks). It turns out that I gained 14lbs of Water weight, 1lb of muscle and lost 5lbs of fat. IMO, there's no need to do any adjustments diet-wise. You might consider investing in a scale that measures water and fat mass separately. They run for ~$40 on Amazon.

If the extra assurance helps, you can get a ~$30 scale off of Amazon that tracks fat and Water weight separately.

21 hours ago, DropWt4Life said:

You don't have to join a gym to build muscle. My best friend lives 15 miles from a gym. He joined it, but found that it was too hard to find the time and discipline to go religiously. He hired a personal trainer there to teach him how to workout total body with nothing but dumbbells. He now walks, does exercises without the need of weights (pushups, dips, squats, abs, etc.), and uses 20lb, 30lb, and 40lb. sets of dumbbells to work things like shoulders and back.

He left the gym, bought the weights at Walmart, and got into great shape.

Maybe you could try that. You could start with lower weight, and gradually increase over a long period of time.

My mom also has bands that she exercises with. She is 73, and she gets great workouts with the bands.

Is your friend finding that squats without weights or even with dumbbells sufficiently challenging? My tiny 5ft frame is working up to 100 lb squats, I wouldn't be able to hang on to a dumbbell that size.

OP - I invested in some basic home equipment: a bench for ~50, a squat rack for ~70, barbell for ~30 and weight set for ~100. All the items I bought off Amazon and they are enough to work out all the major muscle groups unless I develop aspirations to be a fitness model or something.

I drink Protein2O and Dymatize ISO-100 Clear 100% whey Protein Isolate RTD which can also be purchased on Amazon. The latter has the best protein to calories ratio. Unfortunately, I do not like their taste so I consider it a medicinal drink.

I like both Quest and Isopure unflavored Protein Powder.

I'm not sure what your SW was but I see we are both vertically challenged (I might have rounded up in my profile ). The downside is that our metabolic rate is tied to our muscle mass which is tied to our height. If you crunch through the numbers using the BMR calculators, by the time you get to the 150's-ish, you're only expending something like 1300 calories a day without exercise, less if you're older. At 9 months out, eating anything less than 900-1000 calories seems to be unsustainable so the effect of diet on weight loss will slow to a drip-drip pace. It's depressing, I know. Obviously you can increase your calories out by doing any calorie-burning exercising but increasing your muscle mass, through a combination of Protein and weight training, will have a persistent effect on your metabolism.

I concur with all the advice offered already but will add it can't be emphasized enough that weight loss is incredibly lumpy. I had a long 1-2 month stall at 9 months and now at 11 months, the pounds are coming off again. Sometimes the weight loss is quicker than what I saw in month 3 or 4. The improved results coincides with the time when I switched my exercise routine from cardio to weight training. Nowdays, I do a mix of both. Weight training has improved my cardio speed/endurance in magnitudes that doing cardio alone never could. So now on the 2 days a week when I am doing cardio, I can run long for a fixed period which of course increases my calorie expenditure as well.

I developed reflux, went on medication briefly but it went away by month 2-3. These days, I can tolerate extremely spicy food with no problems.

On 12/12/2017 at 7:28 PM, jess9395 said:

If it's simply the $100, won't you be saving at least that much having it done in Mexico vs the US?

My surgeon didn't have a list that was copied out of anywhere, it was on his own letterhead and in fonts that matched the rest of their paperwork. I also didn't get a list of pre op tests until I chose a surgeon, so I don't know what tests the other six I met with or corresponded with (in the case of the Mexico surgeons) ordered.

Actually it is cheaper to get it done locally than in Mexico once you account for the travel costs. Yes, I am fairly lucky that I have affordable local options.

Fyi, after I informed Dr. Cardenas that I scheduled with someone else, I received a phone call with a fairly pushy sales pitch about why going with her was better.

Mine is tentatively scheduled for 1/17, exactly a year after WLS. I currently have a BMI of 22 and body fat percentage of 25%. I reached a BMI of 25 2 months ago and I had wanted to lose some more if the Tummy Tuck is the only procedure I needed. However, it appeared that the lack of volume in the butt (which also existed when I was overweight, caused by genetic factors) was a bigger problem than the abdominal area. In order to do the fat transfer required for a butt lift, I needed to have some fat remaining in the other regions of my body. Most plastics surgeons recommended that I don't lose anymore and a few even recommended gaining 10-15 pounds (apparently it's standard practice for non-bariatric patients). I refuse to purposely try to gain weight on a matter of principle but even maintaining has been hard. I guess that's a good problem to have lol. In the end, it will be touch and go the day of the surgery whether I'm too skinny to get enough fat for the butt so I guess I failed at timing the PS.

dreamingsmall- yes, I'm trying to hide something that I'm uncomfortable admitting to a doctor but totally comfortable admitting to an internet forum full of strangers.

Anyways all sarcasm aside, I intentionally did not go into detail re: my reluctance to do the tests because it was deeply personal and something others may not agree with. But if you are interested, I suppose it's a combination of moral/religious objection and financial thriftiness. It started with visits to the walk in clinic and my primary care physician explaining my plans for PS. They ordered some of Dr Cardenas' required tests with some begging. These were sufficient for the seven other surgeons I consulted with. At most of those PS clinics, the list of required test appeared to come from sort of manual issued by the American Board for Plastic Surgery (i.e., same order, font, footnotes, etc). Both refused to order the HIV, Hep A/C and blood pregnancy test for a PS patient who had never been sexually active and has no history of IV drugs. Then I figured out that the self pay cost was at least $100 in my area so I went to a walk-in clinic with an elaborate story about how I had unprotected sex with someone in a high risk group, etc but decided against doing that in the waiting room.

If it makes you less angry, I'll reach out to some of my friends in the medical profession who can look up the documents covering standard practices in the American medical profession. If it is the case that these tests are recommended to American doctors, I will go ahead and pay out of pocket for the labs.

Nurse247 hopefully by now you are feeling a little better.

So I was ready to put down a deposit with Dr. Cardenas but then I saw the list of lab work required before surgery. In addition the standard set that all surgeons seem to ask for, she wants a HIV and Hepatitis test. This requirement makes me quite uncomfortable so I think it is going to be a deal breaker as far as surgery with her.

I can see where both Mhy and BarbieVSG are coming from. There's nothing catastrophically wrong with 2 eggs and a portion of cheese. Personally those are the kinds of meals I'm having (60-70% fat, 20% protein) with excellent results. If there's any tinkering I would do, maybe substitute the cheese for something denser in Protein per Mhy's suggestion. I agree with BarbieVSG that fat isn't the culprit and the answer is not to find a low fat variant of cheese or egg whites. Again, I think you are starting from a good place subject to some fine tuning to give you the most fullness for calories.

Eating out- In my job we take guests out to dinner quite a bit. In the departmental budget for next year, I saw the manager decreasing the dining out amount by 20% with "forgetmenot has turned into a cheap dinner date" as the explanation for that line item. Keep in mind most of the reduction probably reflects the dessert and alcohol that I don't order anymore. I still order an appetizer and/or entree, with more than half of it packed up for another meal.

Groceries - I haven't seen a big drop because I am buying better quality foods. Grain fed beef, almond flour, Protein powder and the like.

12 minutes ago, monkeyol said:

I’m curious about this too. I’m 4 weeks poat op. I log most days on my fitness pal and I’m averaging 400-450 a day. I’ve had about 3 days over the last 2 weeks where I’ve eaten 600-700 (mindless eating though I think that was!!)

My surgeon recommended 500 calories.

When I was at your stage, I also freaked out over the extra 100-200 calories. In hindsight, I didn't need to for several reasons. MFP and nutrition labels themselves have a margin of error that might add up to 100-200/day which means you could very well be eating 400-500 after all. What made you obese in the first place was probably not a 100-200/day caloric surplus but rather something 5 to 10 times that amount. Standard Calories-in-Calories-Out(CICO) theory says 3500=1lb of fat. But I believe the research has been refined to show that when you are eating at such a severe caloric deficit a la post-WLS, it takes far more than 3500 calories to lose 1 lb of fat. So mathematically the extra 100-200/day would only slow your weight loss by 1-2lbs per month tops. Those are small numbers compared to the excess weight that you started with.

In any case, hang in there. You will get the results.

I'll preface the post by pointing out that the last time I discussed dating on this board, the thread took a turn in the disastrous direction (I believe you can dig it up via a search) so I am putting on my full armor gear this time.

My experience as a new 30-year old has not been so positive either. I get alot of interest from less-than-average guys in the attractiveness department telling me that I'm beautiful but none from the above-average ones. My conclusion is that the less-than-average guys do not actually mean what they are saying; they just pick out the unattractive girls that they actually have a chance with and hope for a foot in the door by appealing to their low self-esteem.

Here is my bottom line about physical attractiveness which might help you think about the issue- I don't have a minimum criteria on attractiveness itself. Having said that, I am seriously committed to making healthy eating and fitness a top priority for the rest of my life. Just as I expect my partner to be compatible along my other priorities (basic values, etc), I put a high premium on the partner being committed to fitness as well. I'd like to think that this is a sensible attitude but unfortunately in practice the guys in my area tend to fall into one two buckets - the body builders who can squat 400 pounds and the serial couch potatoes. So we'll see how it goes.