ms.sss

Yay! do you have more consults lined up? My insignificant suggestion would be to get 1 or 2 more since the two you already had where on opposite ends. Also, another suggestion would be to look into the type of incision each doc would employ. I had a straight line one done and while it's hidden just fine in regular bikini bottom, the ends of the incision can be seen if I wear a high cut one. If the leg-lengthening bikini bottom is in your future, you may want to look into the v-incision...i've seen others who had this type and would have gotten it myself, had I known it existed. Seriously excited for you! (I love all things PS, lol).

ahhhhh...just goes to show how different cultures are. Drinking during business hours (including lunchtime) would be unheard of when I was still working, let alone within the confines of the office walls. I may need to consider relocating to Europe so I can live amongst "my people" 😎

Yeah, I figured I would get a few concerned reactions. But it's all good, everyone's got their own stance on drinking. No bigs. As an aside, according to what bit of (north american) literature I've read, women who drink 8+ drinks a week (men, 15+) are considered alcoholics/excessive drinkers/abusers-of-alcohol. Which makes me and all my BFF's alcoholics these days, and my husband, and his friends, and more than half of my extended family...oh, and our next-door and back neighbours too (which we discovered last summer, when we were all in our yards...drinking.) P.S. We were in Italy, and there was an assortment of wine bottles every morning at the breakfast buffet. Which at first surprised me, but eventually accepted as pretty cool😂

Thanks, i have to get all my labs done every six months since surgery (except for the first year when I had it done every 3, then after 5 yrs supposed to be once a year). Im assuming this is done during my appointments, but I’ll ask at my next one in a couple months.

I had a breast reduction covered by insurance 15 or so years ago (i.e., pre-WLS). And yeah, it was covered because of back pain (I had huge boobs for my frame). Note: I'm in Canada and it was covered by my provincial insurance, dunno if that makes a difference one way or the other.... Fast forward to post-WLS, and I had a breast lift which wasn't covered by insurance. Though I also had a tummy tuck which was partially covered. Insurance paid for the panniculectomy portion of the procedure and I paid the rest (i.e., muscle tightening and lipo to flanks). To get these covered, I had to report my "issues" to my PCP and get his referral.

yeah, I had actually quit smoking for over 10 years until a trip to Europe in 2019 and started again there. Everyone we met smoked, so I was all, fine. I'll take that cigarette you keep offering me. And here we are 1.5 years later, like I never even stopped. But yeah, I should really quit one day....

Thanks, I often wonder about that...though if I had an addiction, its probably already been transferred. To drinking, smoking, cooking, shopping, exercising, screen time, spreadsheet making, vacation planning, pouring over the forums of BariatricPal. All activities one person or other have commented I do too much of. *shrugs* P.S. oh, and forgot to include: counting calories and weighing myself every morning.

There are a few controversial topics that get some strong (and not-so-strong) opinions/responses on this forum. Alcohol consumption is one of them. With that said, I am a maintainer and a regular drinker. Aside: I have mixed feelings about saying this even as I type this, as I don't want to inadvertently influence someone to drink if they are of the type who may spiral. I often drop hints about my drinking habits in more light-hearted threads (i.e., the food thread or the clothes thread), but in threads specifically asking about alcohol by those in the early stages, I have pause. But, we are all adults here and can make our own choices, so here goes: Prior to WLS, I didn't drink regularly, but if/when I did, I drank ALOT. Think sloppy drunk. It was always at parties or nights out, and never at home (if we hosted parties, I'd drink, but not get drunk cuz I mean, I had hosting responsibilities after all, LOL). During weight loss phase, I must have drank maybe 5-6 times the entire time. And it was very little, less than 1/4 of a single serving, if that. The first time I drank after surgery was 3 weeks post op. I had 2 sips of red wine at a party, and it was weird...I remember feeling the liquid in my stomach and the warmth of it travel through my intestines and I got surprisingly tipsy for so little that I drank. The second time I had a drink was 3-4 sips of a soju-sake concoction around 1-2 months post op and I had the most horrible dumping experience soon after. Like laying on the bathroom floor horrible. It was the sugar in it. The handful of times I drank after that (during weight loss phase) I stuck to gin/vodka sodas & dry red wine. I was definitely affected with just a few sips, and the effects wore off pretty quickly. Now, lets talk maintenance. Freed from having to stay under a self-imposed calorie limit, I drank more. I drank more often than I did pre-op, but less overall, even including my occasional pre-op benders. I no longer only got to sloppy level when I drank, but to just a good buzz. And again, only when I was out and about. I'd say I had maybe 1-3 drinks a week. I still got buzzed relatively quickly (less than one full drink), and the effects did not last long (less than an hour). There were maybe 4-5 times I got pretty trashed during this time (i'm guessing on like 5-6 drinks), all while on some vacation or other, and once at a wedding. Then came lockdown in March last year. I was about 1.5 years out when Covid reared its ugly head, and just under a year into maintenance. My drinking increased exponentially over a couple months. These days, I drink at least one drink a day (usually two, occasionally much more, on those nights we have an extended dinner seating time, or when it was patio season last summer). Now according to the literature I have read, based on volume alone, I am an alcoholic. Go figure. Am I concerned? Honestly nowadays, not really. I did contemplate it in the beginning, especially cuz Mr would keep bringing up how my drinking has increased (in a joking way mostly...but he should talk, he drinks every day too. Almost always has...his drinking also increased with Covid. Granted, he has more mass than I do and has the metabolism of a hummingbird). It's been almost a year of this daily drinking now, and while I believe I could benefit from cutting down, I don't see it as an issue at the moment in terms of any decrease in quality of life or my own safety or the safety of those around me (but I suppose this is what anyone who drinks would say). We'll see. Back in the summer we agreed that each person in the house can call a "dry day" at any point and everyone must abide to no drinking that day. Though to date, no one has called it. That probably speaks to the mentality we got going on here, lol. I did a couple "dry weeks" on my own accord months ago, just to prove to Mr. & myself I didn't have a problem...these weeks went by uneventfully, but I'm not sure if it really proved anything. Very long story short, while I'm not advocating nor discouraging drinking either way to anyone, as with anything else in life, the hope is that you can be self-aware enough to know what YOUR acceptable limits are and try to stay within them. Sorry this was so long. Good Luck ❤️ P.S. In case you were wondering, I have pretty much maintained my weight (115 lbs +/- 5lbs) this entire time. Last year I reached my acceptable upper limit (120 lbs for more than 3-4 days in a row) twice and then switched gears to get back to 115. First time took me 3-4 weeks, second time took me 3-4 months (granted, I didn't try very hard). Today I am actually 6 lbs under my "normal", BUT I'm in transition at the moment as I've had zero exercise for about a month due to injury and i'm trying to offset that with a reduction in calories...and yeah, I haven't found the right level yet...so this is temporary, as far as I'm concerned. BUT I'm still drinking, lol, am just having less dessert 😜 P.P.S. I also smoke. But that's a whole other topic...

Greetings fellow baker! Can't wait to see all your other creations, yum. ...You know, I've yet to make an acceptable batch of muffins. Now I want to try to do it today.

It annoying to have to change stuff up when you were motoring along on a well established routine. I"m confident that you will be able to find your next new gear and then motor on along on that road until the next time to change. I believe success and sanity (in all things) is well rooted in one's ability to change/adapt/adjust, and you've got these qualities in spades. ❤️

Hmmmm.... i see you are nicely tanned on the pic on the right...were you keeping your scars out of the sun? I forgot I had to do this too and spent a couple vacays exposing them a couple years back (even though they reminded me not to...just forgot). Apparently newly formed scars don't like the sun. ☹️

I had to google that. Meat, good. Fried, good. Mini, gooood. P.S. I was staring into the pic and that second rissole from the bottom, second from the left started to look like a piranha face popping its head out of the water. Now I can't UNSEE it.

How long ago did you have your surgery? I had some thick scarring that reduced my mobility on my right arm, which would hurt a little if I pushed it beyond the tightness. My surgeon made 2 cuts along the "cord" to ease up the tension and its all good now. Have you discussed the issue with your surgeon?

Continuing the salad parade, here's mine. Drank 1/2 the can of the Caesar drink as an apéritif (lol), then the salad, and then had an almond biscotti chaser. 376 calories..biscotti cals estimated. Ate it all. Don't think I'm going to drink the other half of the Caesar as the taste is off-putting to me. Mango & Clam juice is no bueno. BFF gifted me an assorted 6 pack of "limited edition" flavours and so far, NOT so very good. I've had the The Works one and the Pickled Green Bean one, both of which are just meh.

Found out last month that both @rs and I had Arm Lifts scheduled for the same week, just two days apart. @rs got the deed done yesterday, and I'm heading in for it tomorrow morning. We thought it would be fun/interesting/just-something-to-do to start a thread where we both could post to document our progress for a one-stop view of two different experiences of the same procedure. So here we go! @rs @ms.sss

I knew I didn't want to do multiple surgery blocks. I preferred to do a single block of (possibly extended) healing vs. multiple (possible shorter) ones. As an aside, I actually only planned to do arm and breast lifts on surgery day. I had contemplated doing all three back during consults but decided that I could live without the TT. There was a mixup at the hospital, which did not get the memo of the reduced surgery plan, so everything was already set up for the 3 procedures (staff, op room & time block). And I was all, what the h*ll, lets do all three. Glad I did. This actually highlights why its so important to go over the surgery plan confirmation at registration on surgery day! As for managing, Mr & the fam helped ALOT. Especially with all the stuff that required usage of my arms...which is basically everything. You never realize how much you need them until they are out of commission. Oh, and pain meds were my (best) friends...but also my enemies cuz I was terribly constipated.

Been a while! I'm a fan of closure/wrap parties/lessons learned meetings lol, so I wrote up a blog entry for a 1+ year final update on this.

Totally forgot about these blog entries. Its been over a year since I did a little write up about my (body) plastics, so I feel compelled to do one now, since I am seriously contemplating moving forward with facial plastics (but this is a topic for another blog entry later). Sooooo....here we go: Tummy Tuck: Overall, I am very happy with the results. My abdominal muscles are pretty visible at rest (more so when I'm low-carbing). No muffin top when I'm wearing tight low-waisted stuff...well, at least from the front. The area around my waistband from the back is not nearly as tight looking. I suppose if I had a full lower body lift, this would have been addressed. I kinda wish I did have a lower body lift, but then I look at my scars and think, nah, i'm cool. My TT scar is still pretty dark. At least it's flat now, thanks to 2 rounds of steroid shots, but nowhere near as UN-noticeable as others on my same timeline. I've said it before, I knew I would scar badly based on my history, but still. The scar though is easily hidden even in my smallest bikini, so I'm good. But if I wear a high cut one, you can see the ends of the scar on my hips...so, I just don't wear high cut ones. The only people who see the scar in its full glory is me, Mr. and my doc. Now i'm going to nit pick here, but I'm allowed to since its my blog, LOL. What I am a little bummed about (just a little) is that I my abdomen is actually not a flat as it was pre-plastics. I have a visible roundess on my lower abdomen. I attribute this to the fact that all the other places have been thinned out and it just looks more pronounced to me now. Doc said this is normal because there are organs there, but still. If I am wearing a fitted dress, you can see when I've eaten. Its sorta fascinating sometimes, cuz I can actually see it get smaller as my body digests. Today my waist measurement is 26". Which is weird because *I* think it looks smaller, but I was actually 25.5" pre-TT. Breast Lift: This is still by far the surprising winner of my procedures. The difference (to me) is amazing. And the fact that I can go bra-less for days on end and still be perky makes me happy. The scarring is at the same level as my TT, and if I wear a string bikini top you can see the scar ends at my sides, if I lift my arms up. I LOVE that I have no "side boob" oozing. There is no excess skin spilling out anymore near my armpits when I wear a fitted tank/bra/tube top. There are times I wish I had a little bit more boob (and got some implants), but then I remember how much they annoyed me before, and it passes. Today my bust measurement is 33". It was 32.5" pre-BL. Arm Lift: I also love the overall results of my arm lift. I always hated my arms, even pre-WLS, and getting these done was my #1 wish. While not as drastic an improvement as my breast lift (in terms of both looks AND quality of life), I am really happy with the shape and size. My biceps are more noticeable at rest with all the skin gone, but I do have to say my triceps need to flexed to be seen....but this is likely because my triceps just need some more work (I HATE tricep work...dips and extensions SUCK.) The scars here are the worst of them all, and while the 2 rounds of steroid shots have greatly improved them, there is still along way to go before they go unnoticed. I was always self conscious about the size of my arms when I was bigger (and actually even when i was "normal" sized", and then self conscious about thier flappiness when I got smaller after WLS. Now I so totally fine with wearing sleeveless stuff even with the scars. You can't see them unless I raise my arms, but I am a "Whoo"- girl, so people will see them regularly, LOL. Today my arm circumference is just a smidge over 10". It was 10.5" pre-AL. Would I do it all again? HECKS YA. What would I do differently?: Listen to my doc about NOT doing to much too soon. My stupidity probably added 2-3 months to my total recovery time. NOT smoked. Did more self-massages as I was instructed to break up the scar tissue. I know I did less than what I should have because it really hurt me to do it. Had I done it as prescribed, I probably wouldn't have had to have 2 sections of my scar on my right arm cut due to reduced mobility. Now these two sections where he made incisions are darker than the rest of my scar. Asked for a V-shaped TT incision vs a straight one (so it would be hidden if I wore high cut bikinis) Did my rounds of steroid shots earlier. I was scheduled to have it done 3-4 months post op, but then Covid happened, and I ended up getting them done 13 & 15 months post op. Asked for some lipo on my lower back while I was on the table. Really though, I am super happy with getting the plastics, thoroughly recommend it to anyone who is interested, and the minor annoyances of the process and 1 year results are completely overshadowed by how awesome I think my bod looks now. I am not interested in doing any more body plastics work now (or ever, we'll see). I can live with the rest of my perceived imperfections (i'm looking at you ass, and inner thighs, and lower back). Next UP: doing something about my face!

Now that I think of it, I should probably mention I was on the small side when I had plastics...my doc said I was one of (or THE, i can't remember now) smallest persons he ever worked on, outside of burn patients). You mention that you have about 25lbs of skin to remove...I only had 400g removed. I am not sure, but I would think that the more "material" to remove, the longer it would require? But don't quote me on that...best to discuss with your doc. Good Luck! Excited for you ❤️

Mine had a preferred 6-7 hour max op time as well (or was it 5-6? I can't remember). He was able to do a tummy tuck, arm lift and breast lift in that window.

Mr.'s eating habits aren't the greatest, never has been the entire time I've known him. He eats ALOT...of everything, except maybe vegetables (which he will eat if its the only thing there). And he's a big snacker too. And drinker. BUT...he is super fit, and runs/swims/rides/works out/plays sports ALOT. According to his BMI, he is overweight, but he is in no way fat...his body fat percentage is like 10-15%. There have been times over the years that he decides he needs to lose like 10 lbs, or gain some muscle, or whatever to prepare for a race, or some sport season or whatever, and he just does. So annoying! When we met, I was "normal" sized and ate what I think was probably more than what a "regular" person would (this is based on comparing what I eat to those around me). I'm not sure if how he ate had any real effect on my own choices that lead to my obesity. I just know that after the Kid was born years later, I ate/snacked more, and moved less. Now that I'm post-wls, he still eats the same way as he always does, and I just eat my way. The house is filled with a whole bunch of food that I don't eat, and I even cook a whole bunch of food I don't eat either. The Kid eats alot too, but she is blessed with his genes and is an athlete herself. I don't feel right forcing my way of eating on them, so I don't. If anything, I sorta influence them a bit, because they eat alot more salad because they often eat my leftovers. Oh, and they probably eat more now when we go out to eat (pre-covid) because they my leftovers there too, along with their own entrees. LOL. So I suppose the short answer to this is: no, MY eating habits don't seem to be influenced by the eating habits of those I live with. But they may be being influenced by me. P.S. Unrelated, but I will say that his exercise/activity habits have greatly influenced me post-wls. He always encouraged me to join him with his various activities, and I almost always said no. Now, I almost always say yes (ok, maybe not "almost always", i probably say yes 60-70% of the time....he asks me ALOT! lol)

Here you go! Dessert : Biscotti.pdf I have been playing around with the sugar content, and I have gone as low 1/2 cup sugar (vs the stated 3/4 cup) and was still good. I went down to 1/3 cup once but it was a little bland (esp cuz it was a chocolate flavour base). Am going to try with the extra egg + the egg wash from @catwoman7's link above next time....

Hmmmm....this is basically the same base recipe I use, except this one has one extra egg + the egg wash. Will def try this one, when I have hazelnuts on hand. Thx!

Went a little nutso with some biscotti baking tonite. I couldn't decide what flavour to make, so I made them all. Lemon Ginger, Cinnamon Apple, Maple Bacon, Espresso Chocolate Walnut, Cranberry, & Almond. I ate an entire Almond one (about 2-3 inches long), plus a taste test bite of the end pieces of each of other five. I have no idea what the calories are but I marked it down as 250 calories. The majority of these are going out for delivery tomorrow morning. I just leave stuff on their doorsteps, ring the doorbell then run/drive away, 😂

I love grilled meat! I got a question for you, lol: I recently started using a leave in food thermometer, and been practising with different food items. Today I pan fried some chicken breasts and waited until the specified temp, but by the time it was served it was not perfect (a little on the over done side). I was thinking I should take the meat of the heat just BEFORE it reaches temp to avoid this....but not sure at what temp exactly do that at...?? What is your strategy? (cuz your chicken looks pretty juicy in your pics!)