blackcatsandbaddecisions

I am getting a fleur de lis Tummy Tuck, arm lift, and breast lift (no augmentation). Paying 24k out of pocket in Portland, Oregon. I’ll update as I get closer to the day of surgery!

I am getting a fleur de lis Tummy Tuck, arm lift, and breast lift (no augmentation). Paying 24k out of pocket in Portland, Oregon. I’ll update as I get closer to the day of surgery!

I am getting a fleur de lis Tummy Tuck, arm lift, and breast lift (no augmentation). Paying 24k out of pocket in Portland, Oregon. I’ll update as I get closer to the day of surgery!

So they are really on par with each other, since second one doesn’t include a breast lift. Btw this doesn’t include implants, I’m not interested in that and the surgeon actually said she recommends against it in cases like mine because they tend to shift, etc.

Both recommended the same procedures. Both also said recovery would be a bit rough, but could return to a desk job in 2 weeks. Both also said I don’t have really any more fat to lose. Second surgeon showed me how he measured the arm skin and said it was basically just skin on skin at this point. Feels weird to have doctors saying that I’m done with weight loss, but I have to trust they know what they are saying. I’m still 165 and 23 bmi. So might have a reasonable amount of skin at the end of the day….

At this point leaning toward Dr Streu. She has a lot of experience and could do an additional procedure. I was fine not addressing a breast lift until I knew it was a possibility. She’s booking out until fall so would be a ways off but I’m strongly thinking about booking!

Yeah, I hit Protein and Fluid and still lost a lot of hair. It really is just luck of the draw. Only me and my hairdresser really noticed. I cut my hair above shoulder length to help it not look stringy. Plus is that I couldn’t really pull off short hair when I was heavy- but now that I’m a normal weight i don’t need long hair to hide behind.

I was taking Biotin religiously months before surgery, and post surgery met all Protein and Vitamin goals plus collagen support supplements. I couldn't have done more to prepare, but from 4 months, my hair has thinned and while it's slowed down now at 6 months, I joke that I have to style my hair into a comb-over. I had fine hair normally, so losing volume has really thinned it out. It sucks. It really does. I'm not quite at the "wear a hat" or scarf stage, but I'm not far off.
Just got to ride it out and focus on the good. My brother says I look ten years younger, so even with crappy hair, that's a plus!

I could have loved and accepted my body all I wanted at almost 50 bmi and the health problems coming my way would have still been a reality. I’m watching my mother die a long drawn out miserable death from kidney failure brought on by type two diabetes. There are real heath impacts to being drastically overweight, and what’s not a problem in your 20s or even 40s can lead to issues later.

Gerd is a definite concern. I’ll say from my perspective at almost a year and a half out that my heartburn is better post op than it was pre op. I exercise every day and I am living a life I could only have dreamed of prior to my surgery. This surgery isn’t without risks, but living life as an obese person isn’t without risks either.

Agreed. I didn't want to wait until I was dealing with multiple comorbidities of my obesity before addressing it. I was willing to assume the risk of surgery, but not the near-certainty of obesity-related diseases as I progressed in age.

I could have loved and accepted my body all I wanted at almost 50 bmi and the health problems coming my way would have still been a reality. I’m watching my mother die a long drawn out miserable death from kidney failure brought on by type two diabetes. There are real heath impacts to being drastically overweight, and what’s not a problem in your 20s or even 40s can lead to issues later.

Gerd is a definite concern. I’ll say from my perspective at almost a year and a half out that my heartburn is better post op than it was pre op. I exercise every day and I am living a life I could only have dreamed of prior to my surgery. This surgery isn’t without risks, but living life as an obese person isn’t without risks either.

My advice is to think about how you want your life to be and what’s most important to you. I mean ideally I wanted to be thin but also to be able to eat candy and Snacks and huge portions nonstop, but that’s not reality. If given the option I wanted to be normal weight more than I wanted to gorge on food. I felt ashamed by how fixated I was on food, and how much garbage I ate. I felt almost compelled to eat, but I wasn’t happy with how I felt, and at the end of the day I didn’t want to be that way.

Life is about compromise. WLS means giving up one thing to get another, and if food is something that is your top priority and you really don’t want to change that long term, it might not be a good choice.

I still in some senses wish I could eat the way I used to over a year ago. But I know someone who is a former drug addict who feels the same. They still want the drug and probably always will, but they recognize their life is better without it. My life is better without my old eating habits.

Yes, I also weigh less than my husband now, which is amazing. He and I are almost the same height but for most of our marriage I was twice his weight. Now I’m ten pounds less. It was fun playing on the teeter totter at the park last weekend and being the light one for once!

He weighs almost the exact same amount of weight that I’ve lost, and I can barely pick him up for a second or two. It’s incomprehensible that a year ago I was going about my entire life with that weight on me. How did I even walk? Now I know why I was so exhausted all the time.

Yes, I also weigh less than my husband now, which is amazing. He and I are almost the same height but for most of our marriage I was twice his weight. Now I’m ten pounds less. It was fun playing on the teeter totter at the park last weekend and being the light one for once!

He weighs almost the exact same amount of weight that I’ve lost, and I can barely pick him up for a second or two. It’s incomprehensible that a year ago I was going about my entire life with that weight on me. How did I even walk? Now I know why I was so exhausted all the time.

Oof, Hair loss does suck. I have fine hair but I always had a lot of it. I started losing a few months after surgery and it has been ongoing it seems like ever since. I had long hair but it started getting stringy so I cut it to just above shoulder length and I’m much happier with it. I can see a ton of regrowth coming in so I am pretty sure it’s just temporary. That being said, nobody but my hairdresser and my husband have even noticed. It’s not like I have bald Patches or anything- it’s just less full.

The nice thing is that I feel like I can pull off shorter hair much better when I’m thinner- I kept my hair long when I was fatter because I felt like it helped balance out my body size, but now I don’t need to hide behind hair anymore. I might even cut my hair shorter, just for fun and because I can.

I had stage 2 (lipo) done today. I'm feeling good. The leftover Percocet from stage 1 is a blessing. Dr. gave ok to use it instead of the typical prescribed Vicodin. I will probably have a small amount of loose skin on the thigh gap and love handle areas but nothing that a tiny nip/tuck won't take care of. I'll post pictures in a couple of months when most of the swelling is gone. As far as the TT recovery (7 wpo), I can now ride my bike; cough/sneeze/laugh without tearing up; but still no heavy lifting. I consider house cleaning heavy lifting (wink,wink) so I guess hubby will have several more weeks of maid duty. I was still wearing a compress garment 23 hours a day even though I don't have to wear it more than 12 hours. Dr. said the longer the better and I don't mind it since it's not summer yet. Now I'm back to wearing it 24/7. Dr. said plan on the scar revision this fall and my scar is healing nicely.

Yes you are nuts!! You asked I gave you an honest answer. Why on earth would you try to keep your bmi above 30 just so you can have an unnecessary surgery with your low bmi. Bloody hell woman surgery is not easy or a quick fix, it's hard and some days just plain horrible. Go see a shrink about your weight/ eating issues. I doubt any surgeon would do you with such a low BMI anyway and if they do I would expect they are very dodgy

Yes, you are a bit off in logic, if you can manage without surgery you should! This procedure will be painful and take time to recover, people eat through it all the time and sabotage their procedure (my point is it is no fix in reality). I appreciate the procedure and I try to eat every day for the new me and not to recover the old me.

Got some pics!! Of the race... not the towel wrapping!!

Taking my own advice - Hold myself accountable. Surgery 10/2020, HW somewhere in the 280's. Low weight 165 ... Current weight 175.... Why? Here's why...

Last day tracked January 19th Last regular/daily tracking November 2021 Last day registered weighing - January (I still do weigh almost daily though) Eating/drinking (including alcohol) whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted - "Justified" it by telling myself "It's ok, I can't eat that much of whatever... and I'm drinking low calorie alcohol. All of this equals close to 10lb overall gain in a fairly short period of time. Failing to address it now will simply put me back where I started. If you've been at all successful in this journey, you know what works and what doesn't - Don't lie to yourself and pretend everything is fine and end up with a 20lb gain - Mentally 5 was my threshold and we see how that worked out. For me at least, I don't want to feel ashamed that I worked so hard only to fail in the long run.

Today, back on track, I have no doubt that I will fall off the wagon again, but hey... it's a marathon, not a sprint.
I WILL track food and drink - even if it's not something on my plan. I WON'T lie to myself. I'll set realistic/attainable goals. I WON'T do anything drastic (for me) like liquids only for x number of days - It isn't sustainable and results with me doing stupid things.

My surgeon didn’t care much one way or the other about coffee. I had a tall nonfat latte on Friday after a Tuesday surgery. It took me hours to finish but it was literally the first thing I was able to drink without struggle after surgery.

I drink multiple cups of coffee every day, and I’ve been maintaining at 175+ lbs lost/at goal weight for a while now. If you add sweetener or tons of full fat cream to coffee I can picture it being a problem, but outside of that I’ve never seen any compelling science behind the rule.

If the bariatric police want to come find me then please note the fact that I added back in the occasional glass of wine or beer before I hit my goal weight. I’m a wild and crazy rebel over here.

My surgeon didn’t care much one way or the other about coffee. I had a tall nonfat latte on Friday after a Tuesday surgery. It took me hours to finish but it was literally the first thing I was able to drink without struggle after surgery.

I drink multiple cups of coffee every day, and I’ve been maintaining at 175+ lbs lost/at goal weight for a while now. If you add sweetener or tons of full fat cream to coffee I can picture it being a problem, but outside of that I’ve never seen any compelling science behind the rule.

If the bariatric police want to come find me then please note the fact that I added back in the occasional glass of wine or beer before I hit my goal weight. I’m a wild and crazy rebel over here.

Yeah, honestly many people are less observant than we give them credit for 😂. I told a few very select people after surgery, a few months out. Every one of them was shocked, and believed I’d just been losing weight because they saw me exercising a lot and being mindful of what I ate. Like…yeah, that’s me doing my part to make the surgery successful.

At this point I’m at a stable goal weight and lost a bit more than 175 lbs over the past few years. I’m still glad I limited who I told.

I told nobody but my husband preop. I also didn’t tell anyone I was going to be in the hospital, getting a procedure, etc. I don’t owe anybody a minute by minute accounting of what I’m doing with my life. Work knew I was taking off two weeks, my family knew that I was out of town and out of contact for two weeks. When I was back to my normal life after two weeks nobody really cared. Not like anyone was staring at my bare stomach.

I feel like with social media and everything people have an over inflated sense of “deserving” to know every personal detail of everybody’s life. Not true- if you pay your own bills and take care of yourself, you don’t owe people an explanation of everything you do.

I told nobody but my husband preop. I also didn’t tell anyone I was going to be in the hospital, getting a procedure, etc. I don’t owe anybody a minute by minute accounting of what I’m doing with my life. Work knew I was taking off two weeks, my family knew that I was out of town and out of contact for two weeks. When I was back to my normal life after two weeks nobody really cared. Not like anyone was staring at my bare stomach.

I feel like with social media and everything people have an over inflated sense of “deserving” to know every personal detail of everybody’s life. Not true- if you pay your own bills and take care of yourself, you don’t owe people an explanation of everything you do.

As others have said, no, you can’t reverse this. What’s done is done, and you’ll have to start looking forward to the future, not what you liked in the past. If you’re in the first few months post op, this is not the rest of your life. In the future you’re most likely going to be able to eat a lot of the foods you loved, go out to eat, have an active social life, etc.

I’m almost 1.5 years out and maintaining a 175 lb loss while enjoying a lot of my favorite foods, going out to eat, and yes, having the occasional drink. I balance it all out with small portion sizes, elimination of some trigger foods, and exercise.

Look toward a brighter future. You’ll be able to eat the foods you love, without the fear of binging. Having a family is an amazing experience, and I would give up every favorite meal and “normal” eating experience for what I’ve gained with having my kids. You’ve got a lot to look forward to, keep your focus on the future!

I told nobody but my husband preop. I also didn’t tell anyone I was going to be in the hospital, getting a procedure, etc. I don’t owe anybody a minute by minute accounting of what I’m doing with my life. Work knew I was taking off two weeks, my family knew that I was out of town and out of contact for two weeks. When I was back to my normal life after two weeks nobody really cared. Not like anyone was staring at my bare stomach.

I feel like with social media and everything people have an over inflated sense of “deserving” to know every personal detail of everybody’s life. Not true- if you pay your own bills and take care of yourself, you don’t owe people an explanation of everything you do.