My Bariatric Life

For those considering plastic surgery after bariatric surgery, I wanted to share the dramatic change that is possible from plastic surgery after weight loss. It has been very powerful for me: life-changing. I waited a decade after gastric bypass to have my plastic surgery and I am ever so glad that I went through with my long-held dream to do so. I am one-year out from facial plastic surgery with Dr. Catherine Winslow (Winslow Facial Plastic Surgery) and body contouring plastic surgery with Dr. Joseph F. Capella (Capella Plastic Surgery). Here are the procedures I had done, cost, and a few details: April 2013 - tummy tuck $7k - general anesthesia, overnight in care center October 2013 - convert TT to LBL, medial thigh lift, extended arm lift, breast lift $18k - general anesthesia, 4 nights in care center December 2014 - deep plan face lift, neck lift, chin implant, upper eye lid lift, SMAS to tear troughs, lip lift, filler $15k - twilight sedation, out patient I spent $40,000 for surgeon's fees, OR, anesthesia, ambulance, care center. I still can't believe I did this. That is a lot of money and it took a few years to save it up. It was well worth it. I lost 50 inches and 50 pounds and 6 pants sizes thanks to Dr. Joseph Capella and a paleo diet and exercise. I look about 15 years younger thanks to Dr. Catherine Winslow. The changes were not only physical. They were emotional. Now I am on a journey to do all of the things I could not do before. I am breaking through all my barriers whether physical or emotional, letting nothing hold me back from fully living a life I love. Some people experience this rebirth after their bariatric surgery, but it took the plastic surgery for me to wake up to life. I invite you to view my transformation video on Vimeo: Living larger than ever, My Bariatric Life http://​www.mybariatriclife.org

@@SanDiegoGirl congrats on the weight loss and maintaining that for so long! You are so fortunate to only have a little wrinkling skin on your tummy. My before and after nude photos show how ugly my tummy and thighs were and how nice they look now. I can wear a bikini! I had to do all of me because I had excess skin and fat all rand, even my face as you saw in the video. I am very thankful that I was able to do this! Thanks so much for the nice compliments!!!

@@Alex Brecher why did you try them only for a week? Was there something that you did not like about them?

@@CTDEE @@Alex Brecher the friend that I told you about is part of a study that PatchMD is doing with WLS patients. They took labs before and will take them after. I have to follow up with her to see if she has had her after labs yet. I just had my labs pulled and everything is fine using my regular vitamin protocol. Once I switch over to PatchMD for 3-6 months I will have them pulled again. Then I'll let all of you know. I will be a lab rat!

@@Kindle Did you eat the way that you eat now before you weight loss surgery? How did you learn to eat this way?

@@drmeow I love Joel Salatin! He is one of the people I listened to in over to become educated about my food. I recall one of the food documentaries that I watched interviewed this very old man. Now I forget if he was formerly with the FDA or some sort of politician, but he was pivotol in changing the US to mass agriculture. And his very belief was bringing down the cost of food so that everyone had better access. The cost of food that my great grandparents paid compared to the money they earned was quit high. Not knowing what we know today, I can see that BigAg made a lot of sense when you took it at face value back then. But the ripple affect of that decision was pretty disastrous. If we were to plot obesity and disease and processed food and factory farming on a timeline no doubt we would see them all rise along the same curvature. I should do this for one of my articles! Yes. People demand low prices. Even I belly ache about the cost of organic food and fresh fish here in Indy compared to what I paid in NJ. I believe it is a pay now or pay later situation. I am either paying more for quality food now or paying more in medical expenses later. Did you eat the way that you eat now before you weight loss surgery? How did you learn to eat this way? What state do you live in?

@@Kindle well, I joined a CSA yesterday!!! And I sent emails to a few local butchers who source their poultry from local farms raised on pasture w/o hormones or antibiotics, as well as one farmer who sells direct. I asked them about coming up with a bulk purchase freezer package. The farmer seems to have ver good prices, whereas one of the butchers that got back to me is much more expensive than I used to pay in NJ. It surprises me that food is more expensive here than in NJ. Anyway, thanks for the conversation because it was the impetus for getting me on this path again. I guess I had sort of given up and settled. BTW what is your opinion on GMOs?

@@Kindle I am very dissatisfied with the food sources here in Indianapolis. I can get farm fresh eggs, yum. But I have yet to find a source for fowl or a CSA or farmer's market that I like. I'd welcome fresh river trout but have not seen that here. I am going to take a look again and see what's available, which may have changed since 2-yrs ago when I moved here. I am so weary of shopping at Trader Joe's. I completely agree with the way that you eat. Oh and goat cheese is my favorite. I once in a blue moon eat it even though I am paleo and lactose intolerant. Thanks for an enlightening conversation.

@@Kindle that's all good advice. I've read the labels and done research but you have given me some other points to consider. And yes, it was a lot of work to nutritionally balance my dog's food when I made it. I followed Dr. Pitcarin's advice for that. One of my dog's actually is allergic to grains. She gets a nasty ear infection and lots of gunk in there. She'll scratch her ear to the point of it bleeding.

@@mrs kaje I hear you. There are parts of the Paleo diet, such as banning legumes for example, that don't seem to have a solid reason for prohibiting them. For me, with so many things being "off" my diet, either due to my food preferences or intolerances, it is just easier to follow the Paleo diet. It just takes all of the figuring out away from me and makes it less complicated for me to know what I can and cannot eat. I want less stress in my life, not more! Thanks for a good discussion!

@@Kindle no apologies needed. The conversation takes us where we are meant to go. When I went organic, I lived in NJ where I had access to lots of quality locally grown organic and raised on pasture without hormones or antibiotics food sources. I got my veggies and fruits and herbs from my CSA where I could go into the fields and picky my own or take what was already picked. I got my fowl and eggs from the farmer's market butcher who sourced it from farm in NJ and surrounding states. I got my fresh fish from the farmer's market fish monger who sold only wild caught fish. And in time one of the things I noticed was how incredibly my sense of smell increased. I also noticed a huge improvement in the flavor of these foods. Commercially prepared chicken and eggs, even if they are organic certified, simply do not compare in taste. Additionally there is so much scientific evidence that links chemicals in our food and environment to very serious diseases. Do you know that cancer is caused 90-95% from environment and lifestyle. Every single one of my dogs died from cancer. My daughter had thyroid cancer. To me, this all the warning of the canary in the coal mine. I do not shun pharmaceuticals. I have working in pharma marketing my entire career and I am honored to market products that improve quality of life, extend life, and in some instances save life. I've also worked at Merck AgVet the world's largest animal health company, which includes products for production animals. What I am against is the greed of corporate food manufacturers who, for example, cram dairy cows into unnatural living quarters so that they are standing knee deep in the feces of hundreds of cows, at the same time being injected with growth hormone so their udders grow super-sized filled with milk, and then these same cows have to be prophylactically over inoculated with antibiotics and parasiticides because they now have big teets dragging in piles of sh*t and at risk for developing coliform mastitis. I am against, for example, Purdue who genetically modifies chicken so that they develop unnaturally large breasts, so large in fact that the chickens fall forward onto their breasts because they are top-heavy. I am against, for example, eating grain that has been grown from round-up ready seed so that crop dusters can plaster it with herbicides that kill everything but the grains that have been engineered to withstand the poison. Personally, I do not want to eat frankenfood. I don't want to eat food from a manufacturer. I want to eat it from a farmer... unless it is fish, which I then want to eat from the ocean or stream. Most of America has an illusion of where their food comes from. We see rolling pastures with a small herd of cows or cattle and we think it goes from there to our plates. I have yet to drive past the feedlot, the middle man between that rolling pasture where the cattle spends its first 6-mos of life before it is shipped to the deplorable conditions of the feedlot where it is essentially force fed an unnatural diet of GMO corn so it fattens unnaturally quickly (cattle do not eat corn, they eat grass), and barely allowed to move because it is standing in pens that are as crowded as a NYC subway at rush hour (in dung as mentioned earlier), for the next year of its life until it goes to the disgusting conditions of the slaughterhouse. And BTW if they weren't slaughtered at 18-mos their stomachs would soon explode from the corn and silage they are fed. And all of this process is done to keep a few food conglomerates rich at the incalculable expense of our health. So now we both have ranted!!! I value and respect your opinion and do not want you to think I am arguing with you. For years I have been passionate about this topic of our food sources and chemicals in our environment because of all the research I've done since having my gastric bypass in 2003 and having to learn what it means to eat healthy. I was shocked (horrified) when I learned the truth about factory farming and CAFOs and corruption within the government and food manufacturers and chemical companies! With the examples you've cited it certainly shows that there are many flaws with organic food, too. And we haven't even discussed the food conglomerates who are now capitalizing on the organic food movement! A rant for another day, perhaps?

@@Kindle I have an idea! You should develop the "farmer diet." That probably makes more sense than the caveman diet. Think of how many people you'll help and how much money you'll make, too!

@@mrs kaje that's what the USDA has preached for years, but as a person who has developed celiac disease (gluten intolerance) and lactose intolerance and diabetes type 2, I just don't buy it. There are people who eat from all food groups who are healthy, of course, but I am not one of them. This is confusing to me, really. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me why there is not a one-size fits all diet that we, who as humans are born with the same biological and physiological makeup, can follow for optimal health. Thoughts anyone?

@@Kindle I've wondered about those BARF diets for dogs (ground bones and raw meat). There are folks who swear by them. I just don't think raw meat is appropriate for a domestic dog in the 21st century digestive system. As well, I would need to buy organic meat (no way I would feed them raw meat that was full of chemicals) and to feed three dogs a diet of almost all meat would be extremely expensive. I used to be a good mommy and make my dogs' food from whole foods with added nutrients (ground egg shells, fish oil, etc). But I just don't have the time anymore. It greatly concerns me the crap that goes into processed dog food as well as the quality of the "whole foods" that are used -- let's be real, they aren't getting grade A beef roast that is fit for human consumption. The best I can do is to buy organic grain-free dog food for them nowadays. Do you have any recommendations? Thanks!

@@drmeow it sounds like you have a good plan! Cheers to you for going into this with a plan of action, which is more than I did when I had gastric bypass in 2003. I used artificial sweeteners for a very long time. When I did research on aspartame it nearly blew my mind as there was a HUGE conspiracy behind the clinical trials. The FDA investigator actually was a whistle blower and quit his job because over the cover up going on. Years later when I did Whole30 I realized that the sugars in my beloved Protein drinks and coffee were truly addicting. I craved sugar for nearly the 30 days of the program! I have become attuned well enough to my body to realize when I've reached my sugar limit. For example, after Whole30 I went Paleo... diet and weight were great... then I began to have hunger cravings and upon further reflection I discovered that the roasted coconut juice that I was using in my iced coffees was triggering the addiction cycle again. So I now dilute that with mineral Water. Good luck to you for a safe surgery!

@@Mike4132 there are indeed quite a few high Protein diets. I reviewed the best of them, I believe it was 7 of them last year or two.

@@Flygirl123 I ate cheese all the time and used lots of cream in my coffee and I did not think that I would be able to give up dairy. I followed Primal Blueprint for years because it allowed dairy. But then I did the Whole30 program and after that followed Paleo. Much to my delight I do not miss dairy!!! And it has absolutely improved my weight!!! Good luck with your surgery!

@@Elode you can do protein shakes made from egg whites if you did want to go Paleo. The Quest bars are too high in carbohydrates for me. It triggers hunger and weight gain for me. @@DroppinLikeItsHot that's actual Primal Blueprint, similar to Paleo but allows dairy.

@@blondebomb the FDA is owned by the multinational chemical and food companies like Monsanto. Do you know that all of the thousands of brands that you see in a supermarket are essentially owned by a monopoly of four corporations?

@@Stevehud I think the whole eat like a cave man is just a marketing ploy, just something catchy for people to latch onto. Even if we irrefutably knew what the caveman ate, so what... how is that applicable to us today? Our lifestyles are completely different. As well I assume there have been biological and physiological changes across the span of evolution. I agree with you that diet is not a one size fits all solution. My belief is that we need to listen to our bodies, experiment, and we will know what we need and don't need. Getting attuned to listening to our bodies is, to me, a very important technique after weight loss surgery to master. I also believe in Hippocrates' philosophy, "let thy food be thy medicine" meaning that nutrition is key to disease prevention and healthy living -- and chemicals in foods are key to getting many diseases. Its irrefutable that eating fresh food and eliminating processed foods from your diet, as espoused by Paleo and many other diets, is the right way to eat healthily. That's a no-brainer. For me, there is no way I am going to eat red meat owing to it completely grosses me out to eat sentient beings. While it is true that fish and fowl have feelings, too, it just doesn't bother me to eat them. But as far as eating a cow, lamb, pig, goat, etc, to me it is the same as eating a dog. Nor would I eat grains or dairy owing to my celiac and lactose intolerance. As far as legumes and starchy veggies like peas and white potatoes, they are high in carbohydrates and increase my cravings for sugars and that then leads to hunger. So that's my experience with it and hopefully that's helpful info for someone evaluating a plan of eating for her/himself.

I've been doing a monthly group guided meditation class and have started to meditate every night before bed. For me it is a spiritual practice and I would say that maintaining my weight loss is as much a spiritual practice as it is a physical practice. I do believe in the mind-body connection. I believe that meditation helps me to release negative energy, such as sadness and anger, instead of turning to food as a coping mechanism. Self soothing with food was my pattern of behavior when I was morbidly obese — a habit that likely played a pivotal role in my becoming morbidly obese in the first place. Has anyone tried meditation?

@@knitmom I will get there! I am still growing in this regard.

@@Bandista my screen time is off the charts high. I am usually reading and learning so perhaps that gives me some good karma?