the following article was written by John Hobbs, Editor, IN Magazine Los Angeles
As a kid, I didn’t bother with the meager Happy Meal when we went to McDonalds—a regular stop for my family. Instead, I’d order two filets-o-fish, large fries and a regular soda: a meal that could easily fill up a man.
And Saturday mornings were always a favorite of mine—not for the line-up of cartoons on TV, but because we’d always go to Long’s Bakery, which had the most mouthwatering fresh-out-of-the-oven donuts you’d ever want to eat. I’d throw down three or four of them—until my stomach began hurting to let me know I was done. And don’t even get me started on the after-school buffet of snack cakes, chips and cookies that I regularly consumed.
I couldn’t help but think of this, my previous life of excess, as I stared through a post-surgery haze at the four jars of what looked like tapioca pudding sitting in front of me. I had taken what I hoped would be the last step in undoing the damage I had done to my body as a lonely, often-bullied fat kid who ate to deal with life’s troubles. I had undergone liposuction.
The O.R. wasn’t my first stop in dealing with my weight struggles. In 1995, as a 260-pound junior in high school, I realized that I no longer wanted to be fat. Having pored over enough self-help books and diet books to teach a seminar, I realized that my weight wasn’t about the weight. It was about escaping, about dealing, about hiding.
And so my journey began. I cleaned my diet up, I hopped on our seldom-used treadmill and began working out religiously. I also began seeing a therapist to deal with my underlying issues. Two years later, I had shrunk down to 170 pounds, a huge feat for someone just 19 years old.
Eleven years later, people find it hard to believe that I was ever overweight. I’ve completely changed my lifestyle—eating healthfully and exercising every day—and have managed to keep the weight off, something 90-odd percent of people have a hard time doing. But even with the seemingly complete physical transformation, I was still carrying around battle wounds: the stretch marks, the impulse to emotionally eat and a good deal of fat around my waist that—although I was able to hide well—tortured me.
For 10 years, I ate a low-fat, low-carb diet. I ran, I climbed stairs, I did crunches, sit-ups, the AbRoller. Nothing.
And so, late last year, I decided to bite the bullet and make an appointment for a consultation at Wilshire Aesthetics. All I hoped to get out of the experience was to figure out if my problem was fixable—was I not dieting and working out enough? “You’re thin and healthy. What could you possibly be here for,” inquired the doctor of Wilshire Aesthetics, during my initial consultation. “I need a tummy tuck,” I shot back. After examining my stomach and love handles, the doctor suggested instead of a tummy tuck that I actually opt for the less-invasive liposculpture.
“Because you’re so young and do not smoke, your skin will bounce back once we remove the fat,” he explained, likening it to a pregnant woman whose tummy snaps back after delivery. If I felt good after hearing there was a solution to my “problem,” I felt absolutely giddy after he said that no matter how much starving and exercising I did, the stubborn fat would most likely go nowhere.
Afterward, we discussed my options. He could perform the liposuction one of two ways: either with a serrated cannula (the long skinny metal probe) to physically cut the fat off before sucking it out—kinda like carving up the Christmas turkey—or the more high-tech VASER LipoSelection surgery, which uses a laser to explode the fat cells before removing them. According to doctor, the latter option was more desirable, considering it would heal much faster and help to re-contour the waistline, leaving less room for dimpling or ridges.
Having discussed the mechanics, the financial aspect and the risks, I left Wilshire Aesthetics incredibly excited. I was finally going to do it. I was going to take the final step in my battle with the bulge.
The three weeks leading up to my liposuction procedure felt like an eternity. I just wanted to get the weight off my mid-section, because, to me, it wasn’t just a medical procedure. It was so much more—it meant saying goodbye to the last vestige of childhood obesity; it meant being able to create a new self-concept that reflected the reality of now; and it meant being able to take my shirt off in front of my partner.
A week before my procedure, I went in for my pre-op blood work and did the dreaded “before” pictures. I was given a fistful of prescriptions for antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and painkillers (now we’re talking!) and had a chance to ask any last-minute questions about the procedure.
At 7:30 a.m. on Jan. 11, I pushed the button at the front desk of Wilshire Aesthetics (the operating room is on site) to let the nurse know I had arrived. Within seconds, she opened the door, already suited up for surgery. I was whisked off to a changing room to slip into something a little more comfortable and was marked up for surgery. (I defy you to find something more humbling than a doctor with a black Sharpie, marking your fat up as if it were a topographical map.) Once ready for surgery, I entered the O.R., where an anesthetist awaited me. With a quick injection, she numbed my hand so she could hook me up to an IV—and that quick sting was the only pain I felt that morning. As she hooked up the IV, I asked, “Have you connected it yet?” And that was the last thing I remember.
I woke up two hours later, dressed in a one-piece support garment that held my waist taut so that it could begin to snap back into position. It’s odd that, during the most dramatic elements of my plastic surgery story, I was unconscious. But, I’ve seen enough programming on TLC to know what I had missed. A myriad of small incisions (three-fourths of an inch) were made throughout my mid-section and I was injected with a wetting solution (a mixture of saline solution, local anesthetic and blood vessel-constrictors) to help soften the fatty tissue for removal. Afterward, the Vaser cannula, which emits ultrasound energy, was briskly run over the fatty tissues, essentially exploding the fat cells. Finally, the mixture of fat and wetting solution was sucked out.
An hour later, my partner came to pick me up. I was in a good place, feeling nothing as the general anesthesia wore off all afternoon. In fact, that whole night I felt great. I had expected to be nearly immobile and had prepared my partner to do my bidding for me the whole day. I thought to myself, “They said I’d be hurting, but they don’t know John very well.” And then the morning came.
My cockiness was soon replaced with aches and pains. The next 10 days were a blur. I was careful to “stay ahead of the pain” and wasn’t shy with the Percocets. I experienced a lot of leakage as the wetting solution soaked through some of the incisions that were left open for that very purpose. The first time I removed my support garment to shower, I was taken aback by the bruising and the stitches, but felt good that I could already tell the area was slimmer.
It’s been three months since the lipo and I’m still healing (Dr. Harvey Abrams says it takes six months for the body to repair itself completely after the beating it takes during liposuction). Overall, I feel good about the changes I’ve seen so far and look forward to the continued tightening of my waist. I’ve continued to work out and watch what I eat. Apparently, there are those who take up some bad eating habits after having liposuction because they can “just get it sucked out later.” I could never do that, though. I decided a long time ago that my weight-loss regimen had to become a lifestyle in order to be permanent—and maybe that’s been the key to my long-term weight loss. The diet’s not over after you’ve reached your goal weight or after you’ve gotten yourself into those skinny jeans.
You can never go back to the lifestyle that made you so heavy in the first place. And now that I’ve experienced life as a thin person, I’d never want to.
