March 26, 2025 • 53 mins
In this eye-opening episode of Plastic Surgery Uncensored, Dr. Rady Rahban sits down with Angela, a true force of nature. Angela, a mother of seven children and a competitive bodybuilder, shares her inspiring journey of resilience, transformation, and self-discovery. From running marathons between pregnancies to competing on stage as a bodybuilder — all without ever having plastic surgery — Angela’s story is a testament to discipline, dedication, and determination.
But even after achieving peak physical fitness, Angela faced the undeniable reality of loose skin, diastasis, and deflated breasts from her remarkable journey of motherhood. She opens up about the frustration, the stigma around “mommy makeovers,” and her decision to finally seek surgical help.
Dr. Rahban breaks down her surgical process, detailing the importance of comprehensive planning, muscle repair, and achieving results that look not just good but phenomenal. You’ll hear how Angela’s procedure transformed her body, confidence, and overall quality of life. Tune in for an honest, unfiltered conversation that debunks common myths, offers valuable advice, and shows the world that achieving your best self is absolutely possible — at any stage of life.
Listen, learn, and share. You won’t want to miss this one!
✨ If you enjoyed this episode of Plastic Surgery Uncensored:
✔️ Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
✔️ Rate & Review—your feedback helps more people find us.
✔️ Follow Dr. Rady Rahban across all platforms for daily insights, behind-the-scenes, and patient education:
But even after achieving peak physical fitness, Angela faced the undeniable reality of loose skin, diastasis, and deflated breasts from her remarkable journey of motherhood. She opens up about the frustration, the stigma around “mommy makeovers,” and her decision to finally seek surgical help.
Dr. Rahban breaks down her surgical process, detailing the importance of comprehensive planning, muscle repair, and achieving results that look not just good but phenomenal. You’ll hear how Angela’s procedure transformed her body, confidence, and overall quality of life. Tune in for an honest, unfiltered conversation that debunks common myths, offers valuable advice, and shows the world that achieving your best self is absolutely possible — at any stage of life.
Listen, learn, and share. You won’t want to miss this one!
✨ If you enjoyed this episode of Plastic Surgery Uncensored:
✔️ Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
✔️ Rate & Review—your feedback helps more people find us.
✔️ Follow Dr. Rady Rahban across all platforms for daily insights, behind-the-scenes, and patient education:
- Instagram: @drradyrahban
- TikTok: @radyrahbanMD
- YouTube: @Rady Rahban
- Facebook: @Rady Rahban
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
All right, welcome to another episode of Plastic Surgery Uncensored.
I'm your host, as always, doctor Roddy Raban, and we
have a wonderful, fantastic, inspiring episode for you today. You
know that I am always super excited when the episode
includes a patient, because I think the learning value is
(00:28):
exponentially higher when someone is willing to share their journey,
because ultimately the purpose of the podcast is to educate
the listener about the possibilities that plastic surgery provides. And
since I have not had plastic surgery, although I've done
many cases, I sometimes feel like I'm not even really
worthy of having these conversations without the patient. So we
(00:51):
are blessed to have Angela all the way from Colorado,
one of my favorite places, visiting with us today. And
first of all, thank you for making the trip out here.
It's a pain in the ass and we appreciate it.
And I'm very excited because I think while we've had
many episodes about so called quote unquote mommy makeovers, which
(01:13):
is what our episode is about today, you're one of
the first patients I've ever had with your unique story
and so what I try to do, and we discussed
this before is to highlight individual journeys of patients, hoping
that each of them will sort of highlight a certain
aspect of a so called mommy makeover. And I think
(01:35):
the thing about you that is very unique and what
kind of caught my eye and I asked you and
burdened you with having to come here, is you have
seven children. And when I met you, you were competing
in bodybuilding. So everyone who's listening, I just want you
to listen to that again. When I met you, you
(01:57):
were competing without having had any surgery, and actually quite
reasonably successfully having had seven children. I think that right
there is like a just says everything that you need
to say, and then the next question is, okay, well,
if you're that unicorn and you had seven kids and
you were able to compete, what the hell, what the
(02:19):
hell are you doing coming to see me? And I
think that's really the reason why we're having this episode,
which says that I've heard this a thousand times. There's
a certain degree of guilt and shame and disappointment associated
with moms and having to go and have surgery. I
(02:40):
want you to see having to go and have surgery.
In other words, there's this sort of under ground discussion,
maybe not so underground, because you were mentioning to me
you saw a lot of this where it says that
if you work hard enough and your diet is strict enough,
and you do all the different diferent plans and exercise routines,
(03:05):
and you know, you know, get tonal and go to pilates,
you can fix and or get back to where you were.
And if you and if you can't, it's because you
somehow failed that right, That's right. Wouldn't you say that's
the case.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So here we have a person who has every excuse
to not have that said because you had seven kids.
I mean, we have patients who come to me for
mommy makeover, most notably the abdominal part, and they've only
had two kids or one kid, and you can look
at their photos You're like, oh my god, what happened
to her. It's like, oh, she had a child? Wow,
(03:44):
from one child, let alone seven. And on top of that, you,
if anyone has crushed it diet, exercise, discipline, time commitment,
it was you. So I thought it was really interesting
because I want to really highlight that maybe every once
in a while there's someone who can work out and
(04:05):
get back to where they were. But I would say,
having done this now for twenty years, that's far and
few between, and you are going to be that perfect
example of someone who did everything they were supposed to
do and yet still needed the assistance of, say a
surgeon to help them get over that hump. Okay, so
(04:25):
let's talk about you just a little bit. How old
are you?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Forty two?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Forty two? So that's just incredible every time I you know,
now I have two kids, so I have a three
year old and a one year old, and the idea
or notion of having seven children. I'm fifty one at
by forty two, It's just it's like I can wrap
my brain around that. That's just so incredible. And your
eldest is how old? Eighteen eighteen and your youngest six six,
(04:50):
so and so here you are. You're an amazing shape
when I meet you? How tall are you?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Five one?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
And how much do you weigh?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
One ten?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
One ten? And you had seven kids? And when I
met you, you're pretty good shape. You were competing. So
tell me your journey from mother, because I think a
lot of people just want to hear that part, like
how does this woman have seven kids and doesn't fall
apart and is able to somehow find interest in bodybuilding
to take us through that.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
So I was always fairly fit through all my pregnancies.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I was before a marathon runner.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So you were an athlete prior to getting pregnant.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yes, and then I ran most of my marathons in
between kids, have a kid, train, recover, train, run a marathon,
have a kid.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Repeat. And how much weight did you gain per pregnancy?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
About twenty to twenty five pound, Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So I want to highlight that part because I want
to for those of you who are not pregnant and
you want to emulate Angela. You can't emulate genetics, but
you can emulate some things. And it is definitely, definitely
a fact that if you were fit going into a pregnancy,
you will weather the pregnancy a thousand times better than
(06:01):
if you're not. And the reason being is that your musculature,
your core, the muscles that envelop your body, resist stretch
and being blown out. The second thing that I want
to highlight is that you didn't gain eighty seven pounds
or ninety three pounds or one hundred now if you
happen to, because you're diabetice and whatnot. Well, then it
(06:23):
is what it is, and hopefully you have a safe pregnancy.
But for a lot of people it's just just as
let go. They're like, you know, I'm having a baby.
It's good for the baby, it's good for the baby
to eat. And here you are gaining twenty five thirty
I think you know, we would consider healthy amount is
about thirty pounds plus or minus or whatever, and so
you gain, so that think that's very key. So you
(06:43):
gain around how much in between with each.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Pregnancy about twenty five pounds?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Got it? And then on average how much time between
each child two years? Two years? So that's very smart
because that's actually enough time to really so called recover,
because there are women who hit nine months, ten months,
and then boom they're pregnant again. Whether that was intentional
or accidental, it's fine, but definitely doesn't leave you a
lot of rooms. So, Okay, you were doing marathons.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I was, yes, And then after my last baby and
sort of when COVID hit, I had two wonderful friends.
We started training really seriously for marathons. Qualified for the
Boston Marathon, ran that, but all of that training without
strength training, left me in pain. And also I didn't
love the way my body looked. It was kind of soft,
not a lot of muscle. As I started to get
a little older, then I had a friend she was
(07:31):
fifty eight at the time and was doing bodybuilding and
looked more fit than I had ever been in my
entire life.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And she was really frank with me.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
She said, if you want to have a nice looking
body and be strong as you age, you needed to
start weightlifting. So I signed up with her coach and
just with the intention of learning how to lift, ways
learning how to get strong. And then my coach said,
you know, you might consider stepping on a stage, and
he did and it was so fun and I haven't
looked back.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So what was the So those were a a lot
of KIA elements. So one thing that people assume, and
the assumption is that exercises exercise, it's all created equal.
And while exercise, any version of exercise is better than
no exercise. Exercises have different impacts. So running has its impact,
pilates has its impact, and bodybuilding has its impact. And
(08:21):
one of the things that I always try to emphasize
to patients because you know, they come to me ultimately
to look better. Yes, it's to fix a diastasis and
get rid of lue skin and fix saggy breasts and whatnot,
but some total all that is hit octubon. I want
to look better, and I think that in order for
a patient to get an A plus, like holy crap,
(08:45):
how that's incredible. There is no way I can do
that without their help. And the way to do it
is they need muscle mass. Because I have a lot
of patients who I transform there before and afters are
fairly in credible and they look good, but they're really
all in all honesty, if we were to be super critical,
(09:07):
they're n A minus. And the reason their n A
minus is that they're just kind of soft, as you
had said it. And that's acceptable and amazing and fine.
But for those that want that ultimate outcome, I can't
get you there without muscle mass. And it's not being skinny.
It's about being fit and developing some muscle to fill
out the envelope. So you decided you want to start
(09:29):
doing that, and given that you're a marathon runner, you
obviously had incredible discipline, which is applying it to something else.
And what was the part that in your brain that said, wow,
I never done this before I started doing it. Let
me get on a stage. So explain that part to me,
because I always find that interesting because there's eye lift weights.
(09:49):
At least I did for many years. I never had
any interest in getting on a stage. It wasn't something
that ever thought, Oh that was the evolution of what
I do. So how did you decide to do that?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I think it's tuesday things. The first one is that
it's nice to have a goal. I am very goal
oriented and task oriented, and so having a deadline of
I want to look this certain way by this certain
time was motivating and my coach was encouraging as well.
The bikini division of bodybuilding requires a certain structure of
clavigal with and waste ratio and hip ratio and a
(10:23):
certain amount of leg and glue muscle, and I think,
genetically speaking, I have some of that enough to think
I might do okay.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
So sure, he's like, you're a good candidate essentially okay,
So let's stop for a moment here because I might
as well take advantage of this, since you are arguably
a true athlete, tell me a little about your diet,
because what people don't understand is Okay, Hey, I work
out seven days a week with a trainer and I
can't seem to make any progress. And then if I
(10:50):
push them hard enough and I ask them what they're
eating and what they're drinking, and I ask them what
their calorie intake is and what type of calories and
when they're eating, it all falls apart. So there is
no exercise in the universe, no trainer, no deadlifting, no burpies,
no squats, no lunges, no nothing without diet that's going
to make a difference. So let's talk about your diet
(11:10):
a little bit. Okay, what was your diet when you
were marathon runner, no pregnancies, What was your diet when
you were pregnant? Key? And what was your diet when
you switched over to bodybuilding.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
So my diet when I was marathon training, I wasn't
tracking what I was eating that much. It was a
lot of carbs, which are necessary for fueling marathon training.
And when I was pregnant it was it was pretty
intuitive eating when I was hungry, eating what I wanted,
but certainly not eating more than that. But I think
(11:46):
the big change when I've switched to bodybuilding in this phase.
Is that my diet is very intentional. I track my calories,
I track my protein intake. Protein is so important. Now
I have a solid base of protein and my diet
is controlled, not controlled, but suggested by my coach. She
tells me here's your protein intake, your carbs, and your fat,
(12:08):
and those go up and down based on the phase
that I'm in. Right now, I'm in a building phase,
trying to build muscle, and then I'll switch to a
cutting phase where I'll be reducing carbohydrates and fat but
not necessarily protein in increasing my cardio to cut body fat.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
The gist of it is that diet it's not that complicated.
People make it very complicated. They're looking for atkins and
this and that the other. And I always talk about
it in my office because unfortunately, I'm sort of at
the mercy of your diet. Right you come to me.
One comes to me and wants to look a certain way,
and I have to be hold into your dietary needs
and the way you eat. So if you're overweight and
(12:44):
you come to me, I've said it a thousand times
and I'll say it again. I'm not a magician, like
if you have intra abdominal fat, you have visceral fat.
There's nothing I can do now. There are definitely people
who are genetically blessed. My wife is one of them.
You are one of them. Is that mean you're athletic,
you have a high metabolism, you tend not to carry
weight in your mid section, et cetera. That doesn't mean
(13:05):
that if you didn't, if you ate recklessly, you wouldn't
turn into a balloon. But you're definitely have a little
bit of more. You have an advantage in that regard.
But again, there's proteins, there's carbohydrates, and you know, there's fats,
and there was this whole notion that you know, fats
are poison and you know et cetera, et cetera. And
there's so many things that have come up. But I
(13:26):
think the key is exactly what you said, which is
to eat with intention, have a diet that works for
your body, and make sure you I track my calories
not right, but I know exactly what I eat when
I eat. I know that, for example, I may have
eaten poorly, and my poorly is not a general poorly,
but two meals in a row I will one hundred
(13:48):
percent correct? Will I know? Next meal I'm at the office,
Sally's a quick one. Do you want to eat? I
want salad with chicken. I want fish with you know,
quin wa? I know to do that. It's not because
I'm lucky, It's because I'm smart. And I said, well, wow,
I've already pushed the scale. Do you weigh yourself on
a regular basis? Are you aware of your weight every day? Tacky?
(14:10):
There you have it? So have you yet to meet anyone?
I weigh myself every morning. And it's not because I'm oh, oh, oh,
you're you're I love how everyone always tries to spend
anything good in turn into negative, like you're you're so afraid?
What is the thing? You're so weight conscious? It should
be about how you feel. No, you don't check your
(14:30):
you check your bank account. You don't just go based
on how much money you think you have in your account.
I'm going to write a check. I think I have money.
You don't pull up your your bank balance and be like, oh,
I don't have enough money. So if you don't weigh
yourself the same time every day, you have no idea
where you're going. You have no idea that oh crap,
I gained for paths. So I weigh myself and I
(14:53):
try to make short adjustments, quick adjustments. I don't allow
four weeks to go by, and I'm now eighth, you know,
twelve pounds behind, and that's a much bigger correction. So
when you were pregnant, were you exercising?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Yes, I was.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
So I ran through my pregnancies until it started to
feel uncomfortable because of the size of my belly, and
then I just started walking right.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
So that's another thing, because what I want to highlight
here is you know, people will listen and be like, oh,
she's just genetically lucky, Like that's not relevant. She had
seven children. People seven children five to one. Her frame
is not designed for birth, right, A birthing woman is
five eight, has a thirty six chest, weighs one hundred
(15:41):
and fifty to sixty pounds, has a large vessel. How
tall is your husband? He's nine five nine, Okay, so
he's not at least he's not sixty four, right, So
to have seven children is not lucky. To look the
way you do, it's absolutely intentional, it's absolutely earned. And
the key is that number one, you were athletic, going
(16:02):
into pregnancies. Number two, you worked out during pregnancies. Right,
there's this other fake narrative, which is, oh, it's not
healthy to work out. This was something my mom would
have said from shit, the forties and fifties. We know
way better than that now that actually it is healthy.
It is actually better for the child for you to exercise.
(16:23):
I'm not talking about something psycho like do an iron man.
I'm talking about exercise whatever your body would have normally
been accustomed to up until. I know people that worked
out till three weeks before their pregnancy. I'm no obgyn.
I'm not telling you what to do, but I guarantee
you that I know for a fact you should be
exercising while you're pregnant. Don't overeat because you told yourself
(16:46):
that's good for the baby. It's not okay for the baby.
Don't balloon up. And then what you know magically you
will you will do well from your pregnancy. And then
the same thing is give yourself a little time and
hurry back and get in shape. So that's the cycle
you did seven times. Okay, so you hire this coach.
(17:06):
You're clearly genetically lucky, you're disciplined, you do everything, you're
crushing it, and then you're at what point are you like, well, shit,
I need to go see a plastic surgeon because to
me it sounds like everything's perfect right now, you're that
one in three billion. What do you need me for?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
So, after I had been training for a year and
a half or so, and this was by my third
actually by my second show, and certainly by my third show,
it was lean.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I had built muscle.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I saw what my body was capable of, and obviously
I hope I can I can improve on it. But
even now, But so my abdomen, for example, I could
see my top four abdominant muscles. I had a four pack,
and then there was a line, and underneath that line
was skin, and I had excellent abdominal muscle control.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
I could cinch it.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
All in even on stage, which I was doing pretty
well on my shows, because my abdomen looked okay, but
when I relaxed it, it looked like a deflated balloon
on the bottom half. And I had handfuls of skin
that I could pull off, and so I knew that
those were never going to go away because there wasn't
much fat under the skin. It was the skin and
(18:19):
my breasts were very, very defleated since I was lean
as well.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And did you breastfeed your kids?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I did all of them.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, So I mean, if I may, what was your
cup size going into pregnancy, like just in general, you're
not a very busty woman, right, No, it was a
or a bee or so right? And you breastfed seven kids? Okay,
so seven kids breastfed starting as a bee cup five
to one hundred twenty pounds and now you're bodybuilding, so
(18:47):
what do you suspect those breasts will look like just
completely deflated? Right? Just skin? Yeap? Okay, And again you
can compete with skin, and you can compete with having
to work around but definitely you're not going to be
your a game. You're definitely not going to get to
the top of your mountain that you're climbing. And so
(19:09):
even though you had mastered the art of pregnancies, recovery, whatever,
you even you were subject to the changes that a
woman undergoes. So you decided like, okay, I'm going to
go and I'm going to fix this. And how did
you start that journey? What was the first thing you
recognized after you looked in the mirror and your mirror
told you that you've reached the most you can do
(19:33):
on your own. What was the next step in that
process for you?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
So the next step was research and education for myself. So, honestly,
I found your podcast and I listened to was.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
That your first entry point into this? Like? Did you
have a girlfriend who had had it? The reason I'm
asking is because I think that the first step into
the space of plastic surgery is a critical one. You know,
you know, if your first entry point into math is
a terrible teacher, you grow to hate math, right as
(20:07):
opposed to your first step into math is this amazing teacher.
You might even be a math professor. So when you're like,
I'm working out, I'm fit, I'm great. I need to
do something about this, what was tell me? You're like,
did you automatically know what with surgery? Did you already
know it was abdominoplasty and I'm on making Did you
already know that or did you have to learn that? So?
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Actually I did do some consults locally in Colorado for
some of the non invasive procedures, cool sculpting and things
like that. But everyone that I want to is very
honest and they said this is probably not the best
choice and you probably need to go see a surgeon.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Okay, so you had some inkling that it was you
couldn't manage this sort of in a non invasive way, right, Okay,
so everyone said to you, okay, you need to see
a surgeon. So then what was the next step into
the process once you realize I need a surgeon?
Speaker 3 (20:59):
The next step was is how can I figure out
what it is I need done and how do I.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Choose a surgeon?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Great? So what did you do?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So? I did talk to several friends. I got recommendations.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
I got recommendations from the folks who are doing the
cool sculpting too, because they said, perhaps you go talk
to these people.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So I did. I went on websites.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
I looked at galleries, I looked at reviews, and then
started reading educational things on real self websites like that,
and then also listening to things.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
What triggered you to go into the podcast? Because I
think the reality is, what are we doing here on
a Sunday. We're creating an episode that we hope someone
else will listen to, and we hope that as a
result of listening to they make better choices. I mean,
that's the only reason I come do this, right, So
I'm always curious to know what. So you're on there,
you're on real self. You're looking at different before and afters.
You're understanding that you have some diastasis. That's what they're
(21:57):
saying about muscle separation. You know, you have the loose skin.
What triggered you to be like, oh, I should listen
to this thing.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I really like listening to podcasts because it's different than
the internet. The Internet things can be cherry pick they
can be edited, and it's hard to hear voice. And
through a podcast you can hear someone's personality, their values,
their opinions. And listening to patients was really valuable because
they're telling their story and there's no editing.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think that's very true, and I
think that it's it has turned out to be an
incredible medium because it's as authentic as you're going to get.
I mean, you could obviously fabricate all of it, but
over and over and over and over again. Eventually you're
going to go on enough dates with someone and they're crazy.
It is going to show up, right. So Okay, so
(22:49):
you did all that and you did some local consults
in Colorado, naturally. My philosophy, and I'm saying over again,
is if you can identify a provider, a surgeon in
your local area whose results and outcomes are as good
as you would like them to be, then stay local. Right.
(23:10):
If you live in Minnesota and you want a breast
dog and you go on the galleries and you're like,
these look great, then stay in Minnesota. But on the converse,
if you go in your local area and you look
and you just simply don't seem to feel like this
is what I the caliber of work that I want.
(23:31):
This is a one off. This isn't getting your hair
blown out, This isn't this isn't a spray tn this
isn't even dental work. This is a surgical intervention. That
is a one off. You do it once and you're done.
So if you look in your local area and you're like, honestly,
it's okay, it's good enough, but it isn't great, and
(23:57):
you are a person who great for all the things
that you do, and one hundred percent, you need to
look outside your local area because the reality is you'll
go to you go to you know, Chicago, you'll do
it and you'll go about your life and move on.
So it's a you know, it's a one undone kind
of mean. It's not like you have to go to
Chicago every six months for the rest of your life.
(24:17):
So you did some local consults, right, And what was
the feel that you had that hmm, I don't know what.
Why not do it in Colorado?
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Well, one of the consults I had, which was sort
of an overall feel, is your stomach is, you know,
not that bad? And I think we could get it
pretty flat. And it was a sort of noncommittal. This
could be pretty good and that wasn't good.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Right, So the essence you got from the experience you
had was no one gave you the sense or the
feel that it was high probability of great outcome. Yes, right,
because you'll you'll know and anyone knows who's ever had
a consolet with me. I'll never guarantee you anything. As
a matter of fact, one of the things that Sally
hates is that I tend to be a little bit
(25:09):
deflative in the transparency of what I say. But when
I know we can crush it, I'm going to tell
you we can crush it. I can maybe maybe you'll
be the one in five thousand that doesn't. But I
can tell you your true candidacy because of the experience
that I've had. And so what you were saying was
like you went to a few and they're like, um, yeah,
we can, we can do better than this. Or was
(25:30):
it wasn't It didn't seem as you said, noncommittal, didn't
seem very convincing. Yes, okay, And then so what did
you decide to do at that point?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
So, since I had educated myself from your podcast, I
listened to you and knew like you said that you
were the best candidate with someone who had maximized their
own body already, and that you were not going to
tell somebody it was going to be a great outcome
or even accept them as a patient if you didn't
think you could do a great jo. And when I
(26:00):
heard that, I said, I need to interview him. And
I might not be a great candidate, but at least
I'll know that, and I know if he takes me on.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
It's going to be great.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And so did you and I do a virtual? Did
you fly out here a virtual? Okay? So that's another
thing that I think has been really remarkable. And you know,
not much good came out of COVID. I can tell
you that much. I would say ninety eight percent of
what came out of COVID was a disaster. However, telemedicine exploded,
and what it did is it allowed the medical community,
(26:33):
patients and doctors to accept with more freedom that this
is an acceptable method of introduction. It doesn't substitute for
an exam. I can't look inside your nose, but with
good photography and an excellent interaction, I can tell and
I do. I don't know, maybe a third of my
(26:54):
patients are now virtual. I can do pretty goddamn good
assessment patience, and every once in a while, I'm like, listen,
I can't tell you. I need you to come in here.
And while they're rare and far and few between, then
we go back to the traditional method. So we did
a virtual and your sense was, will tell me how
(27:15):
your experience was during your consults.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
The consult was fantastic.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
You were very clear about what you could tell on
the virtual consult, which was that I would need a
full of dominoplasty with muscle repair. You told me for
my breast that I would need a lift and augmentation.
But you said you weren't exactly sure what kind of
scar I would need, and that you need to see
me in person, and that was enough for me. I
was okay with that level of uncertainty moving forward.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Okay, So then, so let me highlight a few things. Okay,
So she told me she has a four pack. Everything
above her valley button looks amazing. The main issue is
below her value button. Why the hell did you just
do a mini tuck. She's like the perfect candidate for
a mini tuck. Had you been told a mini tuck
by some other.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
People, the person who told me maybe we could get
pretty good said just do a mini.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Times so a mini tuck would have left you with
a terrible outcome. And this is why when we're dealing
with skin, the skin above the belly button, in order
for you to be a candidate for a mini tug,
you need to have these following criteria and if not,
if any one of these are not there, you're not
(28:22):
a candidate. Number one, the skin above your belly one
is pristine. Pristine meaning it's not loose. It can't be
gathered up and down. I'm not talking about bending down.
My son bends down. He's got loose skin. I'm talking.
You're standing there in front of the mirror and you
grab the skin above your belly button and it's ninety
percent taut, and the skin below your belly button looks garbage, terrible,
(28:45):
loose hanging. I don't care. As long as the skin
above your belly button is relatively taut. That's number one,
because it's not gonna change. So if the skin above
your belly button is eh and the skin below your
belly butt becomes phenomenal, you will hate the skin above
your belly button too late. The second and the main
thing is that the muscle has to be pristine. You
(29:08):
cannot have any protuberance any well, I have. Most of
my protuberance is below my belly button. Can't you just
sow the bottom and just leave the top? No, because
now what will happen, and you can see hundreds of
examples of this. The bottom of your abdom will be
tight and the upper abdomen will be worse than it
ever was. Why would it be worse Because now when
(29:29):
you relax, the pressure is disproportionately pushed to the area
that's lax, and the distension you have above your belly
button is worse than it was. And you can see
so many examples of side views on galleries where the
upper abdomen is a little full and the lower abdomen
is sucked in. And that is because somehow in the
(29:52):
muscle repair from your rib cage to your pubis that
there is some break in that. And the only way
you're gonn to look surfboard washboard flat is if the
surgical repair is from the top to the bottom. You
never do a partial repair, ever, because it will always
look like shit. So if you meet those two criterias
(30:14):
no skin above your belly button, and you have relatively
great muscles and your main concern is this loose, creepy
skin below my belly button is driving me nuts. High
five best candidate ever for a minute was that you no,
not at all, not at all, Okay, So that takes
care of that. So you tell your husband, Hey, honey,
(30:35):
I'm gonna go to LA. What was your husband's take
on this whole process? Because I think I've yet to
meet a healthy relationship in which the husband and wives have.
You know that the husband's the best husband on earth.
He supports me one hundred percent. You gotta still have
a dialogue with this guy. So you tell him what
(30:55):
and when, so he knows you're gonna first of all,
when you told him that, because I imagine he's looking
at you, go and my wife's a unicorn. She looks amazing,
she's having seven kids high five. And then you go
to him, be like, I want an A plus not
just an A. And does he look at you foggy
or is he like I get it?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
He had the best response ever.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
He said, you were beautiful just the way you are,
but I want you to feel confident and so do
what you need to do. And he's a physician as well,
so he was very realistic about it too. He said
that skin is not going to go away in its own.
His requirement was you only get to do this once,
so fine, the best person you can care.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Well, that's a great attitude and great response. It's interesting.
I've taken care of a lot of physicians and a
lot of wives of physicians, and they can go one
of two ways. They can be wonderful and easy because
they have an understanding, and they could be terrible and
disastrous because they think they have an understanding. Right like tomorrow,
if I you know somebody was doing my wife, I
(31:51):
hadd to do something. I could be crazy and be like,
act like I know what I'm talking about, which I haven't.
So that's great that he was on the better side
of that discussion. So when he told you that, so
then he knew that you were looking outside of Colorado
because you had said, hey, I went to the guys
here locally, I'm not really a fan of them. He
had no colleagues or references for you. As a result
of saying, hey, I talked to John, or I talked
(32:12):
to so and so and they recommended this guy, or
he lets you do it all on your own.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
He let me do it all on my own, which
made me a little uncomfortable, quite frankly, But I think
it was important, and he was there to support. But
I think it was important to him to know that
I was the one who was doing all the research
because this was my decision in my body.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Interesting. I like that. I mean, I don't know that
I would have been able to do that. My wife
set six spine surgeries, and I certainly was involved in
every decision making with her only because this is my
I mean, this is my ethos, right, I mean that
being said, she ended up having six spine surgeries without success.
So so much for my involvement, right, So that doesn't
there you have it. You did it on your own,
(32:50):
your husband getting involved, and you're happy, and I was
involved in that's to be determined. Four months ago we
went ahead and did surgery. You obviously came for your
when I always see all out of town patients the
day before, and the reason is number one, I uh,
I don't want to. I don't I have to see
you and examine you. In twenty years, there's probably been
(33:13):
maybe two or three people that showed up and I'm like, whoa,
it's not what we thought. And so it's critical that
I know that you know that we haven't that opportunity
to tweak and or cancel or what have you, And
then it gives us an opportunity to You're not you're
not gonna just meet me and get married. Like I
think that there is this moment that we have to
meet in person and you know, and consummate the relationship
(33:37):
that we had. So any rate, we meet and it's
everything that we had anticipated, no surprises, and so we
go ahead and do surgery. So the surgery that we
did is what I would refer to the most common
mommy makeover in that as far as the breast was concerned,
you had breasts that had lost volume, and as a
(33:59):
result of losing volume breastfeeding seven kids. In addition to
losing volume, you had some redundancy of skin that then
equates to needing an augmentation adding volume as well as
removing some skin as a lift. And as is the
case with the majority of my patients, especially someone like you,
(34:20):
the key is I want to look natural. And so
there's this just general term and you know, I'd bat
that down instantaneously because I don't want us using that
as our marker because I don't know what that means.
Make me pretty what, I don't know what that means.
So I'm you know, my background is very mathematic engineer.
I like specificity, as you are goal oriented, I need
(34:42):
to know where to end up. So we had gone
through tons of photos. I can obviously tell you're an athlete.
You cannot have big breast, You're tiny, So the key
was for it to be enhanced yet still elegant and
worthy of everything that you're doing. So we knew that.
And then as far as you're a and it was
concerned was exactly what you said. You were in great
shape if you had if you if you engaged your
(35:05):
core and walked up, I'd be like, wow, that's pretty good.
But the reality is that's you engaging your core. So
we want to be able to provide you an outcome
where when you're just standing there, you look better than
when you're engaging your core. And so you did have
muscle separation. Albeit I was shocked, and part of the
reason why I almost instantaneously told you need to come
(35:27):
on the podcast is seven kids look like you compete.
I again, my hat's off to you. But you did
have muscle separation, clearly, and then you had the loose skin,
and those two things needed to be fixed. Two questions
for you, and I don't recall, and you'll tell me.
Did you end up having a little vertical yes, okay,
Well I'm going to highlight that in a second. And
(35:48):
then did we end up doing an anchor?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Okay. So I think those two things are really important.
I'll highlight them for you. Many many patients, usually only
one or two kids, not seven, come to me and
they have loose skin and muscle separation. But it's not
that bad. And they've seen other surgeons and they're being
told that, m you may not have enough skin. That's
(36:11):
a common phrase. You may not have enough skin to
have a tummy tuck. What do you mean? What do
you mean? I don't have enough skin? Enough skin for what?
And what they're referring to. And this is very important.
I want you to listen, because when you have a
lot of loose skin, you're obviously a candidate. When you
have some loose skin, I refer to that whole collective
group as Malibu moms. I do so because it's a
(36:34):
metaphor for women who are in shape, who take care
of themselves, who are athletic, who usually have one or
two kids and bounce back, but don't look the way
they did and are accustomed to looking great. So now
they have this loose skin and slight protuberance. And to
everybody else, they're like, you should be grateful, that's all
that happened to you. But to them, they're like, you
don't understand. My body was my temple, like I was
(36:55):
rocking it before this. So those women, they don't have
that much loose skin. And what doctors are referring to
is when you do a tummy tuck, you make an
incision at the bottom of your abdomen, like where a
C section would be. Then you make an incision around
the belly button, leaving the belly button attached, and then
(37:16):
you lift up that abdominal wall like a hood of
a car. And now you have this loose skin. You
do the work on the muscles, and then you start
to pull downwards the redundancy, moving it from under the
breast down, down, down, down down. At some juncture, I'm
gonna pull, I'm a pull, and then there's no more
skin left. Right, you just can't pull forever. Right. How
(37:39):
much skin there is to remove is contingent and how
loose your skin is. But when you pull and you go, okay,
that's it, there's no more. I've reached the end. You
remove that skin, you close that, and then you make
a new opening, right, and then you go down in
there and you grab the belly button that steals where
it was before and bring it up. The question is
(38:00):
where is the hole from the old belly button, the
hole that was around your belly button that's moving down.
Where is it? And in these patients that doctors say
you're too lean, you're too fit. You don't have enough skin.
They're referring to enough skin to make that hole come
out and go in the trash. And so as a result,
that group of patients either gets dismissed or worse, ten
(38:24):
times worse. The surgeon just bends the bed as much
as they can and gets that skin out. Now you're
tambourine tight. Your scar is way the hell high, because
when you finally stand up, it pulls the scar up.
Your clitterus is rotated, your scar is thickened. I mean
it's and we see that day in and day out
(38:45):
on the gallery. The way you know all that is
you just look at the after photo. Right. You look
at it before underwear is down in the groin. You
look at the after and there's a mid drift underwear,
an underwear that's covering the lower third of your abdomen.
Would you do a tummy tuck and wear an underwear
that covers the lower third of your abdomen? Because the
(39:05):
scar is now that high? Where is your underwear? Where
do you wear your underwear?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Mine in a normal underway, right.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
And a regular bikini competitive And the reason is because
that hole from the old belly button. Rather than pulling
and chasing it, I just close it and leave it
as a little line. I refer to that as a
vertical scar or a retained umbilical scar. And if you
go to the gallery, you'll see hundreds of them, but
I don't see them, doctor Bunt. That's right, because they
(39:35):
heal and go away. What's key is that you have
a very low scar and a long abdomen. So you
have that, and then the argument is like, but I
didn't have that much skin in my breast, what did
I need an anchor for? Can't you just do a doughnut?
Can't you just do a lollipop? And the reason is
you shocked as to how much skin you do have,
because the key is for you to have a round
(39:56):
shaped breast. And many times, because people afraid of doing
the incisions and da da da dah, they compromise and
do what I call and mickey mouse lift that is
a lesser lift than is indicated in an effort to
reduce scars, which I understand and get now a shitty outcome.
And so despite you having not that much skin, we
(40:18):
ended up doing an anchor, albeit a small anchor, an
anchor scar okay, so here we are. Now you are
four weeks out. First question was how painful was it?
Speaker 2 (40:28):
It was not painful.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
No, I want you to repeat it, because I think
anyone listening is going to think there was some like
preparatory thing. Now, honestly, how painful was it?
Speaker 3 (40:37):
It was uncomfortable. I felt some soreness. I felt some
soreness is probably the best word, just discomfort. But as
far as.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Actual pain, yeah, agony. Agony the agony that is described
globally in the female community when communicating to one another
the preparation for an abdominoplasty. The reason why I highlight
this is for some people, the fear of pain is
so great that they'd rather just live miserably with whatever
(41:08):
abdominal contrary regularities they have while they are unhappy in
their lives and their marriagis and whatnot. And I get it.
I hate pain. I'm not good with pain. But I
can tell you, and I don't know why this is
the case, I can tell you that out of a
hundred of my patients, eighty five of them, so a
lot of them will say it was way better than
(41:30):
I had anticipated. It was mild discomfort. Maybe I felt tight.
I felt like I had done a couple hundred sit ups,
but definitely not anywhere near the agony that I had anticipated. Hence,
whenever they tell me dark around I love you, I'm like,
don't tell me you love me. Go write that shit
in a review so that other people can read it,
because that's one of the major obstacles for people. Now,
(41:52):
fifteen out of the hundred will say no, this sucked. Okay,
then par for the course, but it certainly isn't a
hundred out of a hund And then you got to
six weeks. And what's also common is at six weeks,
how how much were you jonesing and ready to get going?
At six weeks were you like, oh, I need another
couple of months to recover, or did you feel pretty
(42:15):
pretty solid at six weeks?
Speaker 3 (42:16):
I felt pretty solid. I definitely needed the full six
weeks to be ready. And then I think mentally I
was a little afraid I was going to mess something
up or hurt it or something like that. But I
took your advice to just listen to my body and
if something hurt, then stop doing it.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
But I was ready to go.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
So that's a second misnomer because a lot of women
on real self will be like, I'm eight months out
and I'm ted and I'm in pain and I can't move,
and my doctor said it it'll get better if at
I get out. Of one hundred patients, ninety five of
them are ready to go and get going. Not only
are they ready, they're like at five weeks, they're like,
(42:57):
do I really need to wait the next week? Yes,
you need to wait the next don't have to wear
this binder. Yes, you need to wear the binder. Why
I say that is because it's very common and it's
normal out there to expect this to be a one
year long journey. Like my ACL just crushed me. It
took me forever. That is not the case. And it's
not just because you're an athlete. I'm talking regular mom,
(43:19):
soccer mom, going to pick up kids, nothing special. At
six weeks, they feel pretty damn good. Next, at this juncture,
four months out, what are you not doing? Because you're
if anyone is taking the car for a drive, right,
if anyone's putting it through the through it's the test.
(43:41):
It would be you. What limitations do you have? No?
I want you to say it louder because I don't
think everybody heard that. You're four months out. You had
a sub muscular implant, means a muscle went and you
had we had to lift your muscle off your chest.
We repaired your muscles. So both those are very disruptive procedures.
(44:02):
And you're not just going and picking up kids from carpool.
You're actually training for a competition. So at four months,
only four months, what are you not doing that? You're like, God,
I wish I could do that.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Nothing, I have no restrictions. I'm lifting heavy and my
body feels solid and strong and the best.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
It's ever felt.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Okay, so that's yet another lie that, oh I did this,
Now I'm going to have to tiptoe around my body.
Now my body won't be able to do X, Y
and Z. This will fail if I do that. Or
I heard that if I do a tummy tuck, I
can't do pilates. It's all nonsense. If you do the surgery,
and you do it right, you should have mild discomfort.
(44:41):
At six weeks, you should be ready to kick ass.
It takes a moment, and by four months you should
be able to ski down black diamonds, run a marathon,
train for a triathlon and be ready for a fitness competition. Okay,
so let's talk about the final component, which is the
new you. So, by all intentsive purposes, anyone who knows
(45:04):
their body, it's you. Right. You knew what you were at.
You were maxed out before surgery, and so let's talk
about the delta that you've experienced. What are the things
that you are now? Like, holy like I do rhinoplasts,
I ask people how they're breathing. Is they're like, it's
pretty good, I guess, and then it's only after surgery, like,
(45:26):
holy shit, I can breathe. I didn't realize how much
I wasn't breathing. And when they get that point of
reference is when they know what they have. So you
had prior to surgery, and then after surgery, and now
you're almost in full full swing, right, You're you're almost
at welter weight. So tell me the delta of the
(45:46):
things you see, because what you experience is not unique
to you. This will be you the same thing all
women will experience when it comes to these surgery.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
So I will say without hesitation that my body right
now looks and feels the best has ever felt in
my entire life before surgery. Even I had gone through
the pregnancies before that, I wasn't as lean as I was,
I didn't have the muscle. So having a super flat
abdomen where everything looks fantastic feels fantastic, is such a blessing.
(46:20):
And my breasts have never looked like this they I
think the way they turned out is what people say
when they want them to look natural. If I could
have designed the perfect breast to just be born with
and no one would guess that they were artificial or enhanced,
this is what they would be and it's just lovely.
(46:41):
And I think as I continue to work on my
body in the ways that I can as far as
getting lean and building muscle, it's going.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
To be even better.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Yeah, that's amazing. It makes me very happy because you
can imagine for me personally, it's like you commissioned me, right,
you call me uptate doctor bond. Me and my husband
want this beautiful. We need a big painting for the
front of our lobby of our house, I mean the
foyer of our house. And I go and I go
into my studio and I just kill myself to make
(47:09):
this beautiful painting. And then I deliver this painting to you,
and it can go one of two ways. It can
either be well, okay, well thank you, and you guys
are like I leave and then you take it and
put it in the garage, which case I'd be devastated
because I made this with the hopes that it would
be received. Or conversely, like, oh my god, this is incredible,
this is even better than we had anticipated. And years
(47:30):
later I come to you and I see this thing
in your foyer, still there because you're enjoying it. And
so at the end of the day, unlike selling you
a merchandise or doing your taxes, the unique part of
what I do is that it's linked to this ability
to create something for someone who then takes joy in
the thing you created. Right, there's this that's this a
unique element about plastic surgery that I don't really don't
(47:53):
think there's any very many equivalencies. The last thing I'm
going to ask you, which is I think the thing
that I like most. How has this impacted your intimacy?
Speaker 3 (48:03):
It's been fantastic. I am so much more confident. My
husband is super happy. He keeps saying he did such
a great job.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
The reason why I ask you that, and I put
you on the spot. Is because I think the last
thing that I like to talk about is this this
notion that a woman goes and gets plastic surgery, then
her husband then sees her as more beautiful, and that
sparks intimacy, and it's so not true. The way it
(48:35):
goes is a woman who has a good relationship, has
a husband who loves her and sees her as the
woman that gave birth to her children, and one that's
aged with her and loves her the way she is.
She doesn't love the way she looks because she remembers
herself being better, hopes because she could be better. That
creates a percentage of insecurity. That insecurity then bleeds into
(48:59):
the intimacy, whether that is I don't really let him
touch me, I'm turn off the lights, I don't really
get out of the shower, I like to be dressed before.
I've heard seven thousand iterations of that. The woman goes
and gets plastic surgery done, She then sees herself in
the mirror and says, wow, I look fucking great, and
then as a result, has greater self confidence, which then
(49:21):
sparks the intimacy because the partner. Her husband sees a
more confident woman, and she is more likely to engage
in intimacy with freedom. That's how this goes one hundred
out of one hundred times in healthy relationships. And I
always like to ask because at the end of the day,
the end user experience is intimacy. It's the connection between
(49:46):
a man and a woman, especially one that's unique to
I gave birth to these kids. My vessel was changed.
Your vessel wasn't changed. That's a really tough challenge, right,
and it's great to see that. You know that reconn
doing of sorts. It's not that the marriage isn't an
a plus, but you can always add a plus to
a plus. So well, that's amazing. What if any last
(50:10):
parting thoughts suggestions do you have for someone sitting at
home and let's say they have yet to begin the
journey and they're I don't know, just like I don't know. Okay,
well she's lucky or whatever, she's you know, fit anything
that you would you think it was really instrumental. Maybe
you've been sharing that with your friends.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Well, I think it is really important to do what
you can to maximize your body. But if you do
that and you get to the point where you have
done all you can do, not be afraid to do
plastic surgery. I want to thank you and definitely to
encourage people because not just an intimacy, but in all
(50:53):
of my life, it has been absolutely transformative to feel comfortable,
to feel confident in my body and in all of
my movements throughout the day. It's been just life changing.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
So it's amazing, it's really fantastic, and we're very grateful
that you let us take care of you. We're grateful
that you came all away from Colorado to share your
journey with us. And I think people who are listening
can sense your authenticity and congratulations. I think you represent
what I would say the model of not American ideals,
(51:27):
but of humanity, which is I can have children, I
can have relationship with my husband, I can work on
my own physique. I can do all that and really
sort of strive at a high level of all things.
So congratulations. All right, guys, Well that was fantastic. As always,
we love having you as listeners. But we have two
(51:49):
requests which I end every episode with. Number one request
is if if you love the show, then go write
something nice. You know, think that the reviews that you
guys leave do two things. One they push our podcast
to the top, which then allows people to hear about it,
and the other it actually makes everybody who puts the
podcast together feel received, and that's really important. The second
(52:13):
is you never know who family and friends are going
to go and do plastic surgery, and it's only after
they come back in their botch that you're like, oh God,
why didn't you tell me you should have listened to
this that the other So share this podcast with the
friends and family you have, because the truth of the
matter is plastic surge is very private. Many people won't
come and tell you until it's too late, and then
(52:33):
there's really often not much we can do. So share, subscribe, download,
do all those things? All right? Well, Angel, thanks again
very much. Well that's a wrap. We will look forward
to having you again next week on Plastic Surgery Uncensored.
I'm your host, doctor Roddy Rabon.
All right, welcome to another episode of Plastic Surgery Uncensored.
I'm your host, as always, doctor Roddy Raban, and we
have a wonderful, fantastic, inspiring episode for you today. You
know that I am always super excited when the episode
includes a patient, because I think the learning value is
(00:28):
exponentially higher when someone is willing to share their journey,
because ultimately the purpose of the podcast is to educate
the listener about the possibilities that plastic surgery provides. And
since I have not had plastic surgery, although I've done
many cases, I sometimes feel like I'm not even really
worthy of having these conversations without the patient. So we
(00:51):
are blessed to have Angela all the way from Colorado,
one of my favorite places, visiting with us today. And
first of all, thank you for making the trip out here.
It's a pain in the ass and we appreciate it.
And I'm very excited because I think while we've had
many episodes about so called quote unquote mommy makeovers, which
(01:13):
is what our episode is about today, you're one of
the first patients I've ever had with your unique story
and so what I try to do, and we discussed
this before is to highlight individual journeys of patients, hoping
that each of them will sort of highlight a certain
aspect of a so called mommy makeover. And I think
(01:35):
the thing about you that is very unique and what
kind of caught my eye and I asked you and
burdened you with having to come here, is you have
seven children. And when I met you, you were competing
in bodybuilding. So everyone who's listening, I just want you
to listen to that again. When I met you, you
(01:57):
were competing without having had any surgery, and actually quite
reasonably successfully having had seven children. I think that right
there is like a just says everything that you need
to say, and then the next question is, okay, well,
if you're that unicorn and you had seven kids and
you were able to compete, what the hell, what the
(02:19):
hell are you doing coming to see me? And I
think that's really the reason why we're having this episode,
which says that I've heard this a thousand times. There's
a certain degree of guilt and shame and disappointment associated
with moms and having to go and have surgery. I
(02:40):
want you to see having to go and have surgery.
In other words, there's this sort of under ground discussion,
maybe not so underground, because you were mentioning to me
you saw a lot of this where it says that
if you work hard enough and your diet is strict enough,
and you do all the different diferent plans and exercise routines,
(03:05):
and you know, you know, get tonal and go to pilates,
you can fix and or get back to where you were.
And if you and if you can't, it's because you
somehow failed that right, That's right. Wouldn't you say that's
the case.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So here we have a person who has every excuse
to not have that said because you had seven kids.
I mean, we have patients who come to me for
mommy makeover, most notably the abdominal part, and they've only
had two kids or one kid, and you can look
at their photos You're like, oh my god, what happened
to her. It's like, oh, she had a child? Wow,
(03:44):
from one child, let alone seven. And on top of that, you,
if anyone has crushed it diet, exercise, discipline, time commitment,
it was you. So I thought it was really interesting
because I want to really highlight that maybe every once
in a while there's someone who can work out and
(04:05):
get back to where they were. But I would say,
having done this now for twenty years, that's far and
few between, and you are going to be that perfect
example of someone who did everything they were supposed to
do and yet still needed the assistance of, say a
surgeon to help them get over that hump. Okay, so
(04:25):
let's talk about you just a little bit. How old
are you?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Forty two?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Forty two? So that's just incredible every time I you know,
now I have two kids, so I have a three
year old and a one year old, and the idea
or notion of having seven children. I'm fifty one at
by forty two, It's just it's like I can wrap
my brain around that. That's just so incredible. And your
eldest is how old? Eighteen eighteen and your youngest six six,
(04:50):
so and so here you are. You're an amazing shape
when I meet you? How tall are you?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Five one?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
And how much do you weigh?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
One ten?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
One ten? And you had seven kids? And when I
met you, you're pretty good shape. You were competing. So
tell me your journey from mother, because I think a
lot of people just want to hear that part, like
how does this woman have seven kids and doesn't fall
apart and is able to somehow find interest in bodybuilding
to take us through that.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
So I was always fairly fit through all my pregnancies.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I was before a marathon runner.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So you were an athlete prior to getting pregnant.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yes, and then I ran most of my marathons in
between kids, have a kid, train, recover, train, run a marathon,
have a kid.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Repeat. And how much weight did you gain per pregnancy?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
About twenty to twenty five pound, Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So I want to highlight that part because I want
to for those of you who are not pregnant and
you want to emulate Angela. You can't emulate genetics, but
you can emulate some things. And it is definitely, definitely
a fact that if you were fit going into a pregnancy,
you will weather the pregnancy a thousand times better than
(06:01):
if you're not. And the reason being is that your musculature,
your core, the muscles that envelop your body, resist stretch
and being blown out. The second thing that I want
to highlight is that you didn't gain eighty seven pounds
or ninety three pounds or one hundred now if you
happen to, because you're diabetice and whatnot. Well, then it
(06:23):
is what it is, and hopefully you have a safe pregnancy.
But for a lot of people it's just just as
let go. They're like, you know, I'm having a baby.
It's good for the baby, it's good for the baby
to eat. And here you are gaining twenty five thirty
I think you know, we would consider healthy amount is
about thirty pounds plus or minus or whatever, and so
you gain, so that think that's very key. So you
(06:43):
gain around how much in between with each.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Pregnancy about twenty five pounds?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Got it? And then on average how much time between
each child two years? Two years? So that's very smart
because that's actually enough time to really so called recover,
because there are women who hit nine months, ten months,
and then boom they're pregnant again. Whether that was intentional
or accidental, it's fine, but definitely doesn't leave you a
lot of rooms. So, Okay, you were doing marathons.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I was, yes, And then after my last baby and
sort of when COVID hit, I had two wonderful friends.
We started training really seriously for marathons. Qualified for the
Boston Marathon, ran that, but all of that training without
strength training, left me in pain. And also I didn't
love the way my body looked. It was kind of soft,
not a lot of muscle. As I started to get
a little older, then I had a friend she was
(07:31):
fifty eight at the time and was doing bodybuilding and
looked more fit than I had ever been in my
entire life.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And she was really frank with me.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
She said, if you want to have a nice looking
body and be strong as you age, you needed to
start weightlifting. So I signed up with her coach and
just with the intention of learning how to lift, ways
learning how to get strong. And then my coach said,
you know, you might consider stepping on a stage, and
he did and it was so fun and I haven't
looked back.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So what was the So those were a a lot
of KIA elements. So one thing that people assume, and
the assumption is that exercises exercise, it's all created equal.
And while exercise, any version of exercise is better than
no exercise. Exercises have different impacts. So running has its impact,
pilates has its impact, and bodybuilding has its impact. And
(08:21):
one of the things that I always try to emphasize
to patients because you know, they come to me ultimately
to look better. Yes, it's to fix a diastasis and
get rid of lue skin and fix saggy breasts and whatnot,
but some total all that is hit octubon. I want
to look better, and I think that in order for
a patient to get an A plus, like holy crap,
(08:45):
how that's incredible. There is no way I can do
that without their help. And the way to do it
is they need muscle mass. Because I have a lot
of patients who I transform there before and afters are
fairly in credible and they look good, but they're really
all in all honesty, if we were to be super critical,
(09:07):
they're n A minus. And the reason their n A
minus is that they're just kind of soft, as you
had said it. And that's acceptable and amazing and fine.
But for those that want that ultimate outcome, I can't
get you there without muscle mass. And it's not being skinny.
It's about being fit and developing some muscle to fill
out the envelope. So you decided you want to start
(09:29):
doing that, and given that you're a marathon runner, you
obviously had incredible discipline, which is applying it to something else.
And what was the part that in your brain that said, wow,
I never done this before I started doing it. Let
me get on a stage. So explain that part to me,
because I always find that interesting because there's eye lift weights.
(09:49):
At least I did for many years. I never had
any interest in getting on a stage. It wasn't something
that ever thought, Oh that was the evolution of what
I do. So how did you decide to do that?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I think it's tuesday things. The first one is that
it's nice to have a goal. I am very goal
oriented and task oriented, and so having a deadline of
I want to look this certain way by this certain
time was motivating and my coach was encouraging as well.
The bikini division of bodybuilding requires a certain structure of
clavigal with and waste ratio and hip ratio and a
(10:23):
certain amount of leg and glue muscle, and I think,
genetically speaking, I have some of that enough to think
I might do okay.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
So sure, he's like, you're a good candidate essentially okay,
So let's stop for a moment here because I might
as well take advantage of this, since you are arguably
a true athlete, tell me a little about your diet,
because what people don't understand is Okay, Hey, I work
out seven days a week with a trainer and I
can't seem to make any progress. And then if I
(10:50):
push them hard enough and I ask them what they're
eating and what they're drinking, and I ask them what
their calorie intake is and what type of calories and
when they're eating, it all falls apart. So there is
no exercise in the universe, no trainer, no deadlifting, no burpies,
no squats, no lunges, no nothing without diet that's going
to make a difference. So let's talk about your diet
(11:10):
a little bit. Okay, what was your diet when you
were marathon runner, no pregnancies, What was your diet when
you were pregnant? Key? And what was your diet when
you switched over to bodybuilding.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
So my diet when I was marathon training, I wasn't
tracking what I was eating that much. It was a
lot of carbs, which are necessary for fueling marathon training.
And when I was pregnant it was it was pretty
intuitive eating when I was hungry, eating what I wanted,
but certainly not eating more than that. But I think
(11:46):
the big change when I've switched to bodybuilding in this phase.
Is that my diet is very intentional. I track my calories,
I track my protein intake. Protein is so important. Now
I have a solid base of protein and my diet
is controlled, not controlled, but suggested by my coach. She
tells me here's your protein intake, your carbs, and your fat,
(12:08):
and those go up and down based on the phase
that I'm in. Right now, I'm in a building phase,
trying to build muscle, and then I'll switch to a
cutting phase where I'll be reducing carbohydrates and fat but
not necessarily protein in increasing my cardio to cut body fat.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
The gist of it is that diet it's not that complicated.
People make it very complicated. They're looking for atkins and
this and that the other. And I always talk about
it in my office because unfortunately, I'm sort of at
the mercy of your diet. Right you come to me.
One comes to me and wants to look a certain way,
and I have to be hold into your dietary needs
and the way you eat. So if you're overweight and
(12:44):
you come to me, I've said it a thousand times
and I'll say it again. I'm not a magician, like
if you have intra abdominal fat, you have visceral fat.
There's nothing I can do now. There are definitely people
who are genetically blessed. My wife is one of them.
You are one of them. Is that mean you're athletic,
you have a high metabolism, you tend not to carry
weight in your mid section, et cetera. That doesn't mean
(13:05):
that if you didn't, if you ate recklessly, you wouldn't
turn into a balloon. But you're definitely have a little
bit of more. You have an advantage in that regard.
But again, there's proteins, there's carbohydrates, and you know, there's fats,
and there was this whole notion that you know, fats
are poison and you know et cetera, et cetera. And
there's so many things that have come up. But I
(13:26):
think the key is exactly what you said, which is
to eat with intention, have a diet that works for
your body, and make sure you I track my calories
not right, but I know exactly what I eat when
I eat. I know that, for example, I may have
eaten poorly, and my poorly is not a general poorly,
but two meals in a row I will one hundred
(13:48):
percent correct? Will I know? Next meal I'm at the office,
Sally's a quick one. Do you want to eat? I
want salad with chicken. I want fish with you know,
quin wa? I know to do that. It's not because
I'm lucky, It's because I'm smart. And I said, well, wow,
I've already pushed the scale. Do you weigh yourself on
a regular basis? Are you aware of your weight every day? Tacky?
(14:10):
There you have it? So have you yet to meet anyone?
I weigh myself every morning. And it's not because I'm oh, oh, oh,
you're you're I love how everyone always tries to spend
anything good in turn into negative, like you're you're so afraid?
What is the thing? You're so weight conscious? It should
be about how you feel. No, you don't check your
(14:30):
you check your bank account. You don't just go based
on how much money you think you have in your account.
I'm going to write a check. I think I have money.
You don't pull up your your bank balance and be like, oh,
I don't have enough money. So if you don't weigh
yourself the same time every day, you have no idea
where you're going. You have no idea that oh crap,
I gained for paths. So I weigh myself and I
(14:53):
try to make short adjustments, quick adjustments. I don't allow
four weeks to go by, and I'm now eighth, you know,
twelve pounds behind, and that's a much bigger correction. So
when you were pregnant, were you exercising?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Yes, I was.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
So I ran through my pregnancies until it started to
feel uncomfortable because of the size of my belly, and
then I just started walking right.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
So that's another thing, because what I want to highlight
here is you know, people will listen and be like, oh,
she's just genetically lucky, Like that's not relevant. She had
seven children. People seven children five to one. Her frame
is not designed for birth, right, A birthing woman is
five eight, has a thirty six chest, weighs one hundred
(15:41):
and fifty to sixty pounds, has a large vessel. How
tall is your husband? He's nine five nine, Okay, so
he's not at least he's not sixty four, right, So
to have seven children is not lucky. To look the
way you do, it's absolutely intentional, it's absolutely earned. And
the key is that number one, you were athletic, going
(16:02):
into pregnancies. Number two, you worked out during pregnancies. Right,
there's this other fake narrative, which is, oh, it's not
healthy to work out. This was something my mom would
have said from shit, the forties and fifties. We know
way better than that now that actually it is healthy.
It is actually better for the child for you to exercise.
(16:23):
I'm not talking about something psycho like do an iron man.
I'm talking about exercise whatever your body would have normally
been accustomed to up until. I know people that worked
out till three weeks before their pregnancy. I'm no obgyn.
I'm not telling you what to do, but I guarantee
you that I know for a fact you should be
exercising while you're pregnant. Don't overeat because you told yourself
(16:46):
that's good for the baby. It's not okay for the baby.
Don't balloon up. And then what you know magically you
will you will do well from your pregnancy. And then
the same thing is give yourself a little time and
hurry back and get in shape. So that's the cycle
you did seven times. Okay, so you hire this coach.
(17:06):
You're clearly genetically lucky, you're disciplined, you do everything, you're
crushing it, and then you're at what point are you like, well, shit,
I need to go see a plastic surgeon because to
me it sounds like everything's perfect right now, you're that
one in three billion. What do you need me for?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
So, after I had been training for a year and
a half or so, and this was by my third
actually by my second show, and certainly by my third show,
it was lean.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I had built muscle.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I saw what my body was capable of, and obviously
I hope I can I can improve on it. But
even now, But so my abdomen, for example, I could
see my top four abdominant muscles. I had a four pack,
and then there was a line, and underneath that line
was skin, and I had excellent abdominal muscle control.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
I could cinch it.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
All in even on stage, which I was doing pretty
well on my shows, because my abdomen looked okay, but
when I relaxed it, it looked like a deflated balloon
on the bottom half. And I had handfuls of skin
that I could pull off, and so I knew that
those were never going to go away because there wasn't
much fat under the skin. It was the skin and
(18:19):
my breasts were very, very defleated since I was lean
as well.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And did you breastfeed your kids?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I did all of them.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, So I mean, if I may, what was your
cup size going into pregnancy, like just in general, you're
not a very busty woman, right, No, it was a
or a bee or so right? And you breastfed seven kids? Okay,
so seven kids breastfed starting as a bee cup five
to one hundred twenty pounds and now you're bodybuilding, so
(18:47):
what do you suspect those breasts will look like just
completely deflated? Right? Just skin? Yeap? Okay, And again you
can compete with skin, and you can compete with having
to work around but definitely you're not going to be
your a game. You're definitely not going to get to
the top of your mountain that you're climbing. And so
(19:09):
even though you had mastered the art of pregnancies, recovery, whatever,
you even you were subject to the changes that a
woman undergoes. So you decided like, okay, I'm going to
go and I'm going to fix this. And how did
you start that journey? What was the first thing you
recognized after you looked in the mirror and your mirror
told you that you've reached the most you can do
(19:33):
on your own. What was the next step in that
process for you?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
So the next step was research and education for myself. So, honestly,
I found your podcast and I listened to was.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
That your first entry point into this? Like? Did you
have a girlfriend who had had it? The reason I'm
asking is because I think that the first step into
the space of plastic surgery is a critical one. You know,
you know, if your first entry point into math is
a terrible teacher, you grow to hate math, right as
(20:07):
opposed to your first step into math is this amazing teacher.
You might even be a math professor. So when you're like,
I'm working out, I'm fit, I'm great. I need to
do something about this, what was tell me? You're like,
did you automatically know what with surgery? Did you already
know it was abdominoplasty and I'm on making Did you
already know that or did you have to learn that? So?
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Actually I did do some consults locally in Colorado for
some of the non invasive procedures, cool sculpting and things
like that. But everyone that I want to is very
honest and they said this is probably not the best
choice and you probably need to go see a surgeon.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Okay, so you had some inkling that it was you
couldn't manage this sort of in a non invasive way, right, Okay,
so everyone said to you, okay, you need to see
a surgeon. So then what was the next step into
the process once you realize I need a surgeon?
Speaker 3 (20:59):
The next step was is how can I figure out
what it is I need done and how do I.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Choose a surgeon?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Great? So what did you do?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So? I did talk to several friends. I got recommendations.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
I got recommendations from the folks who are doing the
cool sculpting too, because they said, perhaps you go talk
to these people.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So I did. I went on websites.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
I looked at galleries, I looked at reviews, and then
started reading educational things on real self websites like that,
and then also listening to things.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
What triggered you to go into the podcast? Because I
think the reality is, what are we doing here on
a Sunday. We're creating an episode that we hope someone
else will listen to, and we hope that as a
result of listening to they make better choices. I mean,
that's the only reason I come do this, right, So
I'm always curious to know what. So you're on there,
you're on real self. You're looking at different before and afters.
You're understanding that you have some diastasis. That's what they're
(21:57):
saying about muscle separation. You know, you have the loose skin.
What triggered you to be like, oh, I should listen
to this thing.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I really like listening to podcasts because it's different than
the internet. The Internet things can be cherry pick they
can be edited, and it's hard to hear voice. And
through a podcast you can hear someone's personality, their values,
their opinions. And listening to patients was really valuable because
they're telling their story and there's no editing.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think that's very true, and I
think that it's it has turned out to be an
incredible medium because it's as authentic as you're going to get.
I mean, you could obviously fabricate all of it, but
over and over and over and over again. Eventually you're
going to go on enough dates with someone and they're crazy.
It is going to show up, right. So Okay, so
(22:49):
you did all that and you did some local consults
in Colorado, naturally. My philosophy, and I'm saying over again,
is if you can identify a provider, a surgeon in
your local area whose results and outcomes are as good
as you would like them to be, then stay local. Right.
(23:10):
If you live in Minnesota and you want a breast
dog and you go on the galleries and you're like,
these look great, then stay in Minnesota. But on the converse,
if you go in your local area and you look
and you just simply don't seem to feel like this
is what I the caliber of work that I want.
(23:31):
This is a one off. This isn't getting your hair
blown out, This isn't this isn't a spray tn this
isn't even dental work. This is a surgical intervention. That
is a one off. You do it once and you're done.
So if you look in your local area and you're like, honestly,
it's okay, it's good enough, but it isn't great, and
(23:57):
you are a person who great for all the things
that you do, and one hundred percent, you need to
look outside your local area because the reality is you'll
go to you go to you know, Chicago, you'll do
it and you'll go about your life and move on.
So it's a you know, it's a one undone kind
of mean. It's not like you have to go to
Chicago every six months for the rest of your life.
(24:17):
So you did some local consults, right, And what was
the feel that you had that hmm, I don't know what.
Why not do it in Colorado?
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Well, one of the consults I had, which was sort
of an overall feel, is your stomach is, you know,
not that bad? And I think we could get it
pretty flat. And it was a sort of noncommittal. This
could be pretty good and that wasn't good.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Right, So the essence you got from the experience you
had was no one gave you the sense or the
feel that it was high probability of great outcome. Yes, right,
because you'll you'll know and anyone knows who's ever had
a consolet with me. I'll never guarantee you anything. As
a matter of fact, one of the things that Sally
hates is that I tend to be a little bit
(25:09):
deflative in the transparency of what I say. But when
I know we can crush it, I'm going to tell
you we can crush it. I can maybe maybe you'll
be the one in five thousand that doesn't. But I
can tell you your true candidacy because of the experience
that I've had. And so what you were saying was
like you went to a few and they're like, um, yeah,
we can, we can do better than this. Or was
(25:30):
it wasn't It didn't seem as you said, noncommittal, didn't
seem very convincing. Yes, okay, And then so what did
you decide to do at that point?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
So, since I had educated myself from your podcast, I
listened to you and knew like you said that you
were the best candidate with someone who had maximized their
own body already, and that you were not going to
tell somebody it was going to be a great outcome
or even accept them as a patient if you didn't
think you could do a great jo. And when I
(26:00):
heard that, I said, I need to interview him. And
I might not be a great candidate, but at least
I'll know that, and I know if he takes me on.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
It's going to be great.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And so did you and I do a virtual? Did
you fly out here a virtual? Okay? So that's another
thing that I think has been really remarkable. And you know,
not much good came out of COVID. I can tell
you that much. I would say ninety eight percent of
what came out of COVID was a disaster. However, telemedicine exploded,
and what it did is it allowed the medical community,
(26:33):
patients and doctors to accept with more freedom that this
is an acceptable method of introduction. It doesn't substitute for
an exam. I can't look inside your nose, but with
good photography and an excellent interaction, I can tell and
I do. I don't know, maybe a third of my
(26:54):
patients are now virtual. I can do pretty goddamn good
assessment patience, and every once in a while, I'm like, listen,
I can't tell you. I need you to come in here.
And while they're rare and far and few between, then
we go back to the traditional method. So we did
a virtual and your sense was, will tell me how
(27:15):
your experience was during your consults.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
The consult was fantastic.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
You were very clear about what you could tell on
the virtual consult, which was that I would need a
full of dominoplasty with muscle repair. You told me for
my breast that I would need a lift and augmentation.
But you said you weren't exactly sure what kind of
scar I would need, and that you need to see
me in person, and that was enough for me. I
was okay with that level of uncertainty moving forward.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Okay, So then, so let me highlight a few things. Okay,
So she told me she has a four pack. Everything
above her valley button looks amazing. The main issue is
below her value button. Why the hell did you just
do a mini tuck. She's like the perfect candidate for
a mini tuck. Had you been told a mini tuck
by some other.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
People, the person who told me maybe we could get
pretty good said just do a mini.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Times so a mini tuck would have left you with
a terrible outcome. And this is why when we're dealing
with skin, the skin above the belly button, in order
for you to be a candidate for a mini tug,
you need to have these following criteria and if not,
if any one of these are not there, you're not
(28:22):
a candidate. Number one, the skin above your belly one
is pristine. Pristine meaning it's not loose. It can't be
gathered up and down. I'm not talking about bending down.
My son bends down. He's got loose skin. I'm talking.
You're standing there in front of the mirror and you
grab the skin above your belly button and it's ninety
percent taut, and the skin below your belly button looks garbage, terrible,
(28:45):
loose hanging. I don't care. As long as the skin
above your belly button is relatively taut. That's number one,
because it's not gonna change. So if the skin above
your belly button is eh and the skin below your
belly butt becomes phenomenal, you will hate the skin above
your belly button too late. The second and the main
thing is that the muscle has to be pristine. You
(29:08):
cannot have any protuberance any well, I have. Most of
my protuberance is below my belly button. Can't you just
sow the bottom and just leave the top? No, because
now what will happen, and you can see hundreds of
examples of this. The bottom of your abdom will be
tight and the upper abdomen will be worse than it
ever was. Why would it be worse Because now when
(29:29):
you relax, the pressure is disproportionately pushed to the area
that's lax, and the distension you have above your belly
button is worse than it was. And you can see
so many examples of side views on galleries where the
upper abdomen is a little full and the lower abdomen
is sucked in. And that is because somehow in the
(29:52):
muscle repair from your rib cage to your pubis that
there is some break in that. And the only way
you're gonn to look surfboard washboard flat is if the
surgical repair is from the top to the bottom. You
never do a partial repair, ever, because it will always
look like shit. So if you meet those two criterias
(30:14):
no skin above your belly button, and you have relatively
great muscles and your main concern is this loose, creepy
skin below my belly button is driving me nuts. High
five best candidate ever for a minute was that you no,
not at all, not at all, Okay, So that takes
care of that. So you tell your husband, Hey, honey,
(30:35):
I'm gonna go to LA. What was your husband's take
on this whole process? Because I think I've yet to
meet a healthy relationship in which the husband and wives have.
You know that the husband's the best husband on earth.
He supports me one hundred percent. You gotta still have
a dialogue with this guy. So you tell him what
(30:55):
and when, so he knows you're gonna first of all,
when you told him that, because I imagine he's looking
at you, go and my wife's a unicorn. She looks amazing,
she's having seven kids high five. And then you go
to him, be like, I want an A plus not
just an A. And does he look at you foggy
or is he like I get it?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
He had the best response ever.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
He said, you were beautiful just the way you are,
but I want you to feel confident and so do
what you need to do. And he's a physician as well,
so he was very realistic about it too. He said
that skin is not going to go away in its own.
His requirement was you only get to do this once,
so fine, the best person you can care.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Well, that's a great attitude and great response. It's interesting.
I've taken care of a lot of physicians and a
lot of wives of physicians, and they can go one
of two ways. They can be wonderful and easy because
they have an understanding, and they could be terrible and
disastrous because they think they have an understanding. Right like tomorrow,
if I you know somebody was doing my wife, I
(31:51):
hadd to do something. I could be crazy and be like,
act like I know what I'm talking about, which I haven't.
So that's great that he was on the better side
of that discussion. So when he told you that, so
then he knew that you were looking outside of Colorado
because you had said, hey, I went to the guys
here locally, I'm not really a fan of them. He
had no colleagues or references for you. As a result
of saying, hey, I talked to John, or I talked
(32:12):
to so and so and they recommended this guy, or
he lets you do it all on your own.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
He let me do it all on my own, which
made me a little uncomfortable, quite frankly, But I think
it was important, and he was there to support. But
I think it was important to him to know that
I was the one who was doing all the research
because this was my decision in my body.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Interesting. I like that. I mean, I don't know that
I would have been able to do that. My wife
set six spine surgeries, and I certainly was involved in
every decision making with her only because this is my
I mean, this is my ethos, right, I mean that
being said, she ended up having six spine surgeries without success.
So so much for my involvement, right, So that doesn't
there you have it. You did it on your own,
(32:50):
your husband getting involved, and you're happy, and I was
involved in that's to be determined. Four months ago we
went ahead and did surgery. You obviously came for your
when I always see all out of town patients the
day before, and the reason is number one, I uh,
I don't want to. I don't I have to see
you and examine you. In twenty years, there's probably been
(33:13):
maybe two or three people that showed up and I'm like, whoa,
it's not what we thought. And so it's critical that
I know that you know that we haven't that opportunity
to tweak and or cancel or what have you, And
then it gives us an opportunity to You're not you're
not gonna just meet me and get married. Like I
think that there is this moment that we have to
meet in person and you know, and consummate the relationship
(33:37):
that we had. So any rate, we meet and it's
everything that we had anticipated, no surprises, and so we
go ahead and do surgery. So the surgery that we
did is what I would refer to the most common
mommy makeover in that as far as the breast was concerned,
you had breasts that had lost volume, and as a
(33:59):
result of losing volume breastfeeding seven kids. In addition to
losing volume, you had some redundancy of skin that then
equates to needing an augmentation adding volume as well as
removing some skin as a lift. And as is the
case with the majority of my patients, especially someone like you,
(34:20):
the key is I want to look natural. And so
there's this just general term and you know, I'd bat
that down instantaneously because I don't want us using that
as our marker because I don't know what that means.
Make me pretty what, I don't know what that means.
So I'm you know, my background is very mathematic engineer.
I like specificity, as you are goal oriented, I need
(34:42):
to know where to end up. So we had gone
through tons of photos. I can obviously tell you're an athlete.
You cannot have big breast, You're tiny, So the key
was for it to be enhanced yet still elegant and
worthy of everything that you're doing. So we knew that.
And then as far as you're a and it was
concerned was exactly what you said. You were in great
shape if you had if you if you engaged your
(35:05):
core and walked up, I'd be like, wow, that's pretty good.
But the reality is that's you engaging your core. So
we want to be able to provide you an outcome
where when you're just standing there, you look better than
when you're engaging your core. And so you did have
muscle separation. Albeit I was shocked, and part of the
reason why I almost instantaneously told you need to come
(35:27):
on the podcast is seven kids look like you compete.
I again, my hat's off to you. But you did
have muscle separation, clearly, and then you had the loose skin,
and those two things needed to be fixed. Two questions
for you, and I don't recall, and you'll tell me.
Did you end up having a little vertical yes, okay,
Well I'm going to highlight that in a second. And
(35:48):
then did we end up doing an anchor?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Okay. So I think those two things are really important.
I'll highlight them for you. Many many patients, usually only
one or two kids, not seven, come to me and
they have loose skin and muscle separation. But it's not
that bad. And they've seen other surgeons and they're being
told that, m you may not have enough skin. That's
(36:11):
a common phrase. You may not have enough skin to
have a tummy tuck. What do you mean? What do
you mean? I don't have enough skin? Enough skin for what?
And what they're referring to. And this is very important.
I want you to listen, because when you have a
lot of loose skin, you're obviously a candidate. When you
have some loose skin, I refer to that whole collective
group as Malibu moms. I do so because it's a
(36:34):
metaphor for women who are in shape, who take care
of themselves, who are athletic, who usually have one or
two kids and bounce back, but don't look the way
they did and are accustomed to looking great. So now
they have this loose skin and slight protuberance. And to
everybody else, they're like, you should be grateful, that's all
that happened to you. But to them, they're like, you
don't understand. My body was my temple, like I was
(36:55):
rocking it before this. So those women, they don't have
that much loose skin. And what doctors are referring to
is when you do a tummy tuck, you make an
incision at the bottom of your abdomen, like where a
C section would be. Then you make an incision around
the belly button, leaving the belly button attached, and then
(37:16):
you lift up that abdominal wall like a hood of
a car. And now you have this loose skin. You
do the work on the muscles, and then you start
to pull downwards the redundancy, moving it from under the
breast down, down, down, down down. At some juncture, I'm
gonna pull, I'm a pull, and then there's no more
skin left. Right, you just can't pull forever. Right. How
(37:39):
much skin there is to remove is contingent and how
loose your skin is. But when you pull and you go, okay,
that's it, there's no more. I've reached the end. You
remove that skin, you close that, and then you make
a new opening, right, and then you go down in
there and you grab the belly button that steals where
it was before and bring it up. The question is
(38:00):
where is the hole from the old belly button, the
hole that was around your belly button that's moving down.
Where is it? And in these patients that doctors say
you're too lean, you're too fit. You don't have enough skin.
They're referring to enough skin to make that hole come
out and go in the trash. And so as a result,
that group of patients either gets dismissed or worse, ten
(38:24):
times worse. The surgeon just bends the bed as much
as they can and gets that skin out. Now you're
tambourine tight. Your scar is way the hell high, because
when you finally stand up, it pulls the scar up.
Your clitterus is rotated, your scar is thickened. I mean
it's and we see that day in and day out
(38:45):
on the gallery. The way you know all that is
you just look at the after photo. Right. You look
at it before underwear is down in the groin. You
look at the after and there's a mid drift underwear,
an underwear that's covering the lower third of your abdomen.
Would you do a tummy tuck and wear an underwear
that covers the lower third of your abdomen? Because the
(39:05):
scar is now that high? Where is your underwear? Where
do you wear your underwear?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Mine in a normal underway, right.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
And a regular bikini competitive And the reason is because
that hole from the old belly button. Rather than pulling
and chasing it, I just close it and leave it
as a little line. I refer to that as a
vertical scar or a retained umbilical scar. And if you
go to the gallery, you'll see hundreds of them, but
I don't see them, doctor Bunt. That's right, because they
(39:35):
heal and go away. What's key is that you have
a very low scar and a long abdomen. So you
have that, and then the argument is like, but I
didn't have that much skin in my breast, what did
I need an anchor for? Can't you just do a doughnut?
Can't you just do a lollipop? And the reason is
you shocked as to how much skin you do have,
because the key is for you to have a round
(39:56):
shaped breast. And many times, because people afraid of doing
the incisions and da da da dah, they compromise and
do what I call and mickey mouse lift that is
a lesser lift than is indicated in an effort to
reduce scars, which I understand and get now a shitty outcome.
And so despite you having not that much skin, we
(40:18):
ended up doing an anchor, albeit a small anchor, an
anchor scar okay, so here we are. Now you are
four weeks out. First question was how painful was it?
Speaker 2 (40:28):
It was not painful.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
No, I want you to repeat it, because I think
anyone listening is going to think there was some like
preparatory thing. Now, honestly, how painful was it?
Speaker 3 (40:37):
It was uncomfortable. I felt some soreness. I felt some
soreness is probably the best word, just discomfort. But as
far as.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Actual pain, yeah, agony. Agony the agony that is described
globally in the female community when communicating to one another
the preparation for an abdominoplasty. The reason why I highlight
this is for some people, the fear of pain is
so great that they'd rather just live miserably with whatever
(41:08):
abdominal contrary regularities they have while they are unhappy in
their lives and their marriagis and whatnot. And I get it.
I hate pain. I'm not good with pain. But I
can tell you, and I don't know why this is
the case, I can tell you that out of a
hundred of my patients, eighty five of them, so a
lot of them will say it was way better than
(41:30):
I had anticipated. It was mild discomfort. Maybe I felt tight.
I felt like I had done a couple hundred sit ups,
but definitely not anywhere near the agony that I had anticipated. Hence,
whenever they tell me dark around I love you, I'm like,
don't tell me you love me. Go write that shit
in a review so that other people can read it,
because that's one of the major obstacles for people. Now,
(41:52):
fifteen out of the hundred will say no, this sucked. Okay,
then par for the course, but it certainly isn't a
hundred out of a hund And then you got to
six weeks. And what's also common is at six weeks,
how how much were you jonesing and ready to get going?
At six weeks were you like, oh, I need another
couple of months to recover, or did you feel pretty
(42:15):
pretty solid at six weeks?
Speaker 3 (42:16):
I felt pretty solid. I definitely needed the full six
weeks to be ready. And then I think mentally I
was a little afraid I was going to mess something
up or hurt it or something like that. But I
took your advice to just listen to my body and
if something hurt, then stop doing it.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
But I was ready to go.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
So that's a second misnomer because a lot of women
on real self will be like, I'm eight months out
and I'm ted and I'm in pain and I can't move,
and my doctor said it it'll get better if at
I get out. Of one hundred patients, ninety five of
them are ready to go and get going. Not only
are they ready, they're like at five weeks, they're like,
(42:57):
do I really need to wait the next week? Yes,
you need to wait the next don't have to wear
this binder. Yes, you need to wear the binder. Why
I say that is because it's very common and it's
normal out there to expect this to be a one
year long journey. Like my ACL just crushed me. It
took me forever. That is not the case. And it's
not just because you're an athlete. I'm talking regular mom,
(43:19):
soccer mom, going to pick up kids, nothing special. At
six weeks, they feel pretty damn good. Next, at this juncture,
four months out, what are you not doing? Because you're
if anyone is taking the car for a drive, right,
if anyone's putting it through the through it's the test.
(43:41):
It would be you. What limitations do you have? No?
I want you to say it louder because I don't
think everybody heard that. You're four months out. You had
a sub muscular implant, means a muscle went and you
had we had to lift your muscle off your chest.
We repaired your muscles. So both those are very disruptive procedures.
(44:02):
And you're not just going and picking up kids from carpool.
You're actually training for a competition. So at four months,
only four months, what are you not doing that? You're like, God,
I wish I could do that.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Nothing, I have no restrictions. I'm lifting heavy and my
body feels solid and strong and the best.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
It's ever felt.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Okay, so that's yet another lie that, oh I did this,
Now I'm going to have to tiptoe around my body.
Now my body won't be able to do X, Y
and Z. This will fail if I do that. Or
I heard that if I do a tummy tuck, I
can't do pilates. It's all nonsense. If you do the surgery,
and you do it right, you should have mild discomfort.
(44:41):
At six weeks, you should be ready to kick ass.
It takes a moment, and by four months you should
be able to ski down black diamonds, run a marathon,
train for a triathlon and be ready for a fitness competition. Okay,
so let's talk about the final component, which is the
new you. So, by all intentsive purposes, anyone who knows
(45:04):
their body, it's you. Right. You knew what you were at.
You were maxed out before surgery, and so let's talk
about the delta that you've experienced. What are the things
that you are now? Like, holy like I do rhinoplasts,
I ask people how they're breathing. Is they're like, it's
pretty good, I guess, and then it's only after surgery, like,
(45:26):
holy shit, I can breathe. I didn't realize how much
I wasn't breathing. And when they get that point of
reference is when they know what they have. So you
had prior to surgery, and then after surgery, and now
you're almost in full full swing, right, You're you're almost
at welter weight. So tell me the delta of the
(45:46):
things you see, because what you experience is not unique
to you. This will be you the same thing all
women will experience when it comes to these surgery.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
So I will say without hesitation that my body right
now looks and feels the best has ever felt in
my entire life before surgery. Even I had gone through
the pregnancies before that, I wasn't as lean as I was,
I didn't have the muscle. So having a super flat
abdomen where everything looks fantastic feels fantastic, is such a blessing.
(46:20):
And my breasts have never looked like this they I
think the way they turned out is what people say
when they want them to look natural. If I could
have designed the perfect breast to just be born with
and no one would guess that they were artificial or enhanced,
this is what they would be and it's just lovely.
(46:41):
And I think as I continue to work on my
body in the ways that I can as far as
getting lean and building muscle, it's going.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
To be even better.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Yeah, that's amazing. It makes me very happy because you
can imagine for me personally, it's like you commissioned me, right,
you call me uptate doctor bond. Me and my husband
want this beautiful. We need a big painting for the
front of our lobby of our house, I mean the
foyer of our house. And I go and I go
into my studio and I just kill myself to make
(47:09):
this beautiful painting. And then I deliver this painting to you,
and it can go one of two ways. It can
either be well, okay, well thank you, and you guys
are like I leave and then you take it and
put it in the garage, which case I'd be devastated
because I made this with the hopes that it would
be received. Or conversely, like, oh my god, this is incredible,
this is even better than we had anticipated. And years
(47:30):
later I come to you and I see this thing
in your foyer, still there because you're enjoying it. And
so at the end of the day, unlike selling you
a merchandise or doing your taxes, the unique part of
what I do is that it's linked to this ability
to create something for someone who then takes joy in
the thing you created. Right, there's this that's this a
unique element about plastic surgery that I don't really don't
(47:53):
think there's any very many equivalencies. The last thing I'm
going to ask you, which is I think the thing
that I like most. How has this impacted your intimacy?
Speaker 3 (48:03):
It's been fantastic. I am so much more confident. My
husband is super happy. He keeps saying he did such
a great job.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
The reason why I ask you that, and I put
you on the spot. Is because I think the last
thing that I like to talk about is this this
notion that a woman goes and gets plastic surgery, then
her husband then sees her as more beautiful, and that
sparks intimacy, and it's so not true. The way it
(48:35):
goes is a woman who has a good relationship, has
a husband who loves her and sees her as the
woman that gave birth to her children, and one that's
aged with her and loves her the way she is.
She doesn't love the way she looks because she remembers
herself being better, hopes because she could be better. That
creates a percentage of insecurity. That insecurity then bleeds into
(48:59):
the intimacy, whether that is I don't really let him
touch me, I'm turn off the lights, I don't really
get out of the shower, I like to be dressed before.
I've heard seven thousand iterations of that. The woman goes
and gets plastic surgery done, She then sees herself in
the mirror and says, wow, I look fucking great, and
then as a result, has greater self confidence, which then
(49:21):
sparks the intimacy because the partner. Her husband sees a
more confident woman, and she is more likely to engage
in intimacy with freedom. That's how this goes one hundred
out of one hundred times in healthy relationships. And I
always like to ask because at the end of the day,
the end user experience is intimacy. It's the connection between
(49:46):
a man and a woman, especially one that's unique to
I gave birth to these kids. My vessel was changed.
Your vessel wasn't changed. That's a really tough challenge, right,
and it's great to see that. You know that reconn
doing of sorts. It's not that the marriage isn't an
a plus, but you can always add a plus to
a plus. So well, that's amazing. What if any last
(50:10):
parting thoughts suggestions do you have for someone sitting at
home and let's say they have yet to begin the
journey and they're I don't know, just like I don't know. Okay,
well she's lucky or whatever, she's you know, fit anything
that you would you think it was really instrumental. Maybe
you've been sharing that with your friends.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Well, I think it is really important to do what
you can to maximize your body. But if you do
that and you get to the point where you have
done all you can do, not be afraid to do
plastic surgery. I want to thank you and definitely to
encourage people because not just an intimacy, but in all
(50:53):
of my life, it has been absolutely transformative to feel comfortable,
to feel confident in my body and in all of
my movements throughout the day. It's been just life changing.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
So it's amazing, it's really fantastic, and we're very grateful
that you let us take care of you. We're grateful
that you came all away from Colorado to share your
journey with us. And I think people who are listening
can sense your authenticity and congratulations. I think you represent
what I would say the model of not American ideals,
(51:27):
but of humanity, which is I can have children, I
can have relationship with my husband, I can work on
my own physique. I can do all that and really
sort of strive at a high level of all things.
So congratulations. All right, guys, Well that was fantastic. As always,
we love having you as listeners. But we have two
(51:49):
requests which I end every episode with. Number one request
is if if you love the show, then go write
something nice. You know, think that the reviews that you
guys leave do two things. One they push our podcast
to the top, which then allows people to hear about it,
and the other it actually makes everybody who puts the
podcast together feel received, and that's really important. The second
(52:13):
is you never know who family and friends are going
to go and do plastic surgery, and it's only after
they come back in their botch that you're like, oh God,
why didn't you tell me you should have listened to
this that the other So share this podcast with the
friends and family you have, because the truth of the
matter is plastic surge is very private. Many people won't
come and tell you until it's too late, and then
(52:33):
there's really often not much we can do. So share, subscribe, download,
do all those things? All right? Well, Angel, thanks again
very much. Well that's a wrap. We will look forward
to having you again next week on Plastic Surgery Uncensored.
I'm your host, doctor Roddy Rabon.
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