Revenge Body- April Reign

Hey guys, so y'all are in for a treat today. I know I tell you all that every episode, but this episode is a real tree .

Let's show my people here, everybody, so, okay. Let's start from the beginning. Yes. Ma'am you , what happened? Tell me, tell me what it took to get you where you are now. Okay. It took getting to an absolute breaking point. So they say in every good story, there's this big sort of moment that the pretending this absolutely knows as the moment that things have to change. I didn't have that.

I had sort of used the news of being the dumpy friend, the friend that like my more attractive friends would take out with them to kind of bait in men and things like that. And I would be the friend that the , the guy's friend would have to hook up with and he would take the hit and so many things wrong with that. But we all know, we know that story. I think that , I think a lot of us know that story forever, but it was just something I got used to.

I started getting bullied for, I got boobs at, I think , 12, so developed very early. And for some reason, the boys in my high school just absolutely hated that. And they used to tease me about them. Where did you have high school? I went to high school in Europe and Europe. Yes . I wonder, is, is the less breasts aesthetic, more popular over there? Absolutely not. So I went to school, women traditionally have very large breasts and they develop very young. It's it's not an issue.

I don't know why. I think they just, weren't very comfortable with it at the time. And you know, boys will be boys was the motto back in the day. Exactly. Nope, not anymore. We don't do that anymore. We don't do body shaming. So they started calling me and my nickname was saggy Maggie in high school. I know it's terrible. I know horrific. Right. I look back at it now. And I think about the guys on my high school and I see them on Facebook and I'm just like, Hmm .

You know, I hope you found happiness. So I had always been that big friend. I started going to the gym about when I was 17. I was always a swimmer. I was a swimmer as a child. I love swimming. And I worked out intensely and I never got the eating. Right. I was an emotional eater. I had a very traumatic childhood at a very traumatic teenagehood . You know, it was always sort of drama and upheaval in my life. And my comfort was food. And it still is. A lot of ours is yes. Right?

I mean, you get a con , you get like a instant dopamine hit when you eat something fattening it's , it's just science and that's fine. But the problem is we come to rely on that and I still do to this day, honestly, even being the size that I am now, and that caught up with me, I was a size double XL. By the time I was 20 and met my now ex-husband in Germany. He was stationed there and with the army and seemed like a nice guy.

And we had a really wonderful relationship in the beginning and we would work out together. He was very fit. He was always in shape, but always looking at these fitness, Instagram models. And I would always kind of look over your shoulder and see them looking at him. And I want it to be one so badly. So I would work out harder, develop sort of a little eating disorder at the time, trying to be skinny, tried a lot of different things.

And they just didn't work for me, but kept trying, got very good at weightlifting, developed a lot of muscle that I still carry with me. And that's great. Became a swimming instructor and was very successful at that. So I was doing kind of everything fitness to get to the point of skinniness that I could because of my, in my head, the size zero, everything would be perfect and fine thing was going to be resolved. Yes ma'am. If I could shed who I was as a person before then I could be better.

So after that I had my child and obviously gained a lot of weight. As you do in pregnancy, you gain weight. That's normal. I ballooned at 231 pounds, which at five, two is a lot for me personally, it was just a lot. It was also a bad time with postpartum depression. My husband at the time was being very neglectful, but he started to become abusive with his controlling behavior. I was just stuck in a situation. I had no way out as a new mother working as impossible. I was trapped.

And so it came to a breaking point and I went to my doctor and my doctor said, you know, you're only four pounds off of being legible for weight loss surgery. And you've tried everything else. So why don't you try this? And he explained to me that obesity is, it runs in families. It's like any genetic disease that is passed down. So you can fight and fight and fight as hard as you can, but sometimes you need intervention.

And the way he explained it just make me feel like I wasn't taking the easy way out, which a lot of people will say I was, I do want to say something there. I , it bothers me that people say, oh, the sleeve is the easy way out. And it bothers me when they say, oh, having surgery, having any type of help is the easy way out. Because I wonder if those people have had any help because going through surgery is not easy, is not the easy way out.

Not at all really is the most difficult thing I've ever done. I, I wanted those full pounds gain . So for two weeks, the doctor said, you know, in two weeks, come back and if you weigh four pounds more, I'll refer you. So I, you know, I went on the ice cream and hobbies diet for two weeks and I just packed it on. I still didn't actually have enough weight and I would never recommend this to anyone, but I definitely put some rocks in my sign away and I want to change.

I wanted it that badly, right ? Yeah , you do what you do. So I went and I qualified, I spent six months learning how to eat properly. I spent six months learning how to do everything the right way and taking medication to start to slim down, then went through the surgery. It was incredibly difficult, the most difficult thing I've ever done, I couldn't eat for a year. And by that, I mean, I couldn't eat more than a couple of tablespoons of food for year at that time. Me and my ex it separated.

So going on dates was extremely difficult. You know , I'd have to explain, like we could either drink, he couldn't go on a dinner date. Right. And that's what everybody wants to do. So all this new found confidence, no way to go on dates. So we , we had separated at that point. It came to a head and I had lost a lot of weight at this point. And he basically attacked me.

I think he had sort of gotten jealous and through the divorce, after that he wanted to fight and he wanted to just belittle and destroy me. He came at me with an attorney. I couldn't afford one. Right? He couldn't, he wouldn't give us money for food. I was trying to close my infant at the time, doing what I had to do. I remember putting diapers from Walmart that I might not have paid for at the time, because you do what you do. And that's the low that I got to .

And actually on the day that I was served divorce papers, I decided I couldn't do it anymore. And I tried to take an out, I, when I woke up at the hospital, after that, it was like something inside of me. You gave me chills. And I just felt trapped. You know, I just wanted it to stop. I just needed an out . When I woke up at the hospital, something in me arose. And it was like, I don't know if it was revenge or it was fighting, but I wanted out, I want fighter in you. It was the fighter.

And she worked up. Let me tell you, cause she found a lion woke up. She came out swinging. Yes. And I decided that was it. I was done. So I continued to lose weight. I got down to my goal, weight of 128 pounds. So that's wow. A hundred pounds lost. I got my first surgery. I got my breasts , breast augmentation. I got kind of a discount deal. And I went with under muscle and that didn't work for me because of my weightlifting. That was a really bad idea.

Let me say that if you guys to our listeners, if you are very into weightlifting, please let your, your surgeon know if you're contemplating implants, let your surgeon know because it affects where they place your implant. If you lift a very heavy, it's a better if for it to be over the muscle then under, because if it's under, you can displace it by a strong lift. You can literally pop your implants out of place.

So just wondering if that's what happened, the implants at the time started kind of melting off of my chest to the sides, to your underarms. Yes , exactly. That's the one. And I moved back home after the attack happened because I just, I was too much. I couldn't, this was right before a good old coronavirus kit . So you know what, a time to move all of this was right before coronavirus. Yes ma'am oh my gosh . Yes. On a crazy year, it was a crazy year .

I moved back home, got a surgeon about fixing everything. And now the surgeon is an excellent surgeon. He really changed the game. And this is why I always tell women do not get the discount. Sargent do not save money on plastic surgery, police . I get a credit call. I do whatever you have to do to get the more expensive surgeon. You do not want to go back a year afterwards and try and get your fixed financing.

If you need to get financing, get financing, but do not go for the cheaper deal because you get what you pay for. You will add bottom line. I got a discount the first time and a year in, they looked awful. So it was still better than to begin with. By the time I'd lost all that weight.

I had sort of what I like to say, tennis balls and wind socks, sort of just floating in the wind and that all , all boobs are great boobs, but they weren't right for me at the time, after a lifetime of dealing with they didn't fit your frame, they did not know . And they were getting in the way with sports and things like that as well. So it just didn't work for me. And I want it to be a model. I had had a lifelong dream of being a model. I really wanted to go for it.

And this didn't fit the image of that. So the got them fixed in March of 2020, right before it all went down. So right as the lockdowns were happening before I got in, right before that day, I got them fixed and the surgeon did a wonderful job. At the same time. I also got a skin excision of my lower abdomen and I had some muscle repair done because pregnancy wreaks havoc . I had a second pregnancy after my first and I lost the baby, unfortunately. So sorry to hear that it happens.

It had really pushed me out with the skin there and the, they did that. They excised the skin. It looked a lot better, but it still wasn't right. The surgeon had accidentally left some extra on top of my belly button. So I went back December of 20, 21, 20 20 , and I apologized and they fixed it. And I'm left with this buddy stand up 230 pounds. And there's no, there's no skin sag or anything. And we can build that back BBL . Oh, you don't have any fat.

You can do a non-surgical BBL with Sculptra Las Vegas, the BBL Sculptra, it's a little expensive, but I mean, the girls who don't have any fat, it's an option. It is. I wasn't aware of it actually. I'm glad you told him the Vegas BBL . Okay. So then you did your tummy. You did your breasts , but before all of that, you had already lost the weight. So you didn't , you didn't take the easy way out and go straight from, you know, being overweight to having surgery.

And sometimes in my career, I've met patients who are at that 230 pound weight and they're coming in and they want something. They want to do something. They want to change the life. They want to look better. And ladies, I want all of y'all to know cosmetic surgery is elective and you need to be at a weight that's healthy. That's healthy for you to undergo an elective procedure in 230 pounds is not safe.

So I know a lot of patients will call different offices and see like, what's your maximum BMI, what's your maximum BMI. And ladies, please do your homework. Please. Don't go to, who will do your surgery, go to the person that you build a relationship with and who you trust. And you trust that they're going to do the right thing for you.

And I can't tell you how many times I've turned a patient away and sent them Hey, to a weight loss surgeon, or you just need to lose a little bit more weight to get into an appropriate BMI. That's healthy or healthier for surgery, right ? And that's the thing is often I'll see women saying I have 50 pounds to lose. Can I get a tummy tuck? And the sad thing about that is statistically.

I'm sure, you know, if we get that done, the likelihood of messing up the results by gaining weight back afterwards is still pretty high. You have to learn how to accommodate that new lifestyle as well. And that takes work. Do you have any tips for our listeners who might be considering cosmetic surgery? Give us some of your personal trainer tips on how, what are some tips for women to lose weight from you tape ? Uh , it's very easy on paper.

Again, it's, you know, less income, more exercise equals weight loss, but that's not it because we all know that there's this emotional gap in between that we have to fill. And if you're empty emotionally, you're going to be filling that. So that's where it takes the emotional work too . If you have trauma, if you have any sort of mental pulled ups and things like that, you need to address those at the same time. So this is a three-pronged approach.

We've got the exercise, the eating and the mental health. You have to get them all in order to be moving forward. So make sure that you're in a program that works for you, whether that's meditating therapy, medication, whatever you have to address that issue first before you can successfully get to the other two.

And I didn't, and it took me years and years and years of trying to come to the hard realization that it's absolutely that as well, you can be a size double zero, but if you're not happy mentally, you're not going to be happy. You're not going to be happy after surgery. And I, you guys, I'm preparing a really good long episode about self-esteem and plastic surgery and outcomes, and kind of that whole emotional roller coaster that comes with plastic surgery. I can't wait for y'all to hear it.

I have a very special guest speaker. That'll be a good one, but I feel that we're on the same page as far as you need to be ready emotionally. Absolutely. All of my patients that I've ever seen in person, I always kind of coach them through that. Like, let's make sure you're in the right mind frame before we go under the knife. Let's make sure you're good. Yes . You know, it's, it's not easy. It's not easy. It's never easy. And I think people do surgery is the easy way out.

Like getting a half of your body cut off and changed is the easy choice. And I , I disagree wholeheartedly. I think that's probably yes, the foster approach, but it's recovery takes weeks. My second operation got infected badly and that was a routine operation roundabout, December. And that got very badly impacted. And that took weeks on top of the recovery. Anyway.

Would you say that having that relationship with your surgeon made that complication flow easier, you had a good relationship with your surgeon and that's why I think it would be better to advise women to have a really comfortable relationship with our surgeons. Make sure that if you have any alarm bells, any red, any things like that, that you don't ignore them because when you need them the most, you have to feel comfortable with them. And I didn't with mine.

You guys listened to the initial consultation episode on Elisa . And I talk about building a relationship with your surgeon and how crucially important it is for him or her to understand you and for you to trust them. If that's not there, that foundation isn't there before you go under the knife and you have a complication, it's not going to be there after. And then you're going to have a really hard time.

And what I want is for all of my girls who have surgery, who have, you know, an elective procedure, let's make it go as easy as possible. Let's do all of our homework. Let's make sure all of our check boxes are checked off. All our I's are dotted and our T's are crossed and we're good to go. Absolutely. That's one, that's the most important thing. The outcome of this though, and this is the best part of the whole story is when I left my ex I had nothing. I was just, I didn't have any money.

I couldn't afford to get a lawyer for custody, anything like that. And he was going to make my life hell forever is what he said through getting the surgery. I actually procured a job modeling and I now make triple what he makes. And yes, girl, to get full custody of my child a hundred percent. Yes, yes. And move through my fans. And following I've been able to move to a safe neighborhood.

I was homeless before I got into my job and through it all kind of working together and coming together at the right time, doing that emotional groundwork enabled me to get to this amazing place that I am now. And it it's not possible without that, you know, that surgical intervention I'm so, so, so happy for you. I'm so you look so happy you guys on the website.

And when I make this post, you're going to see some before pictures of our beautiful girl, April here, and y'all will see the transformation. I know that in my career, I've met women who were in your same position, who were there, who were unhappy, who weren't happy at home, and we're trying to kind of make themselves feel better. And I think you brought up a really, really good point about make sure you're mentally ready. You're mentally ready.

And your story is just, wow, you hit bottom and you used it like a , what are those things called? That you can put a little marble in the middle, pull it back. And I'll just say , shot like a Slingshot. You used it like a Slingshot. You hit the bottom and you skyrocketed. I did well when you've got nothing to lose, you literally can only gain. And I just reached for the size of mine. And anybody can, would you say is the key ingredient to your success?

Come out, swinging light is going to that lion . Yes. Life is going to punch you down. It's going to throw you down again and again, the world is hard. You to fight. How much do you want to fight? How bad do you want this? You want it bad enough. You can have it. You just have to fight. Come out, swinging, maybe come out, swinging. I love it. I love it.

So LA , the lioness came out, you came out swinging, you made a plan and you executed, and you went from being homeless, living in your car to now making triple what you were, your ex was making. Right. And living in a nice neighborhood with your children and living your life happily. Yes, ma'am. I just bought my home and my car and it's it's it is it's. I still give back to charity and I make sure I donate to a lot of mental health advocacy charities as well.

Uh, I'd like to make sure I give back it's important because I remember where I've been and my hopes in the future to help women do the same thing I did. You were going through your weight loss surgery and kind of that separation. Did you have a support system in place? I did. So he was military. So there's a really good military support system for military wives that are going through that because so many do, because it's covered by Tri-Care and that's great.

So if you're a military spouse, it is absolutely covered. You just have to meet the criteria as well as breast reduction, after the surgery is performed and skin excision. So ladies , if you, what she's saying is that her sleeve was covered through insurance through Tri-Care. So I don't know the specifications of what those requirements are.

I do have a PDF up on my website, delete, delete, delete dot big butts , no lies.com, where I'm walking you through how to get your tummy tuck after your weight loss surgery covered by your insurance. So that's on the website. Y'all can go check it out. And I will try to find maybe a weight loss collaboration, so I can put something together for them . Usually the BMI requirement is 40. So anything over 40 years as a BMI is usually the first and a co-morbidity .

So for me, it was CCOs can be diabetes, things like that. Okay. Good to know. Okay. So you told us what your key to the success was, was coming out swinging. And what would you tell if you had a one-on-one conversation with somebody who was in your spot, what would you tell her? Or what would you tell you when you were there retrospective advice?

I think , think about the very best version of you that you could imagine and think about how that body would look, think about everything you've ever dreamed of everything and hold it in your mind and go for it. Do what it takes. Get help, get intervention, rely on surgeons, trust them, let them help you get there. And you can absolutely achieve it. You don't have, yes. It's important to accept yourself the way you are.

But if you're forever unhappy with that, you don't have to be unhappy forever. That's not necessary to accept yourself. You can accept yourself and also change. I have a lot of things to say about that subject because I completely 100% agree that you can love your body and decide to change something about it.

If there is something that you do not like, for example, a nose, if your nose bothers you, and it's something that you struggle with, you know, every day you're looking in the mirror and you don't like it, and it makes you feel down on yourself, there is nothing wrong with fixing it, or there's nothing wrong with doing something to make yourself feel better. When you look in the mirror and don't let anybody tell you that there's something wrong with it.

I know you guys haven't met my sister yet, but my sister is the complete opposite of me. And when her and I talk about this subject, her comeback is, well, we need a society needs to show women that we need to love our body, exactly how it is, and or we need to love ourselves how we are. It's a society problem.

And I do understand that I do agree that there's unrealistic standards for women and beauty and what they should look like and how we should look in our pictures and how our hair and our makeup and everything. And they're just unrealistic. So at the end of the day, do whatever makes you happy. If it's putting on makeup and you know, dressing up and looking nice makes you happy, do it. If walking around in sweats makes you happy, do it, do whatever it is that makes you happy.

If getting a breast augmentation makes you feel better, do it. The taboo, the stigma around body modification is it needs to be gone. It's ridiculous. We need to stop having opinions and stop dictating what other women can do with their body. It's not fair and it's not right. If they want to do something to their body to change it, they should, they can. And they will. And it's nobody's business to come over here and be like, no, you should love yourself.

I do love myself, but I love myself more now. Right? And my family tried to tell me, you know, my, my dad did not support the decision, although he supports the results, you know, and that's the thing is everybody has this opinion. And it's the same. As you know, when men tell women, you should weigh less makeup. You'd look better. It's not up to you. It's not up to anybody else to tell us how we want to look or how we want to act. If we want to change, we can change. It's not the 1940s anymore.

Like you don't need a reason. You don't need a reason. And if honestly, we should constantly be changing. We should constantly be growing and we should constantly be looking to better ourselves. That's how we grow as a society. That's how you grow as people, you continuously try to be better. I agree . Yes, exactly. I've seen so many women that I went to school with that have changed and had surgery and ones that haven't too .

I'll give them merit, but the ones that have changed and had surgery, the confidence that newfound confidence that they have has taken them to places that I just don't think they would have gone without it. Honestly, if it's the difference between $5,000 spend the $5,000. If that's, what's going to make you happy because $5,000, I mean, it's really not that much. When , when you're trading those $5,000 for a new found confidence, right?

Or a new found voice within you, that's telling you girl, you Brock, you're the bomb. Look at you. You feel good. You look good. That's what you're trading. Those $5,000 for. Right . But it's not when you trade it for that. Absolutely. I agree with you. Do you want to say one thing that you were saying earlier and I'm on clubhouse all the time. One of the rooms I was in, they were talking about chasing your dreams and how to chase your dreams.

And one of the tips that a motivational speaker was giving was write down how you imagine your life would be if everything was perfect. So if you're for me, for example, in my head, my perfect life would give me time to work out in the morning, have my coffee, put on my makeup all night , have a little time with my kids, do all these things that make me feel good. So the tip was, write it all down. What does that woman do?

What does the woman that you strive to be do if she works out in the morning, if she drinks, you know, [inaudible] , whatever it is that she's doing, do it. Cause that's the only way you're going to get there. That's the only way you're going to turn into that woman. So of course I have a lot of taught inner monologue and I'm telling myself Mavi , get up that Pilates at 11 o'clock , couple hours different there. Yeah. Get up , get up, go work out , go.

If you, if you lay here and he's going to come make you do it right , nobody is going to make you do it. Nobody is going to come tell you, Hey, you need to do better. You need to come up swinging . You have to come up swinging. You got to let the line has come out and she's going to convince you. You can do it. You can do it. And ladies, you can do it, whatever it is that you want to do in life, you can make it try. If you don't try, you're never going to know what's the worst that could happen.

We fail. That's how I felt about my podcast. I'm like, what's the worst that can happen. I fail. And nobody listens to me. Nobody likes it. And I had to have this inner monologue with myself too . Like, Hey, you have a message and it's important and you need to get it out. And if people listen, they listen. And if they don't listen, they don't listen. What's the worst that can happen. Exactly. And that's the key right? There is what can you lose at that point?

You know, I standing in the mirror for years ago, I used to avoid mirrors. I used to actually have the mirrors in my house covered. Cause I couldn't actually look at myself anymore. At that point. The self-hatred thing I know , I know it's awful looking back at it now and I wish I could go back and just kind of hug myself and say like, this is going to be a long journey because it really is.

I've put in the same amount of time with the therapy and kind of realizing who I am and myself, and it is going to be a long journey, but it's worth it a hundred percent worth it. And standing back there and looking at me now, modeling. And even now when I do photo shoots, you know, we came on the podcast and he said, it was so beautiful. Even now. I'm like, no, yes. To kind of convince yourself. Yes, exactly. That change.

I look in the mirror now and I look at the chiseled abs and I'm like, and I know it sounds, I'm grateful, but I look at them. I'm like, whose body is, I'll still go to restaurants and you know , people will have their chairs back to back and I'll try and navigate whether I can fit through them. And there'll be so much room between the chairs and I'll be like, and there's still so much for your brain to understand that this is the new you. Yeah , exactly. You can understand it and believe it.

Right. And if it took four years for me to accept that, I would say to ladies that had just come out of surgery, give it time, give it a lot of time. Give it more time than you think is necessary to come to terms with your new body because you've had your body, your entire life. And this is your new buddy going to be a lifelong. I mean, it's from here. This is your new body. And you have to learn to love yourself. This new, you have to love this new body. You have to love this new you.

And it might not be plastic surgery. It might be, you know, they just worked out. They got an in shape. It's still a process. Absolutely believing in yourself. Yes. Ma'am, it's the most important thing. It's what makes the process work. I'm so happy that you came on my show.

I'm so happy that you're sharing your story because I know there's so many women out there who have very similar stories or can take a little, a little piece of this with them and you know, have that inner monologue of who is the woman that you want to be. And what steps are you taking every day to become that woman? Yes . You got to come out swinging. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Well , um , you guys, this is episode one of the revenge body series.

Hey, we never heard about your ex oh the house. Now he lives in a shared apartment with some, yeah , he's single . And I just living my best life and he's very , very mad about it, but he can let them be mad. Just my notebook . Yes. It was such a pleasure having you on. I'm so happy for you. You're beautiful. You radiate confidence. Thank you. I thank you for listening to me.

I appreciate getting the message out to anybody who needs to hear it and how can our listeners reach out to you if they want to reach out to you? So I am on the Twitter, Instagram, everything is April rain , official rain spelt like the Royal rain. And you can find me in both of those places. Some of my pictures are a little bit racy, just like to warn people in advance that I love showing off that body. So show it. If you got it, you want to fly it, show it off.

So find Manda , April rain official. Yay. All right, guys, go give her a follow. And if you have a revenge body story you want to share. If you have a story you want to share to help other women, it doesn't have to be a revenge body. It can be any type of story where here you will have a message that you want to share with women who are in your position or who might be on the same journey as you come on, use my platform to share and spread a message.

Spread your message for women empowerment, spread your message to help anybody who needs the help.

Big buts , no lies.com . You'll see the online surgical recovery store.