Hey, guys. My name is Mavi, and I've spent the last 14 years in the plastic surgery and beauty industry working alongside top board certified plastic surgeons. Now I'm an independent patient coordinator who doesn't work for any surgeon. This means I have unbiased reviews for hundreds of doctors, and I can help you achieve the look of your dreams, whether that's a supernatural or a video vixen. I use my professional and personal plastic surgery experience to help you look and
feel your best. Join in on the fun as I talk to plastic surgery experts, friends, and real life patients about all things plastic surgery. Should be fun. Hey, guys, do I have the episode for you today? So I was scrolling on Instagram a few days ago, and all of a sudden, up pops up this page, the Fit BBO. And I was like, who is this? And, uh, of course, I went down the rabbit hole, and guess what, y'all? She's here on the show with me today, and it's going to be so much fun. Brittany, I am
so happy to have you on. I can't wait for you to share your story with us. And I am so happy to have you. Uh, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited. Like, girl, girl. I know. It's like whenever you meet somebody else who's really into what you're into, it's so much fun. Yes, it is. Especially because I feel like the surgery community was underground for so long for texting our piece and that everyone is now seeing,
like, hey, we can have public pages. We can go mainstream. Like, the conversation is building. And I love that for our community. I do, too. I love it. Whenever I kind of went on my journey, one of my main things that I was trying to do is remove the stigma or talk about it so much that people would not make a face or disagree and say, why did you do that? Why are you talking about this? Just not, uh, make it weird. So many women are doing it. We need to talk about it.
Especially because women are 90% of the patients that get plastic surgery. You know what I mean? We're the targeted market, so there needs to be these conversations around inclusivity and what the options are for us, uh, as far as services and stuff. Yeah. So let me tell you why I loved your page. Part of my show. What I talk about is how do you maintain your results after surgery and how you have to make the lifestyle changes prior to surgery in order for you to maintain those
results. It's not a one and done. You will lose, and you will look so good, and you're going to feel so good in the mirror, and you're going to look good in your clothes. But if you do not change your eating habits and you do not add activity to your lifestyle, you will end up back
where you were. And I'm not lying. I have seen plenty of times women who go through my journey, not with me right now, but in the course of my career over the last 14 years, where I've seen women go through the journey, have the tummy tuck, have the lipo, I don't see them again. They go through postop, and then I don't see them for a couple of years, and then I see them back in the office. What happened? Now they need liposuction again. Why? Because they didn't change. Their
lifestyle changes. And then here's the thing, you guys. Sometimes that fat can't be lipoed. I am so sorry to tell you, but that fat is accumulating around your organs, around your intestines. And guess what? You're going to have to lose it on your own. We can only liposuction. What we can pinch. And sometimes, whenever you come in after a tummy tuck and you did not change your eating habits, you will look pregnant from the side if you don't change. And I've seen it over and over
and over again. I experienced it myself. Whenever I told you, I went on that slippery slope of eating whatever I wanted after surgery, and I had to catch myself like, oh, crap, I'm doing the same thing. I better freaking snap out of it. And sure enough, I was able to snap out of it. And now that's why I'm here telling you, don't be a mobi. Change your eating habits prior to surgery. It will make your whole journey so much easier. And I'm so happy. So, Brittany, you're here to tell
them. Tell them, right? Tell them what you did. Yeah. So definitely, as you were saying, piggybacking off. What you said, that visceral fat that cannot be light bulb is something that we have to take care of on our own. And I wish more dogs understood that. I understand that everybody doesn't want to have a 30 BMI. Everybody's going to have a 27 BMI. But if you're one of those dogs who want that super snatch body, that Instagram model body, then dealing with that visceral fat is
going to come through diet and exercise. What you do in the kitchen and what you do at home or in the gym is going to play a major part in your results. And the closer you are to your desired weight, your desired look, the better your results are going into surgery. So a little bit about me, I found that the BBL when I started my own journey or after starting my journey, I am a mom of five,
and I was £220, and I was influenced. I did. I would get on Instagram and I would see the Instagram models and Bernie East and Britney B and even women like Cardi. And I was like, I love their body. But I didn't just want the Instagram model body. I also liked women like Serena Williams, Tk Fit, Guam. And I like the muscles that they had. So I started putting in my head, I was like, okay, so some of this is going to have to happen in the gym surgery to get my dream body
right? So I saw that working out, and then I was in the surgery community already, and I was following dogs like Duran 2020 Dog, some other Duran dolls, and I was seeing what they were contributing to the community. And I was like, well, I'm not really good at compressing. I, uh, don't like to father like that. So where can I help out in the community? What could I attribute in my story and on my journey that would help grow
our community? And I was like, well, I'm on this amazing fitness journey to lose the weight, because Duran had denied me. At first. She's like baby. No, Ma'am. When I first reached out to her, my BMI was, like, 34, right? And so she's like, you got to bring your BMI down if you want, basically to get surgery, because I'm doing all the things to lose weight. I started sharing it on my page, what I was eating, what workouts I was doing, and it started gaining traction, and people
started labeling me as a fitness dog. Like, if you want to lose weight, follow the expensive dog, because she's doing everything right to give her surgeon the best foundation. And it's amazing how people will help you find your gift, right? Because I'm like, oh, yeah, I am trying to give her the best foundation. No, I was trying to get that weight off so I can get to the third. But I'm like as time went on and that became a narrative that I was working hard to get my surgeon the best
foundation, it started to make sense. Like, more dogs need to get this, we need this to catch fire, that we really can give our surgeons the best foundation possible. So then when I went into surgery, BMI was at about, uh, a 28, and I was £150, which was my ideal weight. When I came out, I looked phenomenal. I didn't have the muscles I wanted all the way, but my body looked great. So I started going back into keto, and that didn't
really work. So any dogs out there, if you're doing keto, I'm going to highly recommend you stop it and start trying it. Like, keto is good pre up, but really try to go into a more whole food diet post stop, so that way you are helping that fat. There's some really good attributes of keto that I cannot take away from it. But a whole food diet, once you learn how to have a good, healthy relationship with food, is going to be more beneficial to grow that BBL.
I, uh, do want to add something right there before we go too far. And then I forget so with your BBL, ladies, after surgery, so many of you go into calorie deficit where you're not eating enough. Your body is like taking everything it can from what you have stored to get you through recovery. And then what happens? You start losing your BBL. Your fat is shrinking, your BBL is shrinking. You need to eat, you need to have at least this is what Kylie from Nutrition Plastic Surgery, her
recommendation. And she was like, I mean, as a general, she's like, everybody's different. Of course, we all know that. But as a general rule, at least 1800 calories during those first three months of recovery. In three months, you guys, I know you're going to say like, I'm going to gain weight or whatever. Even if you gain a little bit of weight during those first three months of recovery, you're giving your fat, that freshly transferred fat the best opportunity to live.
Uh, but when we say that at 1800 to 2000 because I tell my. Dogs, 2000, OK, at 1800 to 2000. Yeah, 1800 to 2000 calories, we are different. And so with that being said, because sometimes 1800 could still be too low for certain women, so we have to say that 1800 to 2000, give and take, that 200 different than whomever we're talking to,
right? Mhm, there's a valuable website, Precision Nutrition.com, and if you go on there, there's a free macro calculator that you can use to figure out your macros and it will tell you what you should be eating for what your goals are. And if you find out what your maintenance calories are, you really only need to eat 500 calories over your
maintenance diet. So if you weren't trying to lose weight or gain weight, you just trying to maintain your current weight, that's a good indicator of what you need to be eating at because you need to eat 500 calories over maintenance once you start healing right from your surgery. But you made a
very good point. A lot of women are coming out of their surgery and the first thing they want to do when they say, okay, I'm getting ready to get back in the gym twelve weeks post stop even, is they start cutting their calories to 1000, 201,300 calories. Because nine times out of ten you're overweight already, right? Let's just say you have a little extra weight that you still need to get off after surgery. And then you hire a fitness trainer or you go on Google and you find a
standard diet. So then you cut your calories down to 1200, 300, or 1500 calories extremely low. Then you start doing all the extra cardio in the world. You just cardio, cardio, cardio, treadmill, treadmill, treadmill. And that's all you think you have to do to get the weight off. And we've been taught wrong. We've been taught so wrong for so long. Uh, that uh, general rule is two to three
days of cardio, not for cardio days. But during the cardio, after you go in the gym and lift, you want to create what they call the X shape in your body after surgery. And the X shape is basically building up your upper body and your lower body, but keeping your weight small. Once you build that X shape up, your results are going to be phenomenal. And lifting weight is not going to make you look manly. Like, you're not going to
lift weights and look manly. You're going to lift weight, build curves, and build up lean muscle mass. Replacing the fat with lean muscle mass is going to give you the best results because you're going to do something called body recomping. And so that's why I'm really happy that the Fit BBL is finally, like, making some traction so that I can start educating dogs on these words. Educate them. Um, um, this is your opportunity. Tell us about macros. Tell us about body recon.
Tell us about everything. Right? No, that's the magic word after surgery. It's not weight loss. It's body recon. And that's the word that every dog should have in their vocabulary when they're talking to a trainer. Even if you don't hire me as a personal trainer, if you talk to any trainer, the word of the day is body recomposition. When you go to a trainer, you need
to say, hey, I'm looking for body recomp. I don't want to necessarily change the number on the scale, but I do want to change the way in which my body is composed. Because you can have it one or two ways. You can be composed of fat or you can be composed of muscle. You stay the same exact size, but you drop that fat and replace it with lean muscle mass, which is going to create more feminine curves. It's going to make that BBL look like you had two, three rounds. It's going to make
them legs look like you was born with it. I'm telling you, you're going to be all around fine. Fine. Like wine fine. Mhm. People won't ever question if you had a BBL or not. No one walks up to me and ask me if I have a BBL. People are actually shocked when I tell them that I had a BBL because they're like, wait, why your legs so big? Because I Weight Train. I pick up heavy shit. Because I'm strong, um, days a week.
And that came from education and three years of searching and really digging deep to figure out the secrets in the fitness community, you know what I mean? And bringing it back over and finding that little sweet spot. I'm like, Wait, there is a void. There are not a lot of trainers who talk enough about helping dogs that have had plastic surgery, if anything. Uh uh, you probably could say the same. I'm, um, supposed to see in trainers talk about surgery in a way like.
They could be avoided. Yeah. You can do in the gym what you can get on the surgery table. Yeah. And I'm just like, well, that's good for some people. I feel like they literally exclude us. I found so many trainers that I would have worked with, but I like to watch their lives or listen to them talking on their pages and instantly get offended when they say something about a woman with a BBL. Like, oh, yeah, that's not real. That's not homegrown at fault.
It is offensive, right? It is kind of offensive. I'm not going to give someone my money because I'm African American and I take it I always say I use it as an example when people do, like, race people. I'm not going to give someone that is racist my black dollars. Right? It's the same thing with a trainer. I'm not going to give a trainer who is biased to women who have had plastic surgery my money. When you don't like us, mhm, you're like you don't like the community that
I stand for. Most of our community is made up of mom. Oh, my God. Can you say that again and as loud as you can? The majority of our community is mom. We are moms. All of us, a lot of us. We have carried life. We have birthed life. I had to tell someone. They tried to put me up against a woman who inherited. Not one kid, one lady. She was like, I don't see the point. I asked her, I said, how many children have you pushed out to a vagina, mhm? How many have you carried? She said
none. Then me and you can't have a conversation. I can't talk to you. You haven't even been where I've been. You haven't had to go through what I've went through. Your body hasn't changed through child caring and childbirth. Like, girl, you don't even know yet. Hold on. Wait until your hips get wider. Wait till you can't get that belly back to normal because your muscles are spread out. You just wait.
Exactly. I had one trainer who I was listening to who really honed in on that, and that's Dr. Nicole Monroe. And I love her. Okay. Like, if you guys need someone to follow I feel like she never talks anything bad about plastic surgery because she actually had mentioned that she wanted to get her breasts done right. But she said it best. She said, I can't talk about a woman getting a tummy tuck because I haven't had a baby. I can't talk about a woman getting a BBL because that's not my
flight. I've never had to worry about having a big butt because while I didn't get breast, I got a big butt. So I can't talk about a woman who made that choice because I know I want the choice to get breast. So I can imagine that that's the same choice of someone who doesn't have a but they would want to get a BBL. Mhm and I was like, It's really just that simple, you know? Like, respect someone for their body autonomy and mind your body's autonomy.
Let me tell you something that somebody told me whenever I was planning to launch the podcast. So it was a man. They stay in our business, okay? So I told him, oh, you know, I'm, uh, going to launch a podcast for female empowerment about plastic surgery, about empowering women in their plastic surgery journey. And he was like, well, isn't that an oxymoron? And I was like, what do you mean? I got instantly defensive, like, what do
you mean? Isn't that an oxymoron? He's like, well, you're empowering a woman, but you're asking them to change. Like, empowering should be empowering them to love themselves how they are. Oh, I love when they say that. And I was like, Wait, hold on. You really don't understand at all any of, um, what I'm talking about, because you've never lived it, so you don't understand. And to you, it might sound foreign and weird, but to the women who I serve, they
understand because it's a journey. Going through plastic surgery and deciding to change your body is such a journey. And men cannot understand. And people who have not gone through it, they really don't understand either. I got very defensive that day. I get extremely defensive about it because their argument is, well, why would you encourage them to stay natural? Because it boils down to mental health. There are people who like myself, we're
okay. We're okay for the most part, until you walk in a room feeling great about yourself and you have a nice dress and someone goes, Are you pregnant? No. Do you know how many times I heard that before? I had a tummy tuck, uh, for years. But it happened to so many of us. Mhm I was doing all the work, working out, but that stomach, because I had Diast eye just would not go
down. In actuality, I was making it worse. The exercises that I was doing, because we just now have started having a conversation about TVA muscles, right? Like, exercises that help with our deep core muscles. But this comes with years of education, trial and error. I'm 34 years old, so I grew up with the crunch error. Crunches. Mhm sit ups. Crunches, sit up. Six packs are made through crunches and sit up. Now we're finding out that everyone has a six pack, but they're made in the
kitchen, not the gym. You don't get ABS in the gym. You get ABS in your kitchen. And what you do in the gym just helps to further push them out. But when you're a woman who has already had children and you have diastasis directly from your pregnancy, you're doing more harm than good. When you go to do those crunches and those sit ups in those planes, you're not supposed to be in those positions, you're further tearing apart your
abdomen muscles. So now when you're thinking, oh, okay, I didn't get my sit ups, I did my crunches. And then you're losing weight everywhere else, but your abdomen is protruding out. So then you get that question. Like, you get that question. Oh, when are you due? Or are you pregnant? Again, that shit is defeating. Like, wait, no, I've been working out. I've actually lost weight. I look pregnant. Mhm. It's so disheartening. It is. And then people think it's okay to act
because we're women, right? It's okay to ask you if you're pregnant. Someone asked me today, Are you pregnant? And I'm like, no, I'm bloated. Really? Yeah, because I'm bloated and I had some alcohol. So I'm in swell hill right now. Mhm. Ladies, Swell Hill is real. Swell Hill is real. I had a post on, uh, my Instagram this week where it was like well, postop week one. And it's like a drawing of a horse where, like, at the beginning of the horse, it's
like a kindergarten drawing. And then at the end of the horse by the tail, like, it's a professional drawing. And I'm like, week one is like, uh, the kindergarten drawing. Week eight, you're like, in the middle. It's showing form, but it's not perfect. And then by a year, we're really starting to see what it's going to look like. Yes, definitely. I'm like, no, I'm not pregnant. I'm definitely bloated. And I'm in swell health. So that's where we're at with that. At 20 months
post up. Uh, almost two years post up and I still swell. And my cycle just makes me blow so bad. This is OOH Lord. So what I noticed after my surgeries, and I've actually talked about it on other episodes with the faha doctor. Oh, I love her. We've done episodes together. She's so much fun. She's another woman that I found her and I was like, I am obsessed with what you're doing. I need
to have you on my show. Because what I have found in the community and I love supporting women who create something out of necessity for the community. For example, for her, she was like, I need my faja altered. How am I going to do this? She did it for herself, and then she started doing it for other dogs. And that's how she ended up building her business. And for you, look, you needed it for yourself. You were doing it for yourself. And you ended up building something for
the community. And I think it's so beautiful. Um, Kylie, the nutritionist, she was building something for the community. And I really love supporting the women who are doing stuff for the community because they know nobody else is doing it for us. We got to do it for ourselves. For the ones who are coming, for the ones who are behind us. We are the ones setting. Don't be afraid of looking for information and all of these things. We're kind of paving the past.
Yeah. Because a lot of the dogs before us, uh, there were so many Good Durand dogs that I followed. But the community went through a weird period. And I don't know if you were around during this time where we had, like, probe madness and mean girls for a while. We had pros and ming girls. Maybe jealousy. There's a lot of jealousy I feel and envy when people or women start talking about
having plastic surgery. And women who don't want to have plastic surgery, who are against plastic surgery, or who honestly just can't afford it, decide that they're going to be mean to us. Um, how many dogs of women have had surgery? And they were just mean. And what happened was it was like this push of the older dogs that have been in the community for a while. We're like, I'm out. Just like, wait, no, come back. We needed that guidance. We needed that information. And so many
dogs. I wish we could go back and be like, hey, can you come back to your page and come back. We need that. But, uh, I definitely love that there are more pages and more brands popping up, it seems like weekly. That is solely for us. Solely for us. And it's from women who are in the community, other women who are going through the same things. They're experiencing, like, roadblocks. And they're like, okay, how do I get
past this roadblock? And then when they figure it out, they're like, I got to tell the others. It has been such a great experience, from conception of the idea to watching it flourish. Because I just made the 50 bill page in March, and it just seemed like my surgery page wasn't doing much of anything. And I was like, I think I need to take this outside of my surgery page and give it its own page and really make it a business. I file for my LLC. We are in the works to get it
trademarked. We're just doing everything. I'm now training other women to become fitness trainers, specifically around plastic surgery. So I'm starting with women that I know. Wow, that's so amazing. Yes, because it's going to take more than just me. I am one person. And while I would love to service everybody, life is not promised today or tomorrow, you know what I mean? And I just don't want it to die with me, right? And so I'm like, I want to have it where I can branch out and have other
women trainers. So anybody that's getting plastic surgery and you're looking to be a trainer, and if you like fitness and you want to get into that training space, I would love to team up with you all. Because it's going to take more than just me. It's really going to take more than just me. It's the community. It's going to take the community and the spreading of the word in the right way because I really want to see the fade out of, uh, what's that medication
people be taking for weight loss? Yeah. I really want to see fetamine m fade out of our community. Uh, if you're on your plastic surgery journey and you're anywhere between three months and six months out of surgery, you need to stop taking that phenomenon, especially if you're like, three months within surgery. I've had patients surgeries canceled by the anesthesiologist because they were on fetaminine too close to surgery. And besides that, it's terrible for you. I understand that
we're trying to lose weight. I understand, I get it. And sometimes it feels like there's no other way, there's no other solution. But I promise you there is. Especially now. If you're looking to lose weight and you're trying to get an aid. It doesn't have to be finger mean. There's other things now. We talk about it on previous episodes about what the celebrities are using to lose weight, like Kim and Chloe to get down to what they look like now. And it's not Finname.
Yeah, I don't like it. And that was another reason for birthing the fitbl. Uh, just seeing dogs that were having the adverse effects of fetamine and then dogs were having heart conditions caused by fetamain. Mhm, it was like, there's a better way. I just really wanted to see the toxicity and with all things that are good and bad. Right. And so the good things about plastic surgery, yeah, we get confidence and yeah, we feel great. But in that mad dash to get surgery, we're not giving
ourselves enough time. The city be able to say, hey, I need you to give yourself a year or go get on that table. I am highly recommending you give yourself a year. Well, why a year? I want it tomorrow. You do want it tomorrow, but you didn't lose the weight to get it there tomorrow because you need to lose weight to get down. And I want to know that you're going to lose the weight in about six months and keep it off for six months the way
you give yourself healthy habits. Mhm the last thing you want to do is plan a surgery three months out, and after that you can go right back to the way you were doing yeah. To what you were doing before. Yeah. And then you're back on the table. I really don't like the second round. It's not even second round. First round pool. Second round pool. That 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, eight. Now you just becoming a habit. You're like, I don't like that culture. I don't like that culture.
I agree. Let me tell you, ladies, part of what I try to do with you whenever you come with me, whenever you come talk to me, you get a consultation for me. What I try to do is figure out. Like, okay, what look are you trying to get to? For example, a lot of women will say they want a, uh, tummy tuck, BBL, and I have to find out, okay, which one of these is your priority? If it's your stomach or is it your stomach and then your
butt? Because if it's your stomach and then your butt, we can combo if it's only your butt and your butt is the most important thing, we can separate it. But most of the time when you have a multiple procedure wish list, we can break it up into two surgeries and get everything when we plan properly. So it doesn't have to be, uh, those people who are getting two, three, I mean, 4567
rounds. It's because nobody helped them plan properly how to have these procedures and what order to have them in order to get the best results from the next one. There's so much more to planning these surgeries than just, oh, I want to have a tummy tuck. Yeah, this guy does it a good job, I'm going to go to him. Uh, no, that is not how it happens. It does happen like that, but most of those people who do go that route end up not happy with their results or end up going back
under. So what I'm trying to avoid is all of that. For example, I had a phone call yesterday with one of my girls. So she had already had a tummy tuck and she has a dog ear on one side. So my question is, I've already seen women come in for dog ears before in my career. I've seen it. I've seen them only fix the dog ear. And then once the dog year is fixed, they realize, oh, I have a hip dip right here. Oh, I should have gotten this fixed while I
was under. And then now we're like, okay, well, now you have your dog ears fixed, but your hip dip is sticking out on one side and not on the other. And it's just like really planning with the patient and, uh, the doctor and trying to figure out how are we going to get to what look you're trying to get to with the least amount of surgeries and the least amount of recovery, go only have recovery one time, maybe two times. But most of the time, if we plan properly, we can get it all done at once.
At one time? Yeah, at one time. M especially because every time I imagine that every time we go under, we're risking our lives. We have children, we have to get back to mhm, and there is risk. And how many times are we risking? How many times are you willing to risk your life to look good and some clothing for a few years? That's what it boils down to. How many times? How many times? What kind of story or legacy would you leave
behind if something happens to you. You want people to say, oh, she was just dissatisfied with something so small because we keep going back. I am a Duran doll and for some reason at the bottom of our stomach, the ran leave like a little extra fat. Me and my husband have the deuce that is to make us look more natural. Right. Mhm really like all that area.
I can tell you. So this is actually a really good teaching opportunity and I've been looking for a way to talk about this whenever they're doing a tummy tuck, because it's not just Durandalls, it's like tummy tucks in general, unless they are specifically telling you that they're going to liposuction it flat. Or there's like some doctors who call it a lipo tuck or they have different
names for it. But most board certified plastic surgeons who are doing everything safely will not liposuction that space between your belly button and your breast, above your belly button to your breast. Imagine in between your ribs from your belly button to your breast. That area is not going to get liposuctioned during your tummy tuck surgery most of the time. And you don't want it to be liposuction because that is where you are
carrying the blood flow to your incision. So when they cut your tummy and they're bringing it down, they're trying to do everything possible to make sure that that flap survives. So when you can't liposuction, create a bunch of damage and trauma to the area and then pull it down and expect for all the blood flow to work perfectly and to not have a wound breakdown. So I know a lot of times women are like, oh, they're unhappy because of
this. But if you think about when you're going to get a tummy tuck, look at that, how it looks up above your belly button, it'll be tighter and flatter. But that I guess you could like if it's bulging or if it's soft, that will still be there, but stretched out and flatter torque and pulled all the way down to your panty line. Unless you specifically ask your surgeon to liposuction and they will probably tell you no. You can ask, but they'll probably tell you no. And I'm glad they
will. And if they don't, they might tell you something like, oh, we trim it. Because sometimes they'll trim the fat while they're doing the tummy tuck. They'll trim the fat on the inside with scissors so it won't be so round or so it won't pop out as much, but there's no way around it. I always wondered if I should get a second round just for a little like bow right there.
Yeah. Let me tell you what I did. I had my tummy tuck and I knew I was going to have that because I had seen it before with a lot of patients who they weren't at their goal weight. So when I had my surgery, I was not at my goal weight. I should have been, but I wasn't. And going into it, I knew
I wasn't at my goal weight. So with that knowledge going into surgery, I knew I was going to have that little, like, uh, it's not a pooch, but it's like a little I. Guess the best way to explain it is a pooch. Yeah, I get it. The best way to describe it is kind of like a pooch, but it's just like a little bit of skin and fat, right. And it goes down. Sometimes if I put my father on and I can press it can go flat. It just doesn't stay flat, but it can go there.
Yeah. So what I did was I had my tummy tuck in 2017 and then in 2019, when I did my breast, because I broke my surgery up, I did my tummy tuck lipo, 360 BBL in one surgery. And then in 2019, I went back and I did my breast. I did a breast lift reduction. She made them smaller, lifted them, and then I got an implant. And when I went in for that, I told her to clean up my lipo. So she went back and cleaned up my lipo from my tummy tuck. So
that's how I did it. I'm very happy with the sequence in which I did things because I was able to. If I had needed around two, which at that time, my butt was already so big, I was not going to take anymore. And she was like, are you sure you want me to throw this away? And I was like, don't stick it back. I do not need any more fat factor. My butt got huge because I got on that slippery slope of eating after surgery. But it looked good. I liked it. So she just liposuctioned
everything. And I asked her, like, did you AB etch me? And she was like, I did a light AB etching. Okay, I see it because I love my results. And that's how I did it. So she came back in and lipo suctioned. After my tummy tuck was like, well heeled. All the skin had already laid back down. I was still in my garment. But she did an amazing job. And that's really what I recommend if you're going to do a tummy tuck, lipo, 360 BBL, there's so many opinions on how what order you should do
it, how you should do it. Can you do a tummy tuck and a BBL at the same time? If your main priority is to get your butt as fat as possible, don't do it at the same time. Do your lipo suction first. Uh huh. 360 lipo BBL, and then come back and do the tummy tuck. And they can liposuction you again. And liposuction the fat, the skin that they're going to pull out. They liposuction it. Once they get it off the table liposuction, you get all of that fat and then you can do your round
two BBL. Nice. Yeah. And there's another option. So if your BBL is like an afterthought, if you're like, my main priority, like, for me, my main priority was my stomach. I need to get my stomach flat or back to normal. The BBL was like, I want it. I want the shape. But it wasn't my main priority. So I did a combo procedure where I had my tummy tuck and my lipo 360 BBL at the same
time. So I was able to recover once I took two weeks off of work and I was able to recover one recovery for both of those procedures and the BBL fat. The reason why they tell you all not to do it at the same time is because they're like, oh, you're going to be laying on your butt and all the fat is going to go away. And so I've talked about it on the show before, how I did my little nest, like my pillow for it, where I would lay in the middle of it so I could suspend my butt and not be
on the bed, but still be folded over. That's how I did it, because my BBL was like second thought, my main priority was my tummy tuck. And if it's like that, if you're like, I want to do a BBL. I don't want to have surgery again. You can combo it. You have to find a doctor that does good is good at combo procedures. Because not all of them are definitely no, they're not. Please find a doctor that's good, that works
with your body shape. I feel like a lot of dogs go to people that their friends knew of or the first doctor that pops up on their page and they're like, this doctor has great results. And I caution against that. Yes, take advice from your friends and family members who have had plastic surgery, but look beyond their results and looking for other people with different body shapes results, because then it might shift and change your mind on that doctor. Like, really do some research. My
sister is a cabral doll. And in my mind, I just knew I was going to be a cabral doll. Like, oh, no, I want her. Same results. But I did not like her tummy. Good girl. So this is interesting because I think you're the first doll that comes on the show that had surgery in Columbia. Dr. Yeah. Hold on. You need to spill the beans. Because when I started the podcast, I was like, don't go
anywhere. You better be having surgery here. It's so unsafe because I was seeing all the shit that was coming through the office of people coming back and they're having all of these issues. And so I kind of came into the podcast knowing all of that, like, what was going into the hospitals, for example. You all don't know that from Brownsville
to Dallas texas. None of the hospitals would take a patient who had surgery on, um, the other side of the border was having terrible complications, and no hospital would take her. Wow. The only reason I know is because they called me to try to get me to help them find somebody that would take them. They ended up coming to Conroe, Texas, and that was the next place from Brownsville that they could find where they would take her. So these are the things that I was
seeing that I'm hearing that I'm living. And then with the podcast, I was like, don't go anywhere. But the more and more I talk to women and there's specific doctors in the Dr. And in Columbia that I hear really great reviews, I hear really great results from, and all of their dogs are always so happy. So I'm so happy to have somebody so spill the beans.
Okay. So the way to get around that when I started planning my surgery in the Dominican Republic, I heard about the horror stories of women coming back to the state and not being able to get servicing and being told to fly back. So I started interviewing doctors here in the US. That, hey, if I have an emergency and I come back home, could you take care of me? I found a lady, Dr. Madeline Hunt, and she said, if anything happens and you
need me, I will definitely care for you. She's a Kelsey Sivo doctor, and so she did all of my labs for me before I left. I was completely upfront with her, and I also told her I was going to do my letter to go back to work. She hooked you up? She did. I said, I'm going to need my back to work letter, too, because I told my job I was going to be out, have a surgery for my ovaries because it's hip, but they can't act on your business, right? So I had went through a cabral doll. Who? What's
her name? Oh, my God. I can't think of her name right now, but she does the FMLA leave paper for the community. Okay. She did my leave paperwork, but I knew to return back to work, I was going to need my doctor to sign off on that. And so she was like, I got you. You're doing everything right before you leave. And so I support it. I will take care of it when you get back. My experience in the dr was great. I jumped on the flight. I went by
myself. I did hook up with a few dogs on Instagram, and because I was already known in the community for being a workout dog, a lot of women that were there at the time I was there knew me. Like even one dog. I didn't speak Spanish. But she walked up. She said, hey, expensive dog. I love it. Do you need translating? I said, Idle, can you help me because I don't know what he's saying. And she's like, he's saying, Grab the number and have a seat and just listen for the last digit, like
the last two digits on the paper. I was like, thank you. And see, that's the kind of things we need in the community, because me and her had conversations online. We don't know who each other are because so many of us and just at least having that handle and stop changing your handles, because so many women change their handles. And it's like, who are you? I was the cabral dog. Now I changed my name from a hill dog. 2023. And it's
like, Why you just leave? It the same. We get that you change, but pick a name and stick with it, okay? That helps us. But she was telling me what she was, and I went right into my message, and I was like, yes. Okay. Thank you so much for helping me. Take a translator, pick a reputable recovery home. Do your research. But my experience over there was great. I did have an emergency situation. I did require a blood transfusion during my time there. My recovery house. I used the old school recovery
house. I didn't go with the fancy recovery house. I went with a good old down home cooking type recovery house. I felt like I was at my mom and my other house. You know what I mean? That's beautiful. It didn't have all the fancy mansy, like, uh, upgrades that people look for in recovery homes. I wanted to feel taken care of, and that is exactly what happened. So I did say at, um, Metropolis Recovery Home, I'm always going to recommend them. They know what they're talking
about. When I came home from surgery, I would say home, back to the recovery house, right? So I left the hospital, which was Cipla. Cipla was clean. You can smell the bleach. I think sometimes people can scare people, like, oh, it's not that modern, but modern doesn't mean good. You know what I mean? Ah, it's a hospital. It looked like any other hospital I had been in. It was clean. There were women cleaning all the time. When I went into surgery, the surgery room was clean. I know this
because I was looking around. Uh, I'm a weed smoker. And so when they first gave me my medication to knock me out, I didn't go down right away. That is so crazy that you said that, because literally an hour ago, I was just on the live, and she was talking about how cannabis use. You have to disclose it to your anesthesiologist because you require more anesthesia. Yes. I did not go down. They gave me the anesthesia, and then Duran came in. She was on her
cell phone typing, and she's looking at them. I'm looking at her. They're looking at me, waiting for me to go down. And I'm staring at them. And then all I hear them say is something, something. They're talking in Spanish week. And they were like, um then they went back over the anesthesia. She went back over the poodle with some things. She came back, she said, okay, Mommy counts to ten. You can go to sleep, okay? I think I made it to three, because whatever she did, she gave you.
A little bit more. It was what I needed. I was like one baby. I was gone, okay? I didn't wake up at the end of my surgery. When they were finishing my tummy tuck, Duran was in there. I woke up, I looked up, I was loose. I wasn't all the way woke. You kind of like turnover in your sleep type situation. So she's like, I'm finishing your tummy tuck, Mommy, okay? I'm like, I just wanted to get the blanket out of my face. I was like, can you get the blanket of my. Note?
They heard me, too. I'm like, literally like, get this blanket. Um, and they moved the blanket, and I knocked back out. When I came to, it was like a horror film. I'm not going to lie to you. I was in the recovery room with six other women, and they were coming out of the anesthesia, and their pain, I guess, is starting to kick in. And they were having it, okay? They were not having it. One girl was screaming, I woke up. The anesthesia makes you throw up for some people. I woke up and started
vomiting. I was like, Why? I had to be the vomiting. I could be a screamer. I woke up vomiting. I was just like, they were not going to make it fast enough. Before I could even get the words out, it's like I opened my eyes. My stomach was like, oh, we woke cool. I couldn't even get the words out, and I'm going to throw up. They cleaned me up immediately. I went back to sleep. When I left the hospital and visit to my recovery home, the recovery home owner was getting ready to
leave. She had her personal shoulder. She had her bag. And she was like, all right, I see you tomorrow. And she looked at me and she said, Mommy, you don't look too good. I said, I'm okay. I'm in pain. I just had a BBL and tummy tuck. Ma'am, I feel like a truck has hit me. And she's like, no, you look worse than surgery. You look like something is wrong. And I was like, no, I'm fine. I was just like, some medication girl. She
put their purse down. She put some bags down. She kicked her shoes off, and she just sat there and stared at me. And she was like, no. So they gave me liquid iron to drink. She gave me my medication. She got food from me, made sure I was drinking water, but she did not leave my side. And before I knew it. An hour after that, I passed out. She was right. I was not okay. My hemo level had dropped, and I needed a blood transfusion, so
I was back to the hospital. Now, that is where I had the worst experience of my entire time in the Dominican Republic, going back to the hospital. And I'm going to be transparent, because it just has to be said. It is better if you have your I guess I should have had my overnight nurse with me. And I'm going to say this, and I need to put this on my page. Hire your overnight nurse for an additional night just in case. Uh, that is one
thing that I wish I would have done. I wish I would have hired my overnight nurse for an additional night just in case, and been okay with losing that money, you know what I mean, by putting her own retainer just in case. Because the next night, I was in the hospital, and I had nobody with me. And so I was treated a little different, in my opinion. I am Colombian, so I was able to call home and get my family to translate
because my Spanish is not that good. I am a, uh, Houston grown Colombian, and everybody else spent time in Colombia, and so they all speak Spanish, and I don't I just have not learned it because I'm lazy. Okay? So I called home, and my brother and sister was able to translate for me, and we got it all situated. But the treatment was definitely different. In the moment that I was in the hospital, it was like I almost had a big for care in those moments, waiting for my blood, because I
didn't speak Spanish. So it was like, oh, she's not talking to us, so clearly nothing's wrong. I finally got an overnight nurse. I finally got a nurse because my recovery home called to check on me, and they were like, how are you? What's going on? And I'm, um, told them, I'm like, I don't like the way they're treating me. And the cut? Recovery. House sent me a nurse. And so that's why I'm always going to say, like, metropolis Recovery House definitely has so much respect in my books
because they sent me a nurse. And then it was better after somebody was with me, because the nurses in the hospital, they're there to just do other work. It's like, they're there to work, but they're not there to be your personal one on one nurse. Does that make sense? Right? They're there to work. And I feel like when we're in the US. When we have a nurse, it's like our nurse like, we have a call button and we have personalized nurses that are going to come in and take care of you.
It's not the same overseas. You're sharing that nurse, and it's only a few of them, and they're not really at your back and call like, we don't get the same hospitality that we get in the US when we're over there. That's the only thing that I hated. Other than that, when everything was smooth, everything was good, everything was okay. Got my blood transfusion. They gave me an iron transfusion. They sent me back after 24 hours in a hospital. My doctor did come and check on me when
I was in the hospital to get my transfusion. I know a lot of people are like, oh, I had a blood transfusion. And my doctor never came back. No. Duran came. She fixed my positioning in the bed. She checked my tummy, cut scar. She was even like, I don't know how this happened. It just happens sometimes because my chemo level was good coming out of surgery. I started in surgery at 13.5 and came out at nine. But when I went back, I was low at seven. So it's like mhm, that little drop from
nine to seven took me out. I could not handle it. I could not. And I needed that transfusion for real. I felt like shit. But yeah, I know we get a bad rep. Like, a lot of stuff happens over there, but it's because it's a mixture of things, right? Like, it's dogs not being honest. It's dogs not properly taking care of themselves. They're in a rush to stand back up straight. Also, the whole taking medication with you to the Dominican Republic, don't do that. Yeah. Mixing narcotics is
not good. The medicine that they give us is strong enough. I don't know what these people are talking about in the past that the medicine wasn't strong enough, but I felt like the medicine they gave me was strong enough. And I also was told when I was over there that, like, bringing handlebars and stuff like peels from the US and mixing them with the medication they gave us over there, it can have a chemical reaction. You can kill yourself. Yeah. I didn't even know people were doing that.
Oh, you didn't? Yes. And so that's why I'm talking to these dogs, because people are doing that when I travel. And I'm just, again, uh, being transparent. I took about five pills with me, and that's because they were just like, the medicine over there is not good. But when I got there, the first thing they said is, do you have any medication with you? Because we're going to be giving you medication that's going to be the same as the medication you're bringing. You're going to
have a chemical reaction and you kill yourself. We had a dog die that way. There was a dog that OD about two years back because the recovery house said they gave her her pain medication and she went in her bag and took more medication. Wow. And then the medicines reacted and she died. Wow. So let me tell you, uh, this is so new to me. Like, the Dominican Republic and traveling to Colombia. Not that it's new to me. Like, I've known that women have been doing it for a long
time. But the ins and out of it is new to me because I've never had to experience it or walk somebody through that process. And one of the main reasons why I was always so cautious about traveling out of the country is because here in Houston or, uh, in the places where I've worked and I've worked at, ah, one of the places that I worked at had eight doctors, um, like eight board certified plastic surgeons. And everybody knows everybody's business. Everybody talks to each
other. All of the assistants talk to each other. If anybody is having a complication, we all know about it. It's very hands on. And blood transfusions is something that I did not see hear of, um, have happen often. That is something to me that it's like, oh, shit, you had a blood transfusion. I wonder what happened, what's going because here you don't really hear about it. At least with the doctors that I work with in
Florida. Is that common? No, not really. That's why I tell my girls, if they're talking to you all about a blood transfusion before surgery, that means they're telling you they're going to be so aggressive with their lipo that you might need a blood transfusion. Because that's how I've heard it from other dolls who are like, oh, I was a patient coordinator for a long time. So part of being a coordinator, I would talk to patients who
were looking at other doctors. And one of the things that I heard was, oh, well, um, this was for Florida. This lady was going to go to this doctor in Florida and she was like, well, I'll go with you guys. I'll pick you and your surgeon if you throw in the blood transfusion too. And I was like, what? Huh? Are you talking about? And I put her on hold and I was like, what the hell is she talking about? Like a blood transfusion? I even asked my surgeons, do you all know any of like, do
we do this? I've never heard of this. And they were like, no. Why would she need a blood transfusion? Why are we talking about a blood transfusion before we even have the surgery? So then I was like, okay. I got back on the phone and I was like, hey, why do you need a blood transfusion? We're not talking about cell saver. Cell saver is something different. We're talking about a blood transfusion, right? Like after surgery, you need a blood transfusion.
Yeah, after surgery. That's common in the Dominican Republic. It's a common thing. Like, they take the money up front before your surgery, you put blood on hold. Okay. So that's the thing over there that's very common here. It's not like that does not happen often here. So that's kind of one of those things. Like, uh. I wonder, why is it so common over there? And it's not that common here. And what I think it is is the aggressiveness of the surgery or the amount of
surgery that's being done at one time. Because when I have experienced it here now with the podcast, and I get to talk to so many women every day, like, I get to hear about everybody, what's everybody doing. So now that I'm not blocked into one specific surgeon, I get to hear everybody's stories. And there was a doctor here recently who their patient needed a blood transfusion. And while she was at the hospital, she was calling me, telling me about it. And I was like, whoa, I
wonder what happened. And then she mentioned to me the amount of the procedures that were done. She had a tummy tuck, lipo to the flanks, back, lower back lift, and bra line lift. Yeah. So I was like, maybe there was too much surgery.
How did they do it? He added it last minute. So all of this blood transfusions, uh, whenever I talk on the show and stuff that I talk about on my instagram, if they're talking to you about a blood transfusion before surgery, I usually say run, because why are we talking about a blood transfusion before surgery? We shouldn't be doing
anything that would get us there. And sometimes when I know and I talked about this on a previous episode that I haven't released yet with two of my plastic surgeons here in Houston, that what we talked about, is that we as patients, have these expectations of what the doctors should be delivering. I want to look like this. One of those things is like, I want no fat in my pinch. When I roll my fingers in between pinch my skin, I want there to be no fat there. And that's something
like, I hear that all the time. Uh, girls tell me that. And it's pushing the boundary of what's safe. You can really tell. This is a little insider trick. You can really tell when somebody went to somebody who did not do really good liposuction, because you can see everything underneath the skin. Why can you see everything? Because they didn't leave that small, thin layer of fat that you need in order for your results to look natural. Because it hides the cannula marks.
It hides any unevenness it hides it. So the envelope is being pushed to remove as much fat. Make me, uh, as, uh, snatched as possible. Take as much as you can. And we're really pushing the envelope of what's safe. And I don't want to say that it's the patient's fault or the doctor's fault, but it's like we're both kind of the patients are pushing for more, and the doctors are trying to please us. Yes, because you're going to bring me the money. You're asking it. And at the end of the day,
that's where the education comes in. Um, I'm so happy that you have this podcast. First of all, I'm going to say I am m so happy that you have this podcast. A lot of women have been talking about it. That's what my husband this morning I said she has a podcast, right? Surgery. Dedicated podcast. I just want you to know you have a new listener. I'm going to be listening all the time
because we have been needing this. I'm ready for us now to all come together and put together our own conference, like a plastic surgery conference where dogs can come and we have these vendors that sell by hospital. Yes, I am ready for that. I've been talking about that. It would be like, my dream. You know how the doctors have their plastic surgery conference for us to have, like, a conference for the journey, like helping Houston. Yeah, girl. We can get it.
Popping. Let's talk after this. We need to set something up because. We have dogs ready to go. Durant 2020 Dog CEO First Lady Like, there are dogs who want that. And then you're what? Yes, we can have a brunch and everything. We could do it here. Okay, if you're here in Houston, you guys, if you're listening to this episode, go follow the Fit BBL, step one and then step two. If you want us to try to plan something together. And it doesn't even have to be a big
thing at first. Let's baby steps. I know we can get there to something huge, but maybe we can set up, like, a brunch somewhere where it's nothing but, like, plastic surgery dolls. We could do faha if you need to talk about faha, if you need help finding a surgeon, if you need a workout, we got it. We can take care of you. We have enough women. And the lady who does the BBL encyclopedia, she could come out because women need encyclopedia. Don't get me started. And I
have friends that put together events. I have event planner friends. And I have a friend that owns the club. So we literally can throw a, uh, girl's weekend. Let's do it. I'm, um, so ready for this. I've been wanting. This. Let me tell you something. I can't tell you how many of my girls after surgery are so ready to get out. And just like, it's not like I want to get out and show off, but I'm so happy and I'm so excited to get dressed. Like, where can I go? What
can I do? Where can I get myself. Into? No real. That's me. Girls might because you want to put on the new clothes, you want to throw on the dresses, you want to throw your body. Yeah, you feel good, especially because this is a new level of confidence I haven't had in a long time. Yes. Can't nobody tell me shit. We're just being real. You can't tell me anything. I don't need no one's opinion on. Shit because I know I look good and I feel good. Even if you don't think I look good, I think I
look good. And that's what matters. Yes. And that's the kind of confidence I want my clients to walk away with. That's the kind of confidence that I want to inspire other women to get on this journey. The big booty is cool. The small waste is cool. But after that, what are you going to do after that with that new confidence and that new first start? Also, like, ladies, if I can impress upon you anything, and it's going to be document your journey because I wouldn't have
known three years ago. I'm a fitness trainer to women in the plastic surgery community. You didn't know you were going to have a podcast. She's going to have a faja business. But not only do you pay for your surgery, you can invest in yourself through UGC creation, through influencing, through purely sharing your experience and then have the time to look back on too. It literally can open up so many more doors for you other than just being
cute in some outfits. Like, I'm telling you, M, a component that I'm working on with planning, with training women is helping them to also become influencers. Because for a lot of us, we do want to be influencers. We do want to take that journey to the next level and have a reason to show off. And that goes into well, here's the next piece. Let me teach you how to properly do that. That's
my second thing. Uh, I'm working on, is helping women to take that newfound confidence and spread it in a meaningful way into other parts of their lives. Absolutely. It's beautiful. It's such a beautiful thing to see. When somebody goes through the plastic surgery journey, and I talk about it all the time and how I don't know what other way to explain it other than the burden that you carried
of worrying about what you look like is gone. And all of that mental space and energy that you were wasting on worrying about what you look like or what you're wearing, or if it looks good or if you look pretty, or if you are confident, all of that energy that you were wasting on that, now you can use it to think about other stuff. Like, now you're thinking about like, well, what can I do here? What can I do over there? Like, I want to do this. I want to do that. It's so crazy because I
have had moms. We know most of these M girls are moms. I've had moms who were like, stay at home moms. I don't know if you ever stayed at home, but I stayed home with my daughter when she was a baby for like, 18 months. You did, uh, four years, girl. You know, like, I love being a mom. Being a mom is like one of my greatest achievements. Like, one of my I'm, um, so proud to be a mom. Right? My humans are so cool.
Yeah. I love my kids, but I remember when my daughter was little and I had left, I was working at a plastic surgery practice. I threw my whole pregnancy. And then when I had my daughter, it was my first kid, and I could not go back to work. I was like, you want me to leave this little defenseless thing with somebody else and me go work and leave her with somebody else? No. So I stayed home with my daughter for the first 18 months, but as she was getting older, at the 15
month mark, I was like, okay, you know what? I'm really starting to lose myself in mommy hood. And I was gaining weight. I was breastfeeding. And when you're breastfeeding, I was so freaking hungry all the time, so eating. And I was at home. All I did was take care of my baby. And I really lost my I was starting to lose myself in mommy hood. And what I did at that time was like, okay, I don't want to wake up when she's five and ready to go to school. And then I've been out of my job
for how many years? How am I going to jump back into this? I've been doing this for so long. It's something that I really love doing. I don't want to not have a career, not have something that's me talking to other adults, not just talking to children. Yes. Girl, let me tell you, you started developing a baby language, asking adults, you got to go potty. I'm going to go potty. I still say it to this day. I really four years at home. Uh, the
first part was four years. And then I came I went back to working, and I was back at home for, like, two and a half. And then yeah. So you're asking adults, you need to go potty. I'm gonna go potty. I'm going to go to the bathroom real quick. I'm going to go potty real quick. Yeah, I'm going to potty. So when I realized, like, okay, I need to go back. I need to get back to work. For myself, like, for me, I went back to work, and then I started to think, okay, I'm going to have my surgery. Uh,
eventually I'm going to do my surgery. Because I was waiting in my mind, I'm going to be until I'm done having kids. Once I'm done having kids, then I'll have my surgery. So going back to work was just so great for me. I was able to socialize. I had, like, purpose again. I was able to do things that I enjoyed. And I love seeing other women go
through the same thing. I've seen other moms who are stay at home moms, and they have their surgery, and their kids are already getting to school age, or they're already in school and they were just staying at home. And now they have this new found confidence and energy. They feel like they can take on the world. I can do anything now. Yes. It's so exciting. I can't, and I'm riding the rope. That's right. Okay, so, uh can you believe it's been an hour already?
No, because I can talk about this all day long. Do you hear me? I love this subject. I love this subject. Me too. I love it so much, I launched a podcast about. It. So if you guys want to hear me talk about, uh, plum nothing but plastic surgery, you can go back to the last 47 episodes and you'll hear nothing but plastic surgery talk. Important information, just like what we have today, like insider info, like, really getting into what everybody is learning.
What is everybody going through, just knowing that anybody who's listening to this show, you're not alone. You're not the first or the last person who wants to have plastic surgery. You're not the first or the last person who's going to have lipo. So really finding your community and understanding that we're all in it together. And, uh, luckily, we have people like the Fitbl Brittany, and we have other people who are all about educating and
helping this community grow. And for us to really stick together, we can stick together, all of us, because we all have kind of the same mission and goal. Like, plastic surgery changed our lives, and we want to help other women have their lives changed through their plastic surgery. Yeah, if you choose to. If you choose to. That's right. Anybody? Because that's another thing, too. We get that negative stigma that
you're promoting women to change their bodies. No, uh, she already decided to change it, and then she changed it, and I'm just here to help. Once my mind was made up, nobody, not even God and stuff to come down here and tell me to unchange. It. I haven't been told that, but I'm sure people think that all the time. But for me, it's like women are already deciding to have plastic surgery, and a lot of women who choose not to,
they have had a lot of negative feedback. Like, people have been negative about the procedure, or they're afraid. They're anxious. That's what I hear. Like, I'm afraid of anesthesia. I'm afraid of the recovery. And it's really just being afraid of the unknown because it's kind of unknown. What are you going to feel? So this community and everybody just being so open about, what are we experiencing? What are you feeling? What are you
thinking? It's so much nicer, and it makes my girls who listen to this show feel so much calmer, like, okay, uh, everything's going to be fine. Before I let you go, I do want to ask you a question. Uh, did you go through post op depression? Hell, yeah. Tell me about it. You're my first one who tells me yes, so please tell me about it. Because I didn't personally experience it. I've had some of my girls, but none of them have wanted to come on and
really talk about it. So if you're willing to talk about it, please tell us how it was for you. Yeah, I definitely had to post off depression. So it was kind of similar to when you get the baby blues, the expectations. Right. And then the
helplessness. For me, if you're a woman who is used to doing things for yourself, and especially as mom feeling handicapped, like, my baby was two at the time, and he wanted to be picked up, and I couldn't hold him the way I wanted to hold him, I'm like, no, Mommy, you have to sit next to me. And then looking at him crying like that was
annoying. And then when I did Aaron's Run husband was helping as best he could, but I can see kind of the weight, um, during the time that I had to come home and do a little more recovery, not being able to just get up and go as I wanted to, that was depressing for me. I wanted to run to the store, but I couldn't drive just yet, or I was having a hard time. I drove up. I have a big truck. I have a Traverse, and just like that bobby
pillow. And it was just all irritating to me. I do not like being in my faja because I have I don't like tight things on my body, like super, super compressive things. Irritate a little bit. At least it did. Now I can deal with it. And so being in that faja and in that garment also, just being swollen and feeling miserable, I don't like to be sick. And so being so swollen for so long was
irritating to me. Going through the massages and the draining and seeing your body not necessarily be as snatched immediately because you're so swollen, um, it starts to weigh on your mental a little bit. Also. I don't come from a perfect family. My family is extremely negative. Not all of them, but I have negative past cousins. Right. And I went around a cousin, and she was just like, you look better before the surgery. And while I always say, don't let people get to you, it kind
of made me mad. People trying to judge your results for you before you're all the way healed because people are expecting, oh, you had surgery, so you can look good tomorrow after surgery and not realizing, like, no, you won't see your final results until about that. I know people say three months, M Mark, but I'm going to keep it a book with you. Six to nine months. Okay. Mhm. It's like a baby. Once you get off the table, expect to carry that baby for about six to nine
months. Before you get to really see what it's going to look like on the other side because I had that expectation, like, oh, once the swelling goes down in a couple of weeks, I'm going to look great. But my results didn't really start popping and I mean like popping, popping to about six to nine months of, uh, consistently compressing and eating healthy and working out. Did I look better? Yes. But did I look the way I was expecting to look coming off the table unrealistically in my
brain? No, I didn't. And I didn't even feel like it. And so it's a learning curve in the beginning. So yes, I definitely went through the full stop depression. And I talked about that heavily during the time because the body dysmorphia. If you battle a lot of us do, being honest, right? That body dysmorphia and that comparison because we're all on social media and if you're in the surgery community, you're comparing yourself to other dogs who you feel like, oh, her progress went like
this, so mine should too. And that's not the case. We all heal differently. We're all different. And so depression got me, uh, it reared its ugly head and I got it under control through exercise and sleeping and having realistic expectations of myself also talking to other women in the community like, hey, did you go through this with your belly button? Like I had a belly button issue for a minute, whereas like, the skin on my belly
button looked like it did not want to heal. Mhm, and I still had stitches and the fishing started coming out of my belly button and that scared me for a little bit. It was nothing serious, but in my mind it was serious at the time because I had never experienced it before and I didn't know anyone who had like, why is my belly button doing this? That brought depression. And you know what? I wonder if you had been told prior to your surgery, hey, you're going to be out
of commission when you come back. Be ready to be out of commission for the next two weeks at least. Like the first week for sure, but at least the next two weeks you're not going to be able to you're going to be okay in your brain, but your body can't. You think you're good. You were like, I could probably stand up and wash some dishes or fold some clothes or stir some stuff in a pot or do something like that, but you can't. You literally cannot. And it's really about sinking. I
keep saying it over and over again. Like you have to sink into recovery. Like uh, accept it. That no matter how much you want to heal faster and no amount of want is going to make the time go faster. And the only way you're going to heal is with time. You need time to give. You need to give your body time would that have helped you? Because that's what I tell my girls when this post office depression, I feel, is a lot of, like, just not really knowing how much it takes after.
Yeah. I feel like I knew, but realistically, I knew when it came down to knowing and going through it, I wasn't prepared. I had overestimated the process. Mhm. I thought, oh, I'm going to be healing two weeks in the Dominican Republic, and then when I get back home, I'll be fine. And that was not the case. I still needed more downtime when I got back home. Yeah. I feel like if I would have no, like, to be self sufficient so.
What tip or like, something that you would tell somebody who is thinking about having surgery, if it was your best friend or your sister and you're trying to avoid for them to go through that, what recommendation would you have for them? Be realistic. One, six months. Okay. I know everybody looks like they're having fun right out of surgery because they have those faja on and stuff like that, but realistically, it does not go like that. It's going to take some time for you to
get to feeling confident. It's going to take some time and you're going to need help and be okay with asking for help. It was going to require you to say, hey, I need a little more assistant. And so funny you said that, because I did. It was talking to one of my best friends who's thinking about a ponytail. And I'm like, you have to get the support in order before you go. Have mhm to get the support in order before you go. You absolutely have to, because that's really what was
depressing to me. I just felt like I needed more support. Even though I stayed two weeks in the Dominican Republic, once I came back home, I thought that was the time I was going to need. But I needed more support for the entire first four weeks because I am a mom. I have five. How old are your kids? So now they're 19, 1211. Eight and four. But when I went two years ago, 1710, eight, six and two, I needed more support. Yeah, definitely. Like, my husband needed, uh, a support system.
He was missing his other half. Yeah. And, uh, he did a fantastic job. He really did. But that was just time. I'm like, we need another hand around here. Um, that's great, though. I love hearing about supportive husbands. Oh, yeah. He did all my massages, too. Girls. When I came back home, I didn't hire massage there, but he took care of all my post office dang. He took it to the next level. He's setting the bar high.
Yeah. He did all of my post stop massages and I didn't have to worry about not one. Well, that's sweet. I love it. Okay, so now that was the last question I wanted to ask you I have to run. I have to go. Okay. But I'm so happy I was able to have you on the show today. You are an inspiration. You're amazing. I'm so excited for what's to come for our community. I feel like the
more we band together, the better. And I'm just so excited because you guys, you all know I have a dream of having patient coordinators, a web of patient coordinators around the world that help you get to safe surgery and have a good recovery. So this is just, like, pushing me even more, because I know that there's so much information out there, and there's so many women who want to help other women succeed, and I love to see it.
I'm so happy to have you, Brittany, and I can't wait to see what trouble we get into. Oh, baby, it's coming. I cannot wait. I look forward to it. I'll hit you later so we can finish talking. That sounds good. Okay, I'll see you guys next week. Bye. If you enjoyed this episode, please go on Apple. Write me a review. It's the best way for other women who are just like you, who need help, who are looking for information, valuable information on the Internet. This is how they're going to find
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