Category: Overexposed: A Self-Love Project.

Ever since getting weight-loss surgery, I’ve been asked a lot of questions. By my family, I’m being constantly asked if I feel okay after eating a meal, by my friends I’m being asked what foods I can or cannot eat, and everyone in the mix tends to ask this one specific question, to which I have to say the same thing over and over again.

Hi, my name is Liz, and I will not be getting cosmetic surgery to remove my excess skin.

It’s funny to even think that many people, both that are in the WLS program and not, are always considered about the excess skin that comes with losing a lot of weight at once. It’s not unusual for WLS goers to have excess skin after getting the surgery, and I guess it depends on personal preference on how people deal with the appearance after losing the weight.

I haven’t personally known a lot of successful WLS goers, but for those that were able to keep off the weight haven’t had cosmetic surgery to remove the excess skin. In fact, many of them are into exercise! I feel like when the weather gets cooler and the more I get comfortable working out in front of complete strangers, I will probably be more than open to work out at a gym as well! I can only imagine that further down the process, people who lose weight feel better toning their body because they are able to handle it when they aren’t as heavy. I know for me, I would probably feel better once I feel like I can be more active without getting too tired too quickly.

Although I’m still so early in my weight-loss journey, it’s still something I get asked a lot and, like, I know many people don’t mean any harm in it, but sometimes I feel like it pressures me to consider it. It also puts this ideology in my mind that weight loss isn’t enough to “look good”, but cosmetic surgery will be the solution to make the weight loss surgery worth it.

I still remember going to my support group meetings and hearing the questions of older candidates for WLS, and many of them were about cosmetic surgery. How much will it cost or if it’s common for WLS goers to get it once they reached their goal weight, and to some sort of degree the meetings began to feel a bit pointless.

While everyone’s reasoning for weight loss surgery is different, I just hope that for many people, it’s a change for them to be and feel better, not to just look better. It’s so easy to get sucked into the number on the scale and determining your worth or “success” by how many pounds you lose, but…

As a person that lost 25 pounds in 5 weeks, I can say that just having 25 pounds off has made me feel so much better physically. I feel better in the clothes I wear, I can take longer walks without feeling like my lungs are gonna fall out of my chest, and I just all around feel better in my body. Like, if I feel so good already at this starting point in my journey, imagine in another month. Three months. Six months from now! My point is is that it’s more than just “looking good”. If anything, you start feeling good before you start to “look good”. Hell, you don’t look like society’s version of “good” until at least a year into your journey.

But of course, I don’t judge people who want to do this for their reasons. If they feel like their life will be better after losing their weight and getting slimmer, than that’s their reasoning for getting the surgery. There’s no “right” reason to get surgery, but I do wish that many people who consider surgery know that surgery isn’t a quick fix, and it’s so easy to get sick and gain back the weight if your head is in the wrong space.

And of course, I’m not judging every person who’s asked me if I’m considering cosmetic surgery in the future; it’s a very common curiosity question anyone looking into a WLS candidate/patient’s new lifestyle would have.

But, be nice to those who tell you that they aren’t considering it by not following up with, “then what are you gonna do with all that extra skin you’ll have?” It’s just not appropriate and you should respect the wishes from that specific person.

Other than that, we would be more than willing to answer your questions about the process! I love educating those around me about it because this is more than just a surgery that happened for me, it’ a surgery that happened and that lead me to live this new lifestyle. There’s nothing you should be cared about asking, just be considerate when asking certain questions that may appear insensitive.

Like, don’t ask me how I’m going to hide my extra skin when I get “skinny.”

Let me get through this week first before I think about something 9-12 months down the line.

It’s one thing to call this lifestyle a “good one”. You see the transformation photos on social media and you think, “wow, they made such a good lifestyle change! They look so good now!” What no one tells you behind those photos, though, is the fact that the journey to get there is exhausting.

Hi, my name is Liz, and my relationship with food has drastically changed since having gastric bypass surgery.

I was always a foodie. I loved to snack on things, and I used to really enjoy my meals. There were so many things I loved to eat, and although they were bad for me, I still indulged in my guilty pleasures and ate them because they were really good and I just wanted them.

The act of eating (as I’m learning) is an experience all on its own. The longer you sit there and eat the food that’s on your plate, the better experience you have. I feel like that’s why buffets are just literally the greatest thing ever; you get how much food you want, and you can always go back if you want more and you eat until you’re absolutely full.

I can’t even finish a small bowl of tuna without feeling extremely full, to the point where I can either get nauseous and throw up, or just feel stuck in fullness.

It’s been one month since my surgery, and this month has taught me that there are going to be times where I introduce myself to food again and it’s a trial and error. I’m either going to tolerate it perfectly fine, or I’m going to sit here and just wait for the food to come back up because my stomach can’t handle it. I found myself puking a lot more these days because of these trial and errors, realizing that some of my favorite foods are now some of the foods that I can’t handle anymore.

It truly makes the whole eating process an anxiety process rather than an enjoyable one, and it could be truly frustrating at times.

I get anxious because I don’t want to get sick, obviously, but I also have to know what’s good for me and what isn’t. Like, I can’t be eating yogurts and soup for the next couple of months because I’m too scared to eat.

I think my worst fear is me just not eating or drinking anymore because I just don’t feel thirsty or hungry. I also hate to think that the reason why weight has been pretty stagnant for the past couple of weeks is because I’m not eating the right things. But like, I’m barely eating at all, so like–

Anyway. My relationship with food has definitely been different since surgery and I’m not sure when or if I’ll ever have a positive relationship with it again.

It’s more than just a physical reaction. It’s also sitting around my family at the dinner table seeing them eat all the foods I once enjoyed that I can’t have anymore. It’s seeing that those around me can have food that I wish I was having with them. It’s seeing the delicious food venues and smelling all the amazing food being cooked and not being able to fully enjoy it because I get full way too quickly or it’s simply something that gets me sick. It’s also such a major mental thing, and dealing with depression as it is, I’m afraid this anxious part of my journey will get me depressed.

I sometimes regret getting this surgery when I’m sitting on my bathroom floor feeling like my insides are in a knot. I sit there and think back to my life pre-surgery, missing the girl I was before because she ate what she wanted to eat and what made her happy. I know that thought is so temporary and it goes away as soon as I feel better or when I’m wearing clothes that didn’t properly fit me since 2019. It’s knowing that in a couple of months, I’ll be fully healed, and I will know my body much better than I do.

Because, let’s be honest: something that is out of your control is always hard to first adjust to. When I first was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, the first couple of months after that were some of my worst months due to the fact that I just didn’t know how to adjust to it in my everyday life. It took therapy, talking it out, and learning more about myself and my mental health to not allow it to define me or make my life a living hell.

So while things are a little weird and shaky and I have my bad days, I know I will get through this. I just hope it happens soon!

Man, 2021 has been going by so fast, yet this last month has felt like a year alone!

Life has been different. Life as it is right now has not been the same since entering 2021. The people who I entered this year with have departed. The mindset has changed. The daily routine has been altered. The Liz that was before isn’t really the Liz that’s writing this exact post.

Hi, my name is Liz, and I’m officially one month post-op!

It’s insane to still think about it all; I had the surgery, my stomach is small as hell, and I’m learning to live this new lifestyle that I never thought I would live.

First and foremost, since surgery, I lost 21 pounds. Going into surgery, I was 311 lbs; I am now 290. I haven’t been this number since 2017! While the weight began to rapidly go down, it has been a little stagnant, but I’m not trying to worry too much about the numbers, even though I was glued to my scale when the weight started to go down.

That’s one thing I’m trying not to obsess over: the number on the scale. I am still trying to tell myself that this surgery isn’t a quick fix; this is just the start of doing the work myself. I know that even though I want things and wish that I could “enjoy” my meals like I used to, but this is still the beginning.

I am still adjusting this new lifestyle and seeing the things I can eat and what I can’t eat. There are days where I feel like I’m too scared to eat because the feeling of being full feels more of nausea. There are days where I think I’m going to feel okay when really, I’ll puke my meal up. There are days where I think I’m full, but then feel hungry shortly after. It’s a lot of guessing and hoping for the best when I eat. Typically, I find myself eating small snacks and being okay for a couple of hours before I get hungry again.

It’s a weird feeling. Being this far into recovery, I’ve been doing okay. I’ve been feeling alright. I feel the same way I did before I went into surgery. I’m not in any pain, I’m not walking slow or taking things too slow. I’m back at work, I’m not taking all the medications I had to take when I first had the surgery. I feel as normal as possible. I am only reminded of my surgery whenever I eat and I’m looking down at my plate and only see that I had about two to three bites of my food and I’m full.

I know that in the long run, I will get used to this. It’s only been a month since I had this surgery. I have the rest of my life to live with this new stomach of mine. I will get to a place where I will know my body and hunger cues a lot better and understand what I might need in those times. But for now, I’m still learning, and some embarrassing things are going to need to happen when learning about them!

For instance, I cannot have coffee when I am out and about. While I loved to stop at a Dunkin’ Donuts to get myself an iced coffee when I’m out or on my way to work, I tried to do the same after surgery and I was literally sick to my stomach. Also, while I love Chinese food and would eat my entire dish before surgery, I now feel like absolute shit eating it and puke every time I eat it. It’s a sad day for my Chinese food lovin’ self. Nevertheless, it’s something I had to try and face the consequences with in order to know what I can have and what I can’t have!

With that being said, I wanted to move on to a more serious point about this surgery: I am not saying to go out and get this surgery if your only goal is to “look good” or “get skinny”. With an ideology like that, you are bound to fail. You are bound to be miserable. You are bound to not even go through surgery once it’s time to sign those papers and you’re handed the “any complications with this surgery can lead to death” consent.

For awhile, I had people around me talk about my surgery like it was going to make me prettier or it’s going to make me look like I’m worth it or better than who I was before it. After some point, I began to believe the noise. I began to tell myself that this surgery was going to fix all of my problems; surgery was the only thing that was going to fix my depression or anxiety or some mythical shit like that. I didn’t like that I was starting to see surgery as a quick fix, because I know that nobody else was going to go through the process with me besides me. No one was going to have to sit here and experiment what foods I can and cannot eat besides me. No one was going to be sitting with me in the bathroom while I puked my food because it’s something I couldn’t have anymore but me. No one was going to be with me during the progress; many of those people will just see a before and after picture in a couple of months and think “omg, wow! You’re so thin!” or some mythical shit like that.

Surgery is not for everyone. The process I had to go through just to just that surgery date was tedious and something that I think many people would’ve stopped doing midway. I can go into great detail about the process it took me to get the surgery. Needless to say, I had to reevaluate my own reasons for this surgery; the real reason I even decided to go through this process in the first place. I wanted to feel better physically. I wanted to feel my age and be able to do the things I’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t because my weight held me back. I wanted to do this for me so that further down the line when I get older, I don’t get passed down the family diseases they struggle with due to being overweight. That’s what made me show up to all of the doctor appointments and do all the testing required to get cleared for surgery.

Even with so much progress has happened within this first month, I know that this is still very early on and things are still bound to happen, I know that for the most part, I made the right decision for myself. I did this for me and I’m here to document just all of the great, horrible, happy, and sad things about this journey because it’s more than just a before and after photo.

Last month, I went to my consultation appointment and got introduced to the program and how everything is going to go for the next couple of months while being under this program. Like I mentioned in a post a couple of months ago, I am taking the bariatrics route of weight-loss. I’ve decided to make a huge lifestyle change this new year, and while I have the opportunity and chance to do this, I’m going to do it for my health; present and future. So, this month was my official first month of the program. 

– February 2020 Highlights & Favorites!

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s becoming more real as the days pass. I will be saying goodbye to this body in a couple of months, watching her change and look different than it ever has before. I mean, it’s technically still my body. It’s still my skin. Are we really saying goodbye to my body? Maybe just the way it is in its current state, but it’s still me. I still come with the way I am and the things that I like and don’t like and at the end of the day, nothing is changing besides the way my body is built. But still, it feels like I am saying goodbye to the Liz in the photos that are on my social media platforms, my Polaroid pictures, and the pictures that live inside my camera roll on my phone.

– Overexposed: Saying Goodbye to this Body.

Have you ever been depressed or sad because of you reflecting back on the time spent and the people who were once around during that time and now being in this moment about to close that chapter of your life?

Hi, my name is Liz, and I have surgery in 24 hours.

I’m nervous; no doubt about that. I know it’s normal to be nervous, but is it normal to have this wave of depression because, well, this chapter of your life is about to end?

I started this process in January 2020. I was 4 months into working at the bookstore, I had just turned 26, and I wasn’t even a kpop collector yet! I was still very much in this process of discovering myself and finding my identity outside of the relationship I had previously for most of my young adulthood. The people who’ve been here since the beginning; my coworkers, my friends in the community, other friends who I was once closed to are not all here with me to see me write this entry and finally say that I’m getting my surgery. It’s a weird feeling to say the least.

A part of me is mourning this life I had leading up to this point.

I guess I’m sad because it’s masked in nerves and anxiety that is normal, but I think it’s more than just that. It’s the fact that life has changed so much these last couple of months; I decided to let some of my past go and work things out with my ex in order to have a healthy friendship moving forward, many of my coworkers that I had left the job, I’m in the process of possibly transitioning to a new job, I don’t have a best friend anymore, and well, of course this surgery.

It’s just a lot to process in this short time.

Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the surgery. I’m so ready to feel good and to be able to do all the things that I’ve wanted to do but couldn’t because of my weight. I’ve been taking care of my mental health for the past 3 years and have made progress into that. It was about time I made some progress for my physical health and this was the best (and last) route to do that.

So here I am, nervous as hell, hungry as hell but also just… trying to make this day as smooth as possible. I know this transition is going to be a hard one, and I hope that I’m able to recover quickly and get my life back on track quickly, but nevertheless it’s happening and, well, it’s here.

Breathe, Liz. You got this.

Today is Monday, July 5th. My last day of work is tomorrow. I’m seeing a friend later in the week as my last hoorah for a while. I have to make last minute adjustments to my diet and get in touch with a couple of doctors and then, bam.

Hi, my name is Liz, and I have surgery in a week.

Even to this day, it hasn’t fully hit me that it’s coming and that this surgery is a lifetime change. It’s crazy to think that this time next month, I’ll still be in the recovering phase of the surgery and possibly a couple of pounds would already be lost. It’s kinda crazy to think about; it still feels incredibly surreal and something that’s not going to happen, but it is!

I wonder if body dysmorphia will become an issue when I start to drastically lose weight. I mean, I ask that because I’ve always been on the bigger side; I’ve never been a healthy weight or “skinny” in my life. I don’t know how different I will feel being something I never was.

I tend to already have a hint of imposter syndrome every now and then; I feel like I don’t deserve the good things that come my way or that I’m just a fraud and this life-changing surgery isn’t going to make those thoughts go away. It’s frustrating that other people’s perspective of this weight-loss surgery is that I’m going to get this “new body”, like I am able to dispose of my old body and get this new one that everyone will like and think is great and beautiful.

My body is still my body; it is just changing.

I think before anything else, I am reminding myself that no matter what, I’M going to be the same person I was going into surgery and coming out of surgery. I am going to still have my personality, my interests, morals and values, and everything else that meant a lot to me. At the end of the day, my body is still staying with me; she is just changing to become more healthier after feeling like she’s older than my actual age. Of course, this is easier said than done; I know there are nights to come when I miss my old lifestyle; I’m going to miss being able to eat whatever everyone else is eating and drinking at social settings. I’m going to miss not having restrictions and just drinking and eating the things that make me happy. I know there are going to be nights that I’m depressed or sad or stressed; it is inevitable during this transition.

Even more so, there will be times I don’t feel like myself because I don’t look like the person I am used to seeing.

For me, it’s important to keep the things I cherish and love close to my heart to help me transition into this new phase of my life. I’ve been writing penpal letters, decorating envelopes and letters, selling my extra photocards, writing for my blog, and listening to my favorite music on my playlists to remind myself that I still enjoy the things that make me the happiest and that they make me, me.

For now, I will be counting down the days until the surgery day approaches. I will be living my last week as normal as possible, doing what I gotta do, and just go into this surgery as smooth as possible and just to recovering!

At least I’ll have all the time in the world to catch up on Victon videos and write for the series’ on here! ;D

At the start of 2021, I was still getting tests done in preparation for bariatric surgery. I still remember having to take a Lyft one Wednesday night to Sheepshead Bay and stay overnight at a sleep center in order to take a sleep study. I remember back in September, I was put in a hospital gown and pushed on a gurney to have an endoscopy done. I remember taking test after test, month after month, having delays and waiting for everyone’s clearances to be put through.

Hi, my name is Liz and I have surgery in two weeks.

I was talking to my mentor last night about my surgery since I found out the date I was having it, and she brought up the point that if I decided I wanted to write about the surgery process and experience, she would be interested in knowing and reading about it. I thought to myself, “that’s not actually a bad idea!” So here I am, documenting the life of an adult who is getting ready for surgery in less than a month.

I found out my surgery date earlier this month, and that’s when I knew it was time to get serious. It began to feel real; to know that it was only a month and a half away from happening made things feel intense, and I had to start getting my body ready for the surgery.

I got my diet plan from my nutritionist and was told to start it a month before surgery. I had a little more time to prepare myself for it, but when it was time to finally get serious and start it, it was definitely difficult. I was hungry, stressed, and cranky for the first couple of days. Getting a list of things you had to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next two weeks was something I was not used to. I cooked my own meals most days, I brought lunch to work instead of getting what everyone else was getting, and the portions were a lot smaller than what I was used to. It took some time to get used to it, and after awhile I did!

But now, I’m about 2 weeks before my surgery, and the next phase of my diet begins: protein shakes. I’ve been preparing myself for that two week diet; it’s definitely not easy, to say the least. I don’t know how I’ll get through the two week period if not having solid meals during my day, but just like anything else you do consistently, it will get easier as time passes.

I can’t say that I’m not nervous for surgery. It’s such a major change that I didn’t really see until it came time to prepare for surgery. The process to even get to this point was long overdue; it felt like I was never going to get to this point in the program, to be honest. I thought something was going to hold or delay the process even more than it was already, and all of the work I did to get to this point would’ve been for nothing.

But I’m here. Things are happening. Things are changing. Life is going to be different for the next couple of months. Surgery is in two weeks.

Hi, my name is Liz and I’m not okay.

Depressive episodes, anxiety/panic attacks, and hypersensitivity: some of the patterns I’ve been on for the last month and a half. We have our good days and our moments when we’re happy and having such an amazing time, but then when things get bad and I can’t find a way out of the episodes and attacks and the constant emotional moments, it gets bad.

I feel like I haven’t been taking care of myself properly these last couple of weeks. I’m not eating as much as I did because I just lost my appetite, I feel my body growing weaker as the days pass, and my brain fog just gets worse as the days pass as well. It’s frustrating, and sometimes I find myself stressed to the point I get angry; “why does my mind work like this? My can’t I just process things and go through things like a normal person? Why can’t I just stop letting things get to me and completely destroying me?

As much as I want to write on here and be present as the blog continues to grow, I made the decision to cut back on the posts.

I do appreciate everyone coming on the blog to check out the new posts on here when they are published; I mean so many of you read the Victon Album Review which is so mind-blowing to me considering it’s just me fangirling over my boys!

I do need to take some time for myself and be present for myself in order to recover from whatever this is.

I’ll still be on here, I’m very much wanting to continue “the something series” since it allows me to think about other characters and an universe not my own, so if you’re into the series and are waiting for some more, I gotchu.

But yeah. I have a lot of work to do in order to feel better and to feel some normalcy in my life, and cutting back on some of the blog might help me focus on staying present and available for the people & the things around me; most importantly for me.

“That feeling when you lie in your bed wide awake at night, thinking about all the negative things you felt earlier in the day, going into the night, and even at this moment.”

Haha, wow – so relatable! *keeps scrolling to mask the fact that I am seconds away from an anxiety attack*

If there’s one thing that I realize has become a huge problem for me, it’s the fact that find it hard to let things go. I can feel embarrassed, judged, angry or bad about something and it turns into an uncontrollable, “spiraling-out-of-control” series of events.

Which then turns into an anxiety attack. Which then has us completely brain foggy and prone to just shutting down at any given time until this time has passed.

Hi, my name is Liz and I internalize the fuck out of my feelings.

Sometimes I feel like that no matter how much work I’ve done within the last year and a half, there’s always this one thing that I feel reoccurs as an issue within the social situations I am in. I tend to really hold onto things that upset me and even after things are resolved and such, I still tend to keep it within myself and dwell on it for far too long. It’s different than your typical “I feel bad about these things and need to resolve it in order to be better”, it’s more like “I feel hella embarrassed/shamed/judged/upset and even though time has passed, I still feel just as anxious and dissociated as I first was and now I don’t know how to get rid of this feeling without holding in resentment.”

Wow, that was too real.

My internalization of my feelings come from a place of trauma and not being able to express my thoughts and feelings about this without things being threatened or jeopardized. Before considering how I feel and what is going through my mind, I always think of the other person involved and how my feelings can affect their own and how would they react to the feelings and thoughts I am expressing. I’ve been in situations where the people in my life would jeopardize and threaten the integrity of the relationship/friendship whenever I decided to talk about something that may have been bothering me or on my mind. So, I stopped doing it, and I started to internalize a lot of my own feelings about things that eventually turned into built-up resentment. I tend to hold a lot of resentment once I know I can internalize the fuck out of my feelings in friendships and relationships and I understand just how unhealthy that situation is.

I don’t like that I do this, and I’m trying my hardest to learn how to be honest and speak what I wanna say without feeling that things will get ruined or tainted.

Before fixing the actual issue, I will find ways to fix my own behaviors and how to avoid situations like this from happening again (without addressing the fact that perhaps maybe the way the other person handled things wasn’t the greatest way either). Speaking to my therapist about this has made me realize that even with the growth I’ve had in the past year and a half, this keeps on being the reoccurring thing that causes a lot of my anxiety and “setbacks” on my progress.

Internalizing, in simpler forms, is pretty much the act of keeping everything bottled up and dealing with the consequences while dwelling on the what if’s and the overall situation for way too long. You think about it and feel the guilt or shame to the point where it could potentially affect my mood for the rest of the day. For me, I typically sit on it for days on end and sometimes it disrupts my daily functioning until my mind is ready to not let it affect me. One time, I allowed something to be internalized for weeks on end and for those weeks, all I could remember is experiencing high-levels of anxiety and immense brain fog.

Perhaps this is just a response to my personal trauma or stems from a place of anxiety; I just still have such a hard time not allowing things to get to me. It’s taken a lot of personal thought processing and talks with my therapist to finally realize that the majority of my anxiety comes out of this habit of mine that I’ve adapted in my life, and now the only way to let it go or at least improve on this issue is to challenge it.

But I can’t lie, challenging things are such exhausting work and sometimes I wonder if the outcome is truly worth it.

Let’s be honest here: having to face your fears and challenge them always takes more than one try to successfully do it. I find myself trying my hardest to challenge something to improve in that area of my anxiety, but it does nothing but cause more anxiety during that challenge process. This is something I’ve been aware of for awhile, but it’s been extremely hard for me to finally challenge and tackle this thing about my anxiety that feels like has become the core of it, to say the least. The more I think about it, the more I realize that maybe this was the stem of my social anxiety in the first place.

But that’s a conversation to have another day.

Nevertheless, it’s something that I know will take a lot of practice to get the hang of it. It’s going to take time to identify where this adaption came from and how I can stop automatically resetting myself to this mindset when things trigger certain things in me, but there’s nothing wrong if you internalize your feelings and it doesn’t mean you’re a weak person. You’re not this pushover if you internalize your feelings, but it doesn’t serve you when you do that. It just hurts you in the end, trust me.