Valpo woman tightens up 100-pound weight loss with tummy tuck
BY BARBARA ROLEK
Times Features Writer
brolek@nwitimes.com
219.933.3256 | Monday, March 19, 2007
Amy Thomas and her husband moved their family of four children -- now 15, 10, 7 and 3 years of age -- to Valparaiso from Utah two and a half years ago.
A move and new job are known stress inducers, and Thomas is a self-admitted stress eater.
"I'd done the up-and-down weight thing for 15 years," she said. "I don't have a hard time taking weight off. It's keeping it off that's difficult."
A hair stylist, Thomas had clients in Utah who had undergone weight-loss surgery and it sparked her to look into the procedure once she moved to Valparaiso.
"At this point, I was just fed up. I weighed 238 pounds, my cholesterol was 250, I was exhausted, had joint and back pain, and numbness in my right arm and hand due to circulation problems."
Thomas heard about Dr. Paul Stanish at The Methodist Hospitals from members of her church, which prompted her to attend a weight-loss seminar with her husband, who supported her decision from the beginning.
On May 19, 2005, Thomas had open Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery as opposed to laparoscopic surgery, because "I wanted to make sure they could see everything clearly when they opened me up. I don't wear a bikini so I wasn't worried about the scar."
Because Thomas is allergic to pain medications, she says her recovery was difficult.
"I was down and out for a good four weeks and then I started to get back to normal quickly. By the first week in July, I had lost 40 pounds."
Nine months after surgery, Thomas was 100 pounds lighter, but the sagging skin that never kept pace with her weight loss kept her feeling fat.
"I had worked so hard to get where I was, the skin really bothered me. It had no more elasticity from gaining and losing so many times."
The excess tissue caused some skin rashes but not enough to where insurance would cover a tummy tuck. After consultation with Stanish in summer 2006, Thomas decided to pay for it on her own.
Stanish performed the tummy tuck Sept. 11, 2006, with a T incision that ran vertically from beneath the breasts to the pubic bone and horizontally from hip to hip.
"It kicked my butt. For two to three weeks I couldn't completely straighten my back because they pull your skin so tightly. I had to wear a binder for a month."
Now, with a total loss of 108 pounds, Thomas says surgery has been a life-changing experience, and she would do both procedures again in a heartbeat.
"My confidence is back. It's pretty incredible to go from being ignored to having people's heads turn when I walk into a room. I don't think society means to treat overweight people differently, but it does."
Her weight, Thomas says, inhibited her from being the person she always knew she was inside.
"It's been a lot of hard work and it WILL be for the rest of my life. Surgery is just a tool to help you get healthy; it's not the easy way out."
Thomas will talk about her experiences at the 6 p.m. March 27 Methodist Hospitals weight-loss seminar in the lower level of the auditorium, 8701 Broadway, Merrillville.
Amy Thomas
Age: 32
Height: 5' 4"
Weight: 130 pounds
Lost: 108 pounds
How long it took: 9 months
Size: 4 down from 22/24
THE WORKOUT: Thomas runs on a treadmill every day except Sunday, and augments her exercise routine with aerobics and weight training.
DIET: "I'm at a point post-surgery where I can eat pretty much what I like -- only in moderation. I can have a little bit of sugar, but if I over consume, I get sick. Two things I avoid are soda and French fries because I know if I reintroduce them into my diet, I'll have a real problem eating them in small portions.
"Just because you lose weight doesn't mean your cravings go away. When I went through a stressful time last summer, I reintroduced chocolate into my diet. Unfortunately, it didn't make me sick, which I was counting on as a deterrent. So I had to change the way I look at food and ask myself 'Am I really hungry or am I bored or stressed?' "
TIPS: "Taking care of myself is what motivated me. When you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of the people around you. And don't feel guilty.
"You're not being selfish. It's OK to put yourself first if the end result is the good of all."
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