It's been two years since I had weight loss surgery and I would have never imagined life
could be so great. I've gained a whole new independence and I finally moved out from my
family's house. They had to do everything for me there.
I have to have help getting dressed or getting up out of bed, being put in bed.
And it's been a year since I finalized the divorce with my ex-husband.
Our relationship centered on him, enabling me.
How many neighbors are there? But I won't.
But now I can focus more on getting healthy.
I've lost a lot of weight in the last year, mostly because I'm really careful about what
I eat. But when I look in the mirror, I see that skin.
Flabby arms. And I see myself still as a big person.
It's hard to let it all sink in.
How much has changed?
I'm currently living with my boyfriend, Shane.
He moved in about a month ago.
Hey.
Hey. You want to jump in?
Yeah.
Shane and I have been friends for eight years.
He knew me at my biggest, and I was also really supportive of me.
Uh. After dating for a while, things got serious and I asked him to move in with me.
We've got to know each other on a really deep level.
We just opened up to each other and we'll finish each other's sentences sometimes.
Like, I'll be thinking of something like a song or something and she'll start singing
it. I mean, it's just crazy.
I'm gonna go get ready. How about you find a place?
All right, let's do it. Shane's really good for me.
He helps me get out of the house, even though I feel insecure about how I look.
I still feel like I need to hide my arms and my legs when I go out.
It's weird because before, when I was £700, I couldn't even get out of the house.
And now that I can, I still don't feel normal.
But Doctor now has approved me for skin surgery on my arms, so I'm really hoping that
it helps me finally be happy with how I look.
It's good. It's really hard for me to be present when I'm out in public because I'm so
distracted with the way my body looks.
I'm hoping that once the surgery is out of the way and I feel better about my body.
It'll help me be more comfortable with our relationship.
All right, ma'am, you're going to have our pan seared chicken.
Shane is great, but it's just so hard to believe that he wants to be with me.
Even with the ugly body I still have.
I have the dessert menu.
Are you sure? Good. Okay.
I just wanted to get to a place where I feel comfortable in my new body.
Instead of feeling like I'm still £700.
And getting rid of this flabby skin is the final step I need to take.
Jeff. I'm ready for my skin surgery.
Today I'm having surgery to have the extra skin on my arms removed.
I've been working really hard to lose the weight by watching what I'm eating, and I'm
anxious to move forward with this next step.
Are you very nervous, Bobby?
No, I'm nervous.
You're always nervous when you have surgery.
In my head, I'm still £700.
I'm still really insecure about the extra skin.
And the more weight I lose, the more skin there is.
It's still a constant reminder of a negative part of my life.
I'm trapped inside this body that I don't want to be in.
It's something that I've worked so hard to get away from.
So I'm ready for this.
Hey, how y'all doing?
Fine. All right.
You ready for surgery?
So you lost £518.
That's a lot of weight to lose.
Christina has had one of the most significant transformations I have seen after
weight loss surgery.
So today we're going to get rid of this extra skin in here.
At this point, skin surgery is very important so she can be more active and have
normal body contour.
So let's get you fixed up.
I'm ready for this.
I am not turning back now.
It's been almost a month since I had skin surgery on my arms.
It's been really hard.
I've been kind of negative and I'm not too happy about the way I look.
I just thought that after surgery, I would feel so much better about myself.
I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had to get my life back, but I don't know why I
feel this way.
I just sleep good.
Feeling all right today? Still hurting.
I don't know why I still see that £700 person and why I'm still hating my body.
But Shane has been a big help and that has been pretty awesome.
Yeah. You good?
I'm just trying to stay positive and heal so I can get my neck surgery and put all this
behind me.
It's been almost two months since my arm surgery and I'm pretty much done healing, but
I still don't feel good about my body.
The skin on my legs I really want removed.
So I've been eating less.
I'm hoping that the doctor will approve me for surgery.
I used to hate having to weigh myself.
I was scared I'd break the scale.
But now I have no reason to be scared.
160. Wow.
I was not expecting that at all.
I feel good about daughter now approving me.
Hello. How are you today?
All right. I see you down to 160.
What's going on with your eating habit?
What do you mean?
You lost £13 in the last month.
That's too much for somebody.
Your weight. So what do you eat for breakfast?
I don't eat breakfast.
How many calories do you think you're eating in a day?
400. 450.
That's far below what you should be getting.
You should double that at least.
You're going from one extreme to the other.
They're both unhealthy.
Okay. Eating 450 calories a day for somebody that is £160.
It means that she's completely malnourished.
Clearly, there are some bigger issues that we need to deal with.
In my head. Even when I look in the mirror, I don't see what everyone else sees.
It just it really confuses me when someone's like, Oh, can you stop losing weight?
Is not about how much weight you lose.
How many a healthy body is the most important issue?
But when can we do the leg surgery?
Because I can't fit into any smaller clothes like my my jeans are really baggy, but
because of my legs, I can't get any.
C skin surgery is not even a topic of consideration right now.
Until we address your eating habits and get your body healthy, we cannot move forward.
There are clearly some emotional issues that Christina needs to deal with, but first, we
need to get her body in better position.
I got you on prednisone to develop some muscle mass, and I want you to take this
protein shake every day.
Gain weight.
Yes, because you need to gain muscle weight.
You're almost becoming anorexic from the fear of gaining weight.
Looking at your concave collarbone, I can see that you do not have enough body fat, so
you need not to worry about that.
You need to lose weight.
I'm also sending you to a therapist.
We need to address all these issues.
Christina needs to get to the root of her anxiety with her body image.
She will not be healthy in long term if she doesn't resolve these issues.
Next time, I want to see that you gain £15.
Then we can discuss your next surgery.
You have to be healthy, Christina.
Okay.
The doctor doesn't understand that I don't want to gain weight.
I've been big my whole life.
I want to be healthy.
But I've worked so hard to get to where I am today.
So having to gain weight scares me to death.
She squeezed those shoulders together.
When I was £600, I would struggle with even the smallest amount of physical activity.
The simple walking from the living room to the bedroom.
I'm out of breath.
Now I can do so much more than I ever expected.
Good. Fantastic.
But it's hard to let go of my fears of gaining weight.
Remember the weight lifting that's going to help you not only build muscle, but also burn
fat. All right. See you next time.
Bye. Knowing I can get my final skin surgery keeps me motivated.
We want chicken broccoli. Yeah.
I'm also trying really hard to eat the right foods and enough of the right foods.
So I'm sticking to high protein foods that help me gain muscle weight.
Last year. I wouldn't have dreamed of eating this much food, but I'm trusting what the
doctor has told me I need to do.
I really want to have all this skin surgery behind me.
So I'm doing everything I can to do this the right way.
I'm back at Dr. Niles office to see if I've gained enough weight to get approved for my
leg surgery. It's still a little hard for me to see that number go
up. I did what Dr.
Now wanted and gained some weight.
Hello. Okay, so you're waiting now.
177. That's good.
That's £17 up.
You have come a long way from £708.
That's great.
I think you're ready for surgery at this time, and we'll let you know when we can
schedule it. Okay? Christina has done well, so I'm going to move forward with her leg
surgeries. She has a lot of excess skin in her legs, so the surgery will take some time.
All right. I'll see you later.
Thank you. Okay. But I think Christina will be really happy with the results.
I can't wait to get this last surgery on my legs.
I'm starting to feel like I'm finally able to see that I'm worth it.
And everyone step closer to where I feel like I should be.
I've been working really hard lately to be okay with who I am.
And now that I've finished my skin surgery, it's nice to buy clothes that speak to who I
am. It's making it a little bit easier to see what everyone else sees.
And it's definitely a confidence boost.
When I was £700, I couldn't go anywhere in public, let alone go shopping for clothes.
Thank you. Have a great day.
You too. So I'm really grateful I can do normal things like this.
Ms.. Phillips, I've been learning that the number doesn't matter as much, and the
priority is that I need to be healthy.
171.
All right. So we lost £537.
That's a lot of weight to lose.
Thank you. Christina is a really amazing success story.
I know it's been a difficult process for her to have a healthy outlook on food and her
self-image, but she's made great progress.
You've done amazing job, and I'm proud of you.
Thank you. All right.
It's still so hard to believe I've come this far.
And now that my skin surgery is behind me, I'm glad to be done with this process.
And I'm ready to live my life.
I feel like I'm starting a new journey.
It's really pretty. I'm so glad I found someone that loves me like Shane.
Now my life is full of so many new experiences that I could never have imagined
when I was big.