26 Years Old, Tummy Tuck and Gynecomastia Removal. Boca Raton, FL

Growing up I was always into sports - baseball mainly and then moved into ice hockey later in my teens. Loved being active however a dysfunctional home life (parents going through divorce, bankruptcy, losing our house..etc) essentially demoralized my color-blind and legally blind mother who while doing her best to raise me and my brother and sister went from cooking for us at home to just turning to fast food to feed us for the sake of simplicity..so despite being active I was always a chubby kid from bad nutrition.

At some point around 10 years old or so I began to notice that my skin (it was really fat) would hang over my baseball pants and other things I wore and while I still don't understand how or why I even noticed that at such a young age it became a point of stress for me - compounded by teasing from other kids..my siblings, etc.

Then the curve ball of gynecomastia was bestowed upon me during puberty (same time frame..around 10-11 years old I began to develop it) so I was not only suffering from being chubby but now carrying around extra breast tissue which made my nipples large and puffy - and this was really the singular thing that ruined my entire teenage life and really has affected me even until now (well up until a few days ago when it was finally removed). Children at school would make rude comments as I walked by, kids on my baseball teams would comment about it...so long story short I ended up so emotionally distressed over it that I actually would refrain from wearing shirts at home and avoided looking into the mirror for years (and had my stages of wearing multiple layers of shirts or wearing sweaters despite it being the middle of summer in Florida and above 100 degrees out), and most of this was internalized by me and I never really said much to my mother since she had enough things to deal with.

Despite the depression and self hate the condition caused me I persevered through high school and maintained a 3.95 unweighted GPA (despite missing 50+ days of school per school year because I found any and every excuse to not go to school because I was so distraught over my physical appearance but never verbalized that). During this period I had a great strength training coach for a class I was in and he really helped me and all the other students understand how to weight train effectively but didn't go too much into nutrition with us so I caught a bit of the fitness bug and started to work on "getting lean". This was of course also centered around me doing lots of chest exercises since everyone seemed to know that doing more chest exercises would magically make my gynecomastia disappear and i'd be happy and fine (I had no idea what the condition was at the time, just knew I hated my chest).

So my entire life from about 15 became an inner quest to find a happiness in my own skin that I still haven't quite gotten to just yet (we'll see how I am when all my swelling goes down from surgery). But what I always found was that when I got to a skinny state (140-150 lbs range on my frame since muscle was always easy for me to put on) the gynecomastia just ruined my chest appearance and ultimately ended up demoralizing me from continuing my fitness pursuits long term. So I teeter tottered back and forth going from 150 lbs to upwards of 210 lbs, with gym time off and on for years while attending college for my bachelors in Computer Engineering.

I never had much of a skin laxity issue during any of these periods of gaining and losing weight but most recently after the loss of a significant person in my life and a few other negative things going on for me around the end of 2012 (and up to the middle of 2013) I let myself go worse than I ever have and ballooned to about 260 lbs. I had a bit of an epiphany while walking up the stairs at work one day when I realized that a simple walk up two flights of stairs left me huffing and puffing as if I just ran a marathon (and I was also coming to the realization that my 5 year relationship with my now ex was basically at its end) so I knew I had to make a drastic change for the sake of my physical and mental well being and that is the domino piece that has landed me here today writing this.

Starting late July of 2013 I quit living in denial and with excuses as to why I wasn't happy with myself physically and emotionally and promised myself that no matter the time, pain, effort, sacrifice I would finally get myself where I had always said I would be from when I was the upset 10 year old chubby boy I once was.

Since this is already incredibly long and I could write a book about my life (it'd probably help but i'll spare everyone that lol) I chose to be very specific about my nutrition and began weighing all of my foods (raw and cooked...including things like condiments and coffee creamer) and simply went back to the weight training routines I knew and loved...the weight started to fly off me and I felt better within a few months and of course had my ups and downs with stalling weight loss etc but I never quit and never let myself have excuses as to why I couldn't be at the gym or just active in general.

So from July 2013 to now (Mid November 2014) I went from 260+ pounds to under 157 pounds using a mix of powerlifting training and very light cardio 3-5 times a week (I never did more than 30 minutes of cardio after weight training..EVER). Most of my cardio was simply walking my siberian husky 2 times a day for a total of about 4 miles.

I like to think my training and nutrition was executed fairly well and within the time frame I worked (and the fact that I always worked out alone) I did very well in terms of keeping muscle while burning away the endless amount of fat I had let myself accumulate.

But this again brought me to my ultimate demon (the gynecomastia) and now a second issue which was sagging loose skin in my lower abdomen from losing more weight than I ever have before (and I am assuming since I have gained and lost weight multiple times that alone altered my skins elasticity enough to give me the problem I had with my abdomen).

I tried to convince myself that it was simply just some stubborn fat and that if I kept losing weight it would all go away and i'd have a magazine model body - but of course that was not the case.

I have never had any major surgery or surgery period..and frankly I am not sure where I even got the idea to consider a tummy tuck but one way or another I just felt compelled to take a risk and go with my gut for once and make a big decision - this ended up being an abdominoplasty and my gynecomastia removal. This landed me on this lovely website where I began to absorb information like a sponge (it's the engineer in me) so I looked up doctors, looked up befores and afters..weighed the pros and cons...calculated the costs...and decided it was the right time for me to try this out for a happier and healthier life for the long haul.

Finally was able to have my drains removed (that sucked..definitely felt them the entire time they were being yanked out..guess my skin grows fairly quickly lol!)

But boy am I glad to be rid of those pains in the ass..and now I can/have to wear my abdominal binder..which I wasn't thrilled with at first but have quickly come to appreciate it. I was finally able to shower (omg that was amazing after 9 days)

I don't have pics of my stomach from this morning when I had the chance to wear my binder over night but boy was I nice and flat from the reduced swelling the binder caused..it was beautiful! So for now I just have pictures of myself in the doctors back room after he removed my drains - was fairly swollen in comparison to how I am now but still look much better than before with the drains in. Chest suture removal was kind of painful but went okay - liking not having that damn gynecomastia tissue anymore...wooohooo!

Merry xmas to everyone!

Just posting the "seat"/"pillow" my sister found at a medical supply store - it's got a divot you can't see in the picture that you put your tailbone/rear end into and it relieves all the pressure you may have due to having to lay in the recliner/beach chair position. Have been able to sleep comfortably on a small couch since buying this - no more pain in my tailbone. Someone threw away the packaging unfortunately so I don't know the official name of it.