Curious but Excited

So I’ve had what kind of looks like a band of fat around my lower abdomen my whole life, even when I was running 5k+ per day. I’ve gotten a lot more sedentary since quarantine began, but began spinning with Peleton on the app after buying a bike on sale. I wanted to feel good in my body in a bathing suit for once, and quarantine wasn’t helping. I’d been looking at options to help, and this was the most-accessible, highest-reviewed option. I filled out a form on the web site and within 24 hours I had an appointment scheduled for two days from then.
The woman who did my consult was very nice and we had a lovely conversation. We discussed my options and her experiences with CoolSculpting as well as my concerns about PAH (which has been shown to affect anywhere between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 200-ish patients depending on the study). She explained the financing options and she gave me advice as to how to best avoid the APR fees (which was sweet, though I didn’t need it). She offered to book me as far as the next Monday (it was Thursday) but I opted for a longer wait time, as I was going to be off of work anyway.
My procedure took a while (6 hours for 16 cycles isn’t bad, though), but the room was comfy and I watched Marie Kondo and talked to friends on the phone. All of the staff were very nice. They took pictures of me every 45 degrees of a complete circle. There was almost an issue at one point that wasn’t their fault (they had ordered a card, which was supposed to show up on Friday and didn’t show up until Monday just before we needed it by about 30 min), but everything was settled and they had availability as soon as the next day. I walked the mile home afterwards feeling a little numb and fatigued, but nothing compared to any surgery I could have gotten. (I’ve had a double mastectomy, which the recovery for was a little brutal.)
So far, I’m a week out and pretty numb where the applicators were attached, which is to be expected. After around 24 hours, I started getting mild pain from the nerves coming back online/healing (which again, is normal). I was told that tight clothing might help, but if anything it made me feel worse and caused extra bruising. I’ve been able to do basically anything I would do otherwise, though I’ve had to lighten up my workouts because of fatigue from for first five days or so. I’m back to normal now, though. I’m not sure much has changed, but it’s only been one week. I’m definitely not drinking as much water as I should, but I bought a bunch of lime juice to hopefully help with that over the next few weeks. I’m uploading a picture from 2/6 of the way through my procedure and 2 from this morning for comparison. I’ll post more next week, etc. as more changes happen.

So I’ve been noticing that my body is constantly hungry. Most of the feeling in my stomach is back on the skin, but when I run it feels like I have saddle bags attached to be because the fat itself is numb. That’s not bad, just odd.

I know it doesn’t look like much has changed; but I can already fit into my clothes a little better. I feel better in my body. Maybe it’s because I did anything at all. I’m starting to see small changes and it’s very heartening. I’m hoping I can be done with this after one round. However, I’ve also noticed some fat gain under my chin. Not a huge deal; but something to be aware of as fat redistributes.

I can’t wait for summer :)