Personalized Weight Loss for Unique Health Needs

I didn’t expect to be writing about my boobs on the internet, but here we are. Four years ago, I lost 93 pounds, and while everyone congratulated me on my “amazing transformation,” nobody warned me about what would happen to my chest.

Let me back up. I’m Kelly, I’m 37, and like roughly 45% of American adults at some point in their lives, I decided to lose weight. Not for aesthetic reasons initially, but because my knees hurt all the damn time, and my doctor suggested dropping some pounds might help. It did. But the journey was nothing like those chirpy “I lost half my body weight with this one weird trick!” articles led me to believe.

What Actually Happens to Your Face After Weight Loss

God, the face thing. I wasn’t prepared for how my face would change. Looking back at weight loss on face before and after photos still throws me sometimes. My sister swears I look like a different person. My cheekbones emerged (who knew they were there?), my eyes look bigger, and there’s definition in my jawline that never existed before.

My friend Tara calls this the “divorce face” – that slightly gaunt, older-but-somehow-younger look people often get after massive life stress or significant weight loss. She got hers after her ex left; I got mine from saying goodbye to pasta five nights a week.

The weird part isn’t just looking different – it’s that people treat you differently. Suddenly, strangers smile more. Shop assistants are more helpful. It’s both flattering and infuriating, this realization that the world is kinder to smaller people.

“I wasn’t prepared for people to start listening to my opinions more at work,” my friend Derek told me when he lost 60 pounds. “Same brain, same ideas, different response just because my face got thinner. It’s messed up.”

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The Group That Saved My Sanity

When I hit my first plateau (three weeks, no movement on the scale despite doing EVERYTHING right), I nearly quit. Instead, I joined an online group where I stumbled into a weight loss challenge that changed everything.

It wasn’t your typical “biggest loser” style competition. The organizer, a woman named Jenn who’d maintained her 100+ pound loss for seven years, structured it around habits instead of pounds lost. We earned points for:

• Hitting our personalized water goals (mine was 80oz)
• Getting 7+ hours of sleep
• Meeting our individual protein targets
• Moving for 30+ minutes
• Following through on whatever personal goal we’d set that week

God, it sounds so basic when I list it out like that. But there was something powerful about the accountability of posting our daily scores and cheering each other on.

When I eventually started my own challenge for my Instagram followers, I added weekly non-scale victories because the scale is such a liar sometimes. People shared everything from “I can cross my legs now!” to “My blood pressure meds got reduced” to “I went on a date for the first time in five years.”

Jenn’s group is also where I first heard women openly discuss what happens to breasts during weight loss. Thank god, because I was starting to think I was the only one dealing with… let’s call it “the deflation situation.”

Let’s Talk About My Boobs For A Minute

No one tells you that weight loss and boobs have a complicated relationship. I went from a 38DD to a 34B, which wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was how they looked – kind of like half-filled water balloons. The volume disappeared but the skin… stayed.

“It’s like my boobs got divorced and one moved to another state,” my friend Rachel joked during one of our coffee dates. She’d lost 70 pounds through swimming and strength training. “There’s just all this extra skin where breast used to be.”

Here’s what we don’t talk about enough: boobs after weight loss often look dramatically different in shape, not just size. The fullness disappears first from the top, leaving what some women in my group unceremoniously call “ski slopes.”

I remember bursting into tears in a fitting room because even though I’d reached my goal weight, I hated how my chest looked in a bathing suit. My husband didn’t understand why I was upset when I’d accomplished something so positive for my health.

It’s complex, feeling simultaneously proud of your body’s capabilities while grieving changes in how it looks. Both feelings can be true at the same time.

The Team Names That Made Me Laugh

When I started running six-week challenges on my Instagram, people formed teams with the most ridiculous weight loss team names I’ve ever heard. My favorite was “The Thick Thigh Saviors” – five women who met in a barre class and realized they all had the same goal of getting healthier while preserving their curves.

Other memorable ones included:

• “The Has-Beans” (a group focusing on plant-based eating)
• “Thunder Thighs in Disguise”
• “Fork It, We’re Done”
• “The Holy Fit”

These names might sound silly, but they created instant camaraderie. When someone wanted to quit, their teammates would flood them with encouragement. I watched friendships form that extended well beyond the challenges.

The Doctor Who Changed Everything

After maintaining my weight loss for about a year, I still struggled with exhaustion and stubborn abdominal fat that wouldn’t budge despite doing everything “right.” Regular doctors just kept congratulating me on my weight loss and sending me on my way.

It took me forever to find the right weight loss doctors near me – specifically someone who understood the metabolic aftermath of significant weight loss. I finally found Dr. Chen through a friend’s recommendation.

Instead of the usual “eat less, move more” lecture, she ran comprehensive tests. Turns out, my thyroid was underperforming and I had developed insulin resistance despite being at a “normal” weight.

“Weight loss is just the beginning of the story for many people,” she told me. “The body fights back in various ways, and our job is to work with your new physiology, not against it.”

She prescribed medication to address the specific issues and adjusted my nutrition plan to focus on protein timing and carb cycling rather than just calorie restriction. The exhaustion lifted within weeks.

Finding the right doctor wasn’t easy – I went through three before Dr. Chen – but it was worth the effort. Not all physicians understand the complexity of weight management beyond the oversimplified “calories in, calories out” model.

Rewards That Actually Motivated Me

I’m big on rewards. Like, embarrassingly big on them. Every 10 pounds, I had a non-food weight loss reward planned:

• New workout leggings
• A massage
• Splurging on fancy skincare
• Concert tickets
• A weekend trip to the mountains

My biggest reward was something I’d wanted since high school but never felt confident enough to do: I got my scuba certification after hitting my final goal. My first ocean dive in Thailand was surreal – floating weightlessly among coral and fish, my body moving easily through the water in ways that would have been impossible 90 pounds ago.

That moment crystallized something for me: the best rewards aren’t about how your body looks, but what it can do.

The Medical Option Many Won’t Discuss

Two years after reaching my goal weight, I started researching a post weight loss breast lift. I wasn’t looking for augmentation – just returning my breasts to something resembling their former shape.

The consultation was both reassuring and terrifying. The surgeon was honest about scarring (significant) and recovery time (2-3 weeks before resuming normal activities). She showed me before and after photos of women with similar starting points to mine.

I scheduled the surgery… then canceled two weeks before. I realized I was still hoping my body would somehow “fix itself” if I just did more chest exercises or tried different supplements.

It took another year before I felt ready. By then, I’d made peace with the fact that this was the final step in my journey – not out of vanity but because I wanted my outside to match how I felt inside: strong, healthy, and confident.

The recovery was rougher than expected (take the pain meds on schedule, folks), but three years later, I have zero regrets. The scars have faded significantly, and being able to wear a bathing suit or tank top without feeling self-conscious has been freeing.

This isn’t the right path for everyone. Many women in my groups have embraced their changed bodies without surgery. As my friend Lisa says, “My saggy boobs helped carry me through two pregnancies and a 100-pound weight loss. They’ve earned their retirement position.”

The Unexpected Side Effect of Braces

This is random, but several women in my groups reported experiencing what we jokingly call the “invisalign weight loss effect.” When you get clear aligners, you’re supposed to wear them 22 hours a day, removing them only to eat and brush your teeth.

“It made me really consider if that random snack was worth the hassle of taking out my aligners, eating, brushing my teeth, and putting them back in,” my friend Jess explained. “I inadvertently stopped mindlessly snacking.”

Of course, Invisalign isn’t a weight loss strategy – that would be ridiculous overkill. But it’s a fascinating example of how creating small barriers to mindless eating can lead to surprisingly significant changes.

The Cellulite Situation

Let’s address another rarely-discussed topic: cellulite doesn’t necessarily disappear with weight loss. I assumed it would, which led to some disappointment when I realized my thighs still had that characteristic dimpled appearance, just… less of it.

For me, strength training made the biggest difference in the appearance of cellulite – more so than cardio or further weight loss. Building muscle created more definition and improved the overall appearance, even though some cellulite remains.

My trainer explained that cellulite is largely genetic and hormonal, affecting roughly 90% of women regardless of size. Seeing honest cellulite before and after weight loss photos (not the artificially lit, perfectly posed ones in advertisements) helped adjust my expectations.

The newest addition to my weight loss toolkit is something surprisingly simple: a lemon balm water recipe for weight loss that I make nearly every day. A friend who’s an herbalist suggested it when I complained about constant snack cravings.

I grow lemon balm in my garden (it spreads like crazy, consider yourself warned), and I make what’s basically a spa water:

• A handful of fresh lemon balm leaves, roughly torn
• Half a cucumber, sliced
• A few mint leaves
• Sometimes a slice of ginger if I’m feeling fancy

I let it sit in a pitcher of water overnight in the fridge, and the result is refreshing enough that I actually look forward to drinking it instead of mindlessly reaching for snacks when I’m bored.

Is lemon balm water a magic weight loss elixir? Of course not. But staying hydrated helps curb false hunger, and having something flavorful makes it easier to drink enough water throughout the day.

What I Wish I’d Known From the Start

When I look back at my four-year journey – from initial weight loss through maintenance, body changes, and finding my new normal – I realize how much unnecessary suffering came from unrealistic expectations.

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