On June 10 2013 Rochelle woke up and began her journey, and has never looked back.
On the morning of 10th June 2013, Rochelle woke up and said to her husband “that’s it, I’m going to lose weight!”. His reply was “whatever”.
From that day on it took about 2 weeks to change her eating habits.
“I’m a really bad eater, I love junk food” explained Rochelle.
“I told myself I’m just going to watch my food and start there”.
After the second week my husband and I were sitting together and he suggested we start walking and I said, “how are we going do that?”
He replied “let’s just do it – let’s go now”, so they did,
“and I haven’t stopped!” said Rochelle.
Before Rochelle’s journey with weight loss and her tummy tuck she weighed 98.7kg. “Ooooooo I’m nearly 3 digits” she thought to herself, and says she was totally blown away. It was at this “ah ha” moment that Rochelle decided it was time to do something to change her life. She recalls looking back and always having a stomach that ‘falls from the hips’.
“I would look at my brother and see him with his shirt off and I would see myself, he has a big stomach and I KNEW that’s exactly how I looked.”
Rochelle started her fitness regime and losing a majority of the weight simply by walking the 300m cul-de-sac that she lives on 5 times a day, which turns out to be 3km everyday. She then worked her walk into a run. And this is the only exercise she does.
With Rochelle’s healthy eating habits and regular exercise she started to lose the weight, but still had a large tummy with excess skin.
“I was still in size 14 clothes, I had to buy the biggest sizes to get my stomach in.” explained Rochelle.
“When I started exercising and seeing a difference in my body, I got online one night and started Googling a way to get rid of my stomach” Rochelle said. Never having contemplated or even thought of having plastic surgery,
“I finally went to my GP and she said there was nothing I could do except get it cut off. I couldn’t believe it! Then my excitement began – I had worked so hard and I had achieved so much.”
Rochelle decided to have a tummy tuck. She has 3 children aged 3, 5 and 9. She had never considered plastic surgery before and decided on Dr Gaffield as a family member and a few of her friends had a breast augmentation completed by him, and they were all happy with their results.
So on 14 November 2013, Rochelle had her tummy tuck completed by Dr. Gaffield.
Before
After
She says she wanted to do it for her family, but more importantly she wanted to do it for herself. She now weighs just 56kg and is 165cm tall.
Leading up to the surgery Rochelle was overwhelmed. This was the biggest procedure she had been in hospital for besides the birth of children which she bounced back from straight away.
All went exceptionally well except for a small complication with her drain, which is relatively common. Rochelle says she took a total of 6 weeks to fully recover and was constantly travelling between Bundaberg and Brisbane for review. She stressed that Dr Gaffield’s clinical nurse Sasha did an amazing job and gave her all the support that she needed after surgery.
Upon returning home Rochelle realized that with 3 children she needed constant support so that she could have 100% of her energy for herself to heal. Thankyou for family and friends!
When asked what she wish she’d known before having Abdominoplasty, Rochelle said she wanted to advise others contemplating this surgery that she was shocked about just how big the scar is – so don’t expect it to completely take away all your problems. “I had a radical abdominoplasty, my scar goes right round the back of me on both sides, it isn’t just a little scar.” Though she says she felt that wearing the binder tight does help.
“My nurse would say ‘if she’s still breathing it’s not tight enough’, I did that 24/7, from the first day, to make sure I got a good result. I really didn’t take that binder off for the first 2 weeks when standing up”. Rochelle explains.
Rochelle advises to use your recovery time.
“I say just use your recovery time as just that.”
As for exercising it took Rochelle until about 5 weeks to get back into it.
“It was taking me 1hr 10mins to walk 3.5kms, and then every day I just kept going with that and within a week I found myself back to normal (ie week 6).”
The complete surgery was $11,500 out of pocket, because she had no private health insurance and it was completed in a private hospital with a 1-night stay.
Rochelle explains she would definitely go through it again if she had to.
“It’s easy, it’s exciting, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted. I’m going out tonight with some old work mates that I used to work with about 10yrs ago, and I can’t decide what to wear because I have that much choice, it’s so true, I have all these size 8 dresses that are all skin tight that take me back prior to my daughters birthday. It’s fantastic!”
Congratulations Rochelle you look amazing! And about 20 years younger!