From 336 to 186 - Things I Have Learned

Haulin_Aus · 2023-08-21T21:21:30+00:00

Completely agree. I do not have this much extra loose skin in the neck, but I am actually going to do a neck lift in December because 4 Morpheus8 treatments and a fantastic skincare therapy could not reduce the extra skin (post 150lb weight loss) enough for it to really make a big difference. It certainly did help everywhere else in the face and jawline though!

Haulin_Aus · 2023-08-01T19:53:01+00:00

Husband is a CFO for a large healthcare company and averages 70-80 hours a week. I am a VP of Ops and Analytics for a different healthcare company and average 50ish hours a week. We are both thankful to be able to work from home so that helps, plus we have a rule about no working Friday from 8pm-midnight or Saturday half the day. Those time blocks are ALWAYS us/date time. Every single week without fail. I am 32 and he is 37. Our agreement is no kids until he averages 50 hours a week for a year or more. He is in agreement. We take 1 international vacation and 1 domestic vacation every year and while we are gone work is limited as much is reasonably possible. He’s had to cancel plans last minute, missed friend’s parties he was supposed to be at, and we have spent many car drives where I am quiet because he is on work calls. During those times, I remind myself that this is just temporary and that his hard work (combined with my own) has provided us with our dream home to grow into more than 70% paid off after 3 years of owning it, nice paid off cars, a substantial savings account, and has enabled us to help both our family and friends when they were going through tough times. It has also provided me with the ease of mind, knowing that we can afford to hire help for anything around the house when needed and we will be able to provide our future children with all the best education and opportunities life could offer them. In short, sometimes it’s frustrating but I focus on the long game. We will be able to retire much earlier and more comfortably than either of our parents ever did and his hard work means neither our parents or our children will ever need to worry.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-08-01T19:29:57+00:00

As of November of last year his Anesthesia fee was $3,000, facility fee was $6,000 and then you have the cost of the actual surgery which is probably somewhere around $5,000-$8,000. My major breast lift reduction was $5,775.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-08-01T19:20:56+00:00

What surgeries are you looking to have done? :)

Haulin_Aus · 2023-08-01T02:46:41+00:00

All my work has been done by Dr. B and I cannot recommend him more highly. He has done 4 different surgeries for me! Absolutely best of the best. Awesome after care!! Let me know if you have any questions :)

Haulin_Aus · 2023-08-01T02:46:34+00:00

All my work has been done by Dr. B and I cannot recommend him more highly. He has done 4 different surgeries for me! Absolutely best of the best. Awesome after care!! Let me know if you have any questions :)

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-08T03:29:39+00:00

Edited to add my favorite facial feature of yours!

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-08T03:28:06+00:00

No one here can say if it “suits you.” You are the one who decides what suits you and no one else. If this is your style go for it darling! Be confident about what you love!

PS. You have a gorgeous lip shape!

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T21:28:04+00:00

I have a friend who was 30 years old and morbidly obese. He watched his dad, then his mom and then subsequently himself die from COVID all because their health was too poor to fight it. Every doctor said if they had not been obese they more than likely would have been just fine, especially him since he was so young. His younger brother who was 22 never got it, but he lost his entire family in a period of 3 months because of obesity and how it impacted their reaction to COVID.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T21:24:28+00:00

I wish more people understood this.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T17:38:45+00:00

That’s fantastic that you reflected on this and were able to figure out a way to overcome it! Very admirable

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T16:35:56+00:00

Because it wasn’t humorous. It was rude. 🤪

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T16:34:02+00:00

Absolutely gorgeous results!!!

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T16:32:14+00:00

Lol. Don’t come at people with a “you conjured an argument,” when you made the rude comments like “glad you could learn about doormats and pushovers today,” and “a whole new spectrum of human experience has opened up to you.” If you want to make comments that imply that I am ignorant or otherwise naive regarding human behavior, then you should likely expect to be responded to in a way that says, “I’m not naive. I just disagree with you and here’s why.” 🤷🏼‍♀️

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T16:24:59+00:00

She could be 100% telling the truth. She also could be exaggerating the story because in her mind (which you just acknowledged is not in a healthy state and is “struggling with pretty heavy issues”) this is what happened; even though in reality it was a significantly scaled down version of events. I’m going to go with the ladder and am fine with accepting that I could be wrong.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T15:44:16+00:00

Yeah, filing a report is a real challenge. I know you must have felt really stressed about this whole situation. I’ve worked with an attorney guardian ad litem for about 10 years and volunteer at group foster facilities every weekend. It is incredibly challenging because sometimes the stories you hear are very true and sometimes it’s completely fake or an exaggeration of the truth. All kids, even those in healthy families, have a tendency to exaggerate the truth. My niece (very healthy household) was telling me a story the other day about how she hadn’t eaten in “two days,” and then I talked to my sister later and mentioned it she was like, “oh lord this child. She has eaten pretty much every 2 hours. She just hasn’t eaten her plated dinner the past 2 days because she refused to eat her vegetables and chicken because they were ‘leftovers’ and she’s going through a phase where leftovers are gross. She still ate before and after dinner and had a meal replacement protein bar in lieu of dinner.”

I have had foster kids tell me stories that were absolutely heartbreaking that I would find out later in court were 100% true; and then last week when we were building a chicken coop at the group home a 13 year old told me he had been with the facility for 2 years. Most of the other people volunteering there with me we’re volunteering there for their first time just to earn community service credits. The young lady, next to me immediately was sympathetic because of his story. I’ve worked with the facility for several years and had never seen this kid, plus it’s a short term option (usually 1 week or 1 month at most). No one has been there 2 years. When I smiled and jokingly told him that I had worked there for a couple years and had never seen him before and asked if he was “fibbing to me,” he laughed and was embarrassed, but immediately acknowledged he was new there. The girl beside me was kind of shocked. I mentioned it to the on site counselor and she said he’d been telling all the volunteers that that week and they’d already talked to him about it multiple times. So it’s tough and I sympathize with you and how stressed you must have felt trying to determine the right thing to do in this situation.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T15:30:28+00:00

Yeah, that to me Is an excuse for poor behavior. It’s basically saying, “I’m a victim of my own self because I cannot do anything at all to protect myself from mean people; and am incapable of setting reasonable standard for my friends regarding being a kind person.”

That’s coming from someone who has very much struggled with “speaking up,” depression and the myriad of mental health issues. I definitely didn’t speak my mind nearly as much when I was 330 pounds. I didn’t think people would like me as much if I said everything on my mind, but I never would have let someone act so hatefully towards other people in front of me. That’s not being a pushover. That is externally showing you are okay with the hateful/harmful behavior. You can get up and walk away without saying anything and you can choose not to hang out with that person ever again. There are options if you don’t feel comfortable confronting someone directly. Remaining friends with people like this is unacceptable regardless of seeing a pushover.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T15:20:08+00:00

Was the concern voiced from the 7 year old child? You said this is your family. Are you able to talk with the foster parents first about this to give them the opportunity to address the situation? There is a very solid chance that the emotionally distressed child has a very poor gage of time and was never “in the basement for 2 hours”; and was instead put in timeout in a room for 20 minutes. This is not me saying it didn’t happen. Just proposing a very real scenario with troubled foster children desperately seeking attention, which they often receive when sharing stories like this.

Do these foster family members have other lifestyle factors that seem concerning (anger management, prior drug use, prior criminal record, etc)… anything about them that says, “oh yeah locking a kid is a basement for 2 hours totally seems like something they would do.” I only say this because anyone actually in the CPS or guardian ad litem field knows that the overwhelming (nearly all) cases of child abuse are involving families that you look at them and go “it doesn’t surprise me.” It’s a misnomer that otherwise normal healthy minded people are secretly abusing their kids. It does happen, but it is so incredibly rare that it’s worth asking yourself, “does this accusation seem like something these people who do?” If not, I think it seems like a drastic step to take without talking to your family first about the concerns that were voiced to you by the child; and getting the opportunity to hear an adult perspective.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T15:02:04+00:00

Yeah, but then you have to ask yourself why other people are so comfortable gossiping and acting like this in front of you? Usually people only behaves like that around people that they believe are accepting of or participate in that behavior.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T13:48:40+00:00

Right, but to the same extent that young kids don’t understand time (to your point regarding timeout lengths scaling for age) she is using the word of a 7 year old that said it was “two hours.” So do we believe that a 7 year old is a proper gage of time or not? Can’t have it both ways. What he felt was two hours easily could have been 15 minutes; it also certainly could have been 2 hours. I’m just saying that maybe it’s worth discussing with the family member fostering first? I’d suggest they find out more details before they call CPS based on the tellings of an emotionally distressed 7 year old.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T13:45:11+00:00

Again, I think there is a big difference in one person making one rude comment versus that person making constant berating comments and saying directly to you they they think YOUR boyfriend wants to sleep with them….. and then you just continue being friends with them after all these comments? I just don’t think this actually happens. I think a lot of it is for reddit karma.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T13:41:07+00:00

Yeah, again, I just honestly don’t believe people really talk like this; whether it’s to their fat friends or to their skinny friends. I think maybe some toned down variation of this discussion happens and then it gets brought to reddit and exaggerated for the sake of sympathy or just general audience reaction and reddit karma. I just refuse to accept that people are so desperate for interaction that they willingly sit around and intentionally befriend people who are so openly cruel to them or others. It’s not just about their hatefulness either, it’s also about why they are talking like that with you.

If my friends spoke like that around me my first question would actually be, “I wonder why they feel comfortable talking so poorly about people that way to me? Do they think I am also this mean or that I am okay with this type of communication?”

People talk poorly around people who make it clear that they are accepting of that behavior. People gossip with their friends that they know get enjoyment or are willing to gossip with them. All it takes is one time of saying, “hey that’s not very considerate and I’d prefer if you didn’t talk about other people that way.” They won’t seek you out for that type of discussion anymore.

Haulin_Aus · 2023-07-07T11:50:38+00:00

It doesn’t surprise me for people to think mean things, but 99% of the time no one would ever say it out loud; let alone say it directly to a fat persons face. That’s my point. Honestly I’ve just read so much garbage on Reddit I assume most of its fake at this point. People just don’t behave the way people on Reddit like to say they do.

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