Writing excerpt: The Final Cut

Far from a vanity surgery, excess skin removal after massive weight loss is life changing for the right patients.

From the age of 12, Samantha* (37) was in a cycle of gaining weight and then working hard to lose it. When she finally lost and kept off over 60 kilograms in her thirties, she had a significant amount of loose skin that left her feeling disheartened and disconnected with her body. 

“My self-esteem has never hinged on the way I look,” says Samantha. “My body gave me 3 kids, I always appreciated it, but the way I feel about myself didn’t match with what I saw in the mirror.” 

As well as the emotional challenge, she battled constant yeast infections in her belly button and found herself changing her clothes twice a day or more, trying to keep the skin under her stomach dry and the folds of skin hidden. “When you’re a size 10 with size 16 skin, that’s a lot of loose skin to tuck in somehow.”

After her father’s death, Samantha was able to fulfill his dying wish that some of her inheritance would go towards skin removal surgery in the form of a lower body lift. “When I woke up after surgery, I just cried. I have been fantasising about that moment since I was a teenager. My head and my heart finally match my outsides.”

“Having to deal with excess skin after going to the effort of losing all that weight can be so demoralising,” says Dr. Jesse Kenton-Smith, a Specialist Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon and Board Member of the Australasian Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (ASAPS). “Patients might be healthier after losing 50 kilograms, but they sometimes look worse because of all the excess skin. Some don’t even want to show their partner their body, which is a real shame.”

This is an excerpt of an article called “The Final Cut” which was commissioned for The Beauty Book 2021.

The full article can be found in The Beauty Book, which is available to purchase from supermarkets, book stores and online here.