How do you see yourself in your new body?

As I wrote above:
We improve one area and elegant to improve the next.
It is like getting new tiles in the bathroom and then wanting a new sink or tub; fixing the garden and wanting to paint the outside of the house.
Maybe we should look at our TT (via HMO) as guilting the roof and fixing the sewer and the rest is the extras...
I know I want my inner thighs and saddlebags but only if my HMO will pay - otherwise I'll have to resolve myself to feeling enormously grateful for my flat tummy and half mango boobies (two surgeries a year apart and with some complications).
At some point we do have to accept our bodies the way they are - scars and some flabby areas - especially if we don't have the funds to pay privately.
I ain't never (double negative) be a goddess not do I want to be a Barbie or a Twiggy. Just a more flattering me.
BTW- how many of us are walking in a mall or down a street and pass a a shop window and not recognize ourselves?
Mikimi in Israel

It was a big decision for me to go forward with the second surgery... I had to heavily weigh the tradeoff of the scars for the fat. I could do a little less than I am doing but then as you point out there is a mis-match. The tile and sink look great but the tub looks old. In the end I decided to do all of it.

I hope that I love my results as much as I love my TT results.

I saw my reflection in the window approaching the hospital today for my ObGyn appt. I was very happy with who I saw, and yes, I had to do a double take to recognize that it was me. I like that.

My RnY was after a ring surgery from 1992 before laparoscopy was done in Israel so I have vertical scar from sternum down and then my horizontal C-section from 1985... Every scar on our body has significant for us. Just as a soldier takes pride in his battle wounds,so too, do I, and you and others should feel on every scar we now allow ourselves to get.
And I'd rather my ugly wide scars over the hanging flab that was!
Mikimi

Yeah, I just want to make sure that I keep my head straight and don't become one of these crazy people addicted to plastic surgery who ends up looking like a freak http://theberry.com/2012/04/09/perhaps-some-plastic-surgery- mishaps-28-photos/

I am glad that my surgeon takes a conservative approach with some of the technologies that are out there -- I had considered fillers and injections, etc, but I think in the long-term these things end up looking really awful. It is better to remove the excess skin and fat, follow a healthy lifestyle, and realize that eventually nature will take its course and we will need to allow ourselves to age.

Funny that you mention taking pride in our scars. I was very upset when I saw my striae re-appear on my stomach. I actually thought it was from the swelling and that these were new striae but my surgeon says they are from my pregnancy from a long time ago and that they reappeared when I swelled but were not newly formed. He told me that most people do not mind them in the end but at the time I was very upset. As time passed, he was right, as he always has been. I wear my stretch marks with pride because they represent a wonderful event in my life, which is the birth of my beautiful daughter. 

Your stretch marks might have grown on you but I hate mine, they ruin the look of my perfectly flat stomach and are worse then my actual scar.  My skin is full of stretch marks I have been mortified by them since I was a kid and they first appeared.  I remember clearly as a young girl wishing I could get three wishes granted, perfect skin was always number one on my list, freckles, zits and stretch marks as well as oily skin I wanted gone.  

Sometimes they bother me when I run my fingers across my abdo and feel the ridges and dents rather than smooth skin. I believe they can be fixed with plastic surgery but not sure how it is done. 

Short of actually cutting them off with plastics I have never seen anything that actually gets rid of them and even if there was I could never afford it, they are everywhere on my body.  I remember as a kid when they first appeared on my inner thighs my mother getting hysterical and saying, see you aren't supposed to be fat even your body is trying to tell you.  At the time I was just a chunky kid of around 11 or 12.  It was devastating and half the reason for so many bad choices, i.e. marrying the first guy I ever dated.  I thought it was just luck he wasn't horrified by the stretch marks and I didn't want to risk it again with another guy.  It really was awful.  The more I think about it the more it makes me want to cry.

I'm still having a tough time wrapping my head around it.  I intellectually know that I am in a much smaller size, but I still feel large. I still look down and see the flaws and the fat.  It is getting better, but when I think of myself, I still think of the fat me.  When I look at the image in the mirror, I can see differences and appreciate that the body I am looking at is "normal" if not even on the small side.  But to take that image and reconcile in my mind that it is my body..... still working on that one. 

Also doesn't help that I have gained some weight recently.  With the smaller flatter tummy and hips, those extra pounds are really noticeable to me. 

How do you feel about the new attention from men -- or even from women for that matter?

Hmmm you know, I don't really get much attention from either. Or at least from what I notice. I have never really been approached or hit on as an adult woman. I met my hubby when I was 17 and even then, a mutual friend set us up. My hubby isn't really a "ladies man" himself. He is is pretty shy.

I did always think, or maybe wish, that my being the invisable fat girl would stop once I lost weight and then got the plastic surgery to help the shape of my body. But as far as I can tell, I'm still pretty invisable.