The 10 Commandments of Weight Loss

Archive for February, 2011

Breast lift surgery, clinically referred to as a mastopexy, restores a youthful appearance to a woman’s breasts. Over the years breasts lose their shape and firmness due to pregnancy, nursing, and loss of skin elasticity, which basically means they end up sagging. A Mastopexy will raise and reshape breasts—slowing the effects of aging and gravity. This procedure can reduce the size of the areola, the darker skin surrounding the nipple.

Mastopexy is often performed in conjunction with breast augmentation to increase breast firmness and size. This may appeal to women who have lost breast volume after pregnancy. Pregnancy and nursing often result in stretched skin and therefore decreased volume. As with all cosmetic surgery, realistic expectations are important. Though breasts of any size can be lifted, women with smaller breasts enjoy longer lasting results.

A mastopexy is not a simple operation, though it is still normally safe when performed by a qualified plastic surgeon. Mastopexy is occasionally performed in a hospital, but more often is done in an outpatient facility. Breast lifts are usually performed under general anesthesia. The surgery may take anywhere between 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours, and there is some recovery time. As with any surgery, there are possible complications. A patient may suffer an adverse reaction to the anesthesia (very rare), or experience bleeding and infection following a breast lift, causing scars to widen. Poor healing and wider scars are more common with patients who smoke.

After surgery, stitches will be covered with gauze and an elastic bandage, or a surgical bra will hold the breasts in place. Breasts will be bruised, swollen, and there will be some mild discomfort for a couple of days. A soft support bra replaces the bandages or surgical bra after a few days. While recovering, a bra should be worn at all times. To ensure proper healing, plan to stay at home for at least a week before returning to work. The patient should avoid lifting anything over your head for 3-4 weeks and avoid strenuous exertion of any kind for a month

If an individual follows this advice, then with minimum pain and quick recovery she will be able to enjoy the benefits of a successfully finished procedure, and enjoy the added attention she will undoubtedly receive.

You want to have a full life. You want to feel well. You want lots of energy, vitality, power, and stamina. Am I right so far?

Well, the great news is that all these can be yours. Yoga applies age-old secrets to everyday life in a modern, fast-paced world. Its practical application can restore your lost youth, put new zest into your every step, and empower you to fully enjoy a sense of health, energy and creative living. All this will do wonders for your future happiness…

Sounds good, huh? Well let me tell you a little about yoga…

Yoga is an ancient health-art developed and perfected over the centuries by wise men in ancient India. Yoga is not a religion, a metaphysical doctrine, or a philosophy. It is not magic, although the amazing improvements it can make in your health, your appearance and your youthfulness may often seem magical, even miraculous…

There are many different types of yoga. Contrary to popular belief, not all types of yoga involve difficult positions and postures, uncomfortable exercises or strenuous diets…

Yoga can take years off your face and years from your body, and add years to your life. There are certain secret methods by which the Yogis keep the flexibility and “spring” of early youth in their joints and muscles and limbs well into the declining years…

It is a common sight to see, in the crowded, colorful streets of Bombay or New Delhi, Yogis well into their seventies and even their eighties, with the straight, graceful posture of a boy, walking with the elastic, springy step of youth… with firm, healthy bodies, their hair dark and glossy and un-streaked with grey. Firm, unlined faces … clear, un-dimmed eyes…

Not only does yoga make you look and feel years younger, and years healthier, but it lends your body superb health. It works like magic because it enables the body to realize its full potential of great health…

You know that Nature has built into your body certain certain “defense mechanisms” for self-repair, natural safeguards against disease. Well, modern yoga helps the body’s machinery function smoothly, efficiently, and at peak performance…

Yoga encourages your body to derive every last possible atom of nutritive value from the food you now eat (so different from the natural diet of your ancestors) … to get every second of refreshment and rest from your sleep … to attain regularity, relief from little aches and pains, the ability to sleep deep and wake refreshed that can make the difference from feeling “pretty good” to feeling “terrific”!

Yoga assists all your muscles and bones and organs to operate at their maximum potential. Yoga stimulates into peak performance the hidden abilities of your body to throw off the attacks of disease that affect so many people we know and love…

Do you suffer from insomnia and stress? Have you lost your appetite? Do you find it hard to relax? Do you smoke too much, feel “worn out” by the afternoon, find as you grow older that you cannot enjoy full life and day to day vitality?

Yoga has the amazing power to relax and refresh you, soothe your nerves, calm your mind, give you the serenity and strength and inner stamina that is part of the “Magic of the East”.
Yoga prevents the premature grey in your hair, the ugly wrinkles in your face….

Yoga tightens those sagging muscles that give you that “tired look.” It puts new zest in your appetite, brings back the sparkle in your eyes, and gives that wonderful sensation of feeling “fit as a fiddle”…

If these benefits are important to you (and you’d be crazy if they weren’t) then its time you learnt about yoga!

There is much confusion regarding what people mean when they say they have dark circles under the eyes, often referred to as the tired look. There are 4 different conditions which can cause dark skin under the eyelid which people call dark circles under the eyes:

1. Dark purple skin color on the lower eyelid skin
2. Brown pigment on the lower eyelid skin
3. A hollow eyed appearance in which the lower eyelid is sunken in.
4. A depression or deep line along the lower edge of the eyelid just above the cheek called the naso-jugal fold, the true dark circle under the eyelid and most common form of dark circle under the eyes

1. Dark Purple Color of the Lower Eyelid Skin

When the skin of the lower eyelid is a dark purple or bluish color people often say they have dark circles under the eyes. If you look closely EVERYONE has darker skin color on the lower eyelid than on the skin of the rest of the face. This is because the lower eyelid skin is the thinnest skin on the face, so thin that you can see through the skin and see the purple color of the eyelid muscle showing through the skin. In people with thicker skin the color looks more bluish, but everyone’s lower eyelid skin is darker because of the color of the muscle beneath the thin skin. There are familial and racial differences in skin thickness and muscle color so there is great variation in the darkness of lower eyelid skin. I do not call this normal phenomena dark circles under the eyelid, rather I call this normal phenomena dark purple lower eyelid. The only solution for this problem is to use a cover up make up like Covermark® or Dermablend®.

2. Brown Pigment on the Lower Eyelid Skin

Sun damage to the skin, birth control pills and other medications, and the “mask of Pregnancy” and other metabolic conditions can cause the deposition of brown pigment in the lower eyelid skin. This is not called dark circles under the eyes but is called hyperpigmentation. The treatment is the removal or correction of the underlying cause-stop the medication, sun protection etc. Once the cause is corrected there are several remedies. Skin bleaching agents such as hydroquinone and Kojic Acid can help as can microdermabrasion®. Laser resurfacing or Microlaserpeel®, deep exfoliation techniques can also be helpful. IPL also called Photo Facial can also help. Very goods results can be achieved with these modalities.

3. A Hollowed Eye Appeance

Some people have a very sunken in or hollowed eye appearance. This is caused by a deficiency of the normal fat which surrounds the eyeball and normally plumps the lower eyelid skin. This deficiency of fat can be caused by heredity, racial factors, malnutrition, general disease, dehydration or trauma to the orbital bone which supports the eyeball.

The correction involves the correction of the underlying disease or medical problem when there is a medical cause.

For people who have this appearance because of heredity or racial factors, the fat must be grafted into the lower eyelid to replace the deficiency. I do this by performing a blepharoplasty through an incision on the inside pink portion of the lower eyelid called the transconjunctival approach. This avoids a scar on the outside of the lower eyelid. I then harvest or take fat from an area of the body where the fat will not be missed (hip or abdomen) and transplant the fat to the lower eyelid to plump the lower eyelid.

4. The Naso-jugal Fold or Tear Trough Deformity-the True Dark Circle Under the Eye.

The true dark circle under the eye is a crease or depression starting at the nose and running towards the outside of the lower eyelid running at the bottom of the eyelid just above the cheek. This dark circle or depression looks dark because it is attached to the underlying bone of the rim of the orbit or eye socket, and the unattached skin of the lower eyelid above the depression is free to move and bulge and creates a shadow which gives the crease a dark color. The cheek skin below the dark circle is also free to move and bulge and bulges above the dark circle, which contributes to the shadow.

The dark circle or naso-jugal fold or tear trough deformity gets worse or deepens as we age because the eyelid above and cheek below begin to sag with aging but the dark circle is attached to bone and cannot sag with the rest of the skin, so the lower eyelid skin hangs over more from sagging and bulging of fat, the depression deepens, the shadow gets worse and the dark circle becomes more noticeable.

The dark circle or naso-jugal fold or tear trough is tethered or held tight to the bony rim of the eye socket bone by a ligament called the arcus marginalis.

To correct the dartk circle I perform a transconjunctival blepharoplasty. During the procedure I release the arcus marginalis ligament which frees up the dark circle or naso-jugal fold. Once the dark circle is released the dark circle skin is free to move with the lower eyelid skin and the cheek skin and the dark circle or shadow is lessened. To prevent re-attachment of the arcus marginalis and to plump up the dark circle I place a fat graft underneath the dark circle. Some surgeons place an implant called a tear trough implant under the dark circle but I usually use fat.

Correction of dark circles under the eyes, also called the naso-jugal fold or tear trough deformity requires proper diagnosis. This condition needs to be differentiated from dark purple eyelid color, hyperpigmentation and hollow eyes. The correction of true dark circles requires a blepharoplasty operation with arcus marginalis release and fat grafting or tear trough implants.