The mommy makeover didn’t fix my body image issues because my body was never the issue to begin with. The issue is that I live in a world that taught me, since I was a little girl, that my body was something to be managed, controlled, perfected. That taking up space was something to apologize for. That my value as a woman was directly tied to how small I could make myself. I’m surviving in a culture that profits from women’s insecurity, selling us the idea that we’re always one purchase, one procedure, one diet away from finally being enough.

My patients and I don’t just talk about their bodies, but about what it means to be a woman in a world that simultaneously tells you you’re too much and not enough. We talk about how much mental energy they’re spending on self-surveillance that could be directed anywhere else. We talk about what they’re waiting for, what they’re putting off, what version of their life they’re not living because they don’t feel “ready” yet.

I don’t regret getting the mommy makeover—I don’t think it made me a hypocrite or a failure. It gave me a deeper understanding of how powerful these forces are. How even when you know better, even when you treat this professionally, you can still find yourself caught in the same trap.

What I tell my patients now is this: You can make whatever choices you want about your body—surgery, weight loss, GLP-1s. But don’t expect it to fix the underlying issue: the belief that your body is the problem.

Stop waiting to be “ready.”

The goal isn’t to love your body every single day. That’s unrealistic, and frankly, another thing to fail at. The goal is to stop letting your body dictate whether you get to live your life. Get in the photos with your kids. Go on the vacation. Wear the thing. Do the activity. Your life is happening right now, and you don’t get these moments back.