SLIMMING
“For every breakdown, there is always a breakthrough”
Glamazon model Bianca Valerio shares her story of depression and lifechanging liposuction
Just like that, nearly six inches from my waist are gone and I am back to my 24-inch model size. This isn’t in anyway a flex, just an expression of gratitude to getting my life in order, especially seeing how unbelievably easy it was to snap back into this model frame through the latest liposuction advancements done exclusively at the Belo Medical Clinic. However, how I found myself here in the first place was anything but simple.
Last January 2017, my only brother, Miko, died suddenly from a stroke. No closure, no goodbye— nothing but regrets and what-ifs filled my broken heart.
I’ve always considered myself to be a very mentally strong and emotionally-attuned person. As a personality development speaker and NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) life coach, one would assume that I had the grieving process in the bag.
How cocky was I to assume it, as grief from losing a loved one is such an intense rollercoaster ride of emotions. It breaks us down to the point of giving up and leading us to question life itself. However, if we are willing to look past the curtain of depression, there is hope. For every breakdown, there is always a breakthrough.
When my brother passed away, I unconsciously turned to food as a coping mechanism—something I’d never done before. Stuffing myself with food served as a distraction, hoping to fill a void that could never be filled. This self-sabotaging behavior caused me to gain nearly 30 lbs in just one year.
As a model and event host, my work highly depends on my appearance. Designers would dress me in their model-sized gowns to impress clients and look the part. I didn’t realize how bad it got: I was no longer fitting into the clothes and I was even buying them in larger sizes rather than my typical small or even extrasmall. An internally slow burn to self-destruction, my growing body had only caught up with my mental decline when it was just too hard to ignore. Perhaps it was denial or merely my lack of giving a damn about my appearance. All I wanted was my brother to come back so that all would right in the world again.
My Belo 360 Degrees Lipo journey in hindsight has been like a Cinderella story of sorts, where someone unexpected came to my rescue: my fairy godmother, Dr. Vicki Belo. (As for Prince Charming? It turns out the only person I needed the most love from was myself.)
Initially, as most people would, I opted for noninvasive treatments, hoping those were enough to suck all the fat from my abdomen area. They did the job, but unlike liposuction, an invasive procedure, it would take a longer time to achieve my desired results.
I started working out—something I had never really done as I thought there was no need since I was already skinny. I made the decision to cultivate good habits so that my trigger response to depression and anxiety would be proactive, a solid form to selflove. I figured, if I were going to proceed with liposuction, it would be a mentally healthy move to instill good habits for post-lipo maintenance success.
A year and a half after Miko passed away, I finally decided to undergo liposuction on August 13, 2018. I even documented the whole journey on my YouTube channel in the hopes of bringing awareness on the latest advancements of the procedure, but more importantly, to help remove the stigma on mental health issues, especially among “celebrities.” What. A. Breeze.
Had I known how easy the process was, I would have done it sooner. Right after the surgery, I went home and rested for a few days. I even managed a vacation in Japan a week later. Although the results are wonderfully immediate, your body will still be swollen. In aiding with this, the Belo Medical Clinic has a secret post-op recipe to ensure your journey to recovery is a success. The photos speak for themselves.
It took about three months to see the final results: my waist got smaller, with no bumps or lumps. Even my skin got tighter, thanks to the internal radio frequency tightening that’s incorporated into the lipo procedure itself—an exclusive to the Belo Medical Clinic.
The best part? My hourglass curves! True, non-invasive treatments and working out will help you lose inches, but they will not give you curves. Coming into this, I just wanted to get back to skinny, but something so much better came out of it. Never in a million years did I think I would ever have one. Paired with working out, my perky bottom became more emphasized and even became a topic of conversation. Many have asked if my butt is real. Here is actually what happened: because the fat around my whole waist area was sucked out and sculpted so beautifully (hence the term 360 Degrees Lipo), this gave the illusion of a bigger, shapelier behind.
Ask any runway model and fashion designer and they will tell you that big hips are a no-no. For years, I always associated curves with being fat. Since my surgery, I’ve fully embraced my new curves, and you better believe that I have zero intentions of working out to make my butt smaller. Thanks, Kim Kardashian.
The effects of 360 Degrees Lipo have gone way beyond aesthetic; it reignited and encouraged my confidence, but more importantly, it increased my motivation to stick to my self-care habits as this new body is just too damn good to go to waste.
From a 29-30 inch waist back to 24 inches in just one procedure, the amount of time I had saved to lose the inches led me to focus on full maintenance instead. One might argue that liposuction is expensive but spending that money bought me something even more precious: time—time to refocus on loving myself from the inside out.
Losing weight is hard. Maintenance is hard. So you need to pick your hard. Now, rather than face both battles, I only need to win one: maintenance. You cannot blame your doctor if the fat comes back. They help you lose the fat, but you must help yourself to keep them off.
Lipo won’t bring Miko back, and it won’t answer all my problems but one thing it has done, is it has brought me back to life.
“LOSING
WEIGHT IS HARD. MAINTENANCE IS HARD. SO YOU NEED TO PICK YOUR HARD.