Addicted to Lipo

I was a fat kid, born fat to my petite European mother, who had been a fit model in the '60s. My chubbiness worked for me. I could fall down in front of our apartment building on NYC's ultraskinny Fifth Avenue and bounce right up, unharmed. Compared to my older brother, I was treated with kid gloves: I never had to do chores, wash dishes, babysit, because my parents thought I already had enough to deal with, what with my gigantic size. Most obsessed of all was my mother. When I was 13, she got me my own private aerobics instructor. But by 15, at 5'8", I was an adult size 16.

I didn't mind it so much, really. I didn't want to deal with boys or sex or going to parties and all that. I was really happy playing video games, reading, baking brownies with my best friend, and watching movies. The only problems occurred when I was out in public, and then it was the men who were the cruelest, not the girls. Grown men. Once, on my way to school, two guys walked toward me, and, from about 30 feet away, I could hear their soft, high-pitched singsong: "Fatty! Faaaaatty!"

By 16, I'd had enough, and I spent a year and a half weighing every single thing I put in my mouth, eating salads with no dressing, climbing the StairMaster for an hour a day, doing countless sit-ups. I hit 155 pounds, and considered myself normal looking—except for my stomach. While the rest of my body shrunk down, my waist remained a stubborn inner tube of flesh. I felt deformed. And I still hadn't kissed a boy. The thought of talking to one absolutely terrified me: I was fat; boys made fun of me—that was the way it was.

Senior year of high school, a solution presented itself. It was creative and unorthodox, but also totally insane: I fashioned a girdle out of duct tape and old panty hose. Yes! Sometimes when I pulled the tape off at the end of the day, skin would come with it, leaving scars that stuck to my hips and rib cage for years. But at last I could wear a T-shirt in public. I had a figure—a nice one.

My mother, terrified that I was going to hurt myself (not an unfounded fear, considering I passed out once or twice), made an appointment with a plastic surgeon. I'd been dreaming about liposuction ever since I read about it in Jackie Collins' Hollywood Wives, my favorite book at age 10.

"Yep, that's not going anywhere," the doctor said when I lifted my shirt to display the inner tube. To continue reading, visit ELLE