Why Did This Size-Zero Woman Get Liposuction?

"I would do it again in 30 seconds," Megan O'Brien tells PEOPLE about undergoing her controversial plastic surgery procedures

Photo: Courtesy Dr. Marc Mani

Many women undergo liposuction in hopes of whittling themselves down to a size zero – but Megan O’Brien was already there when she decided to go under the knife.

Despite her small frame, O’Brien, 38, had a protruding midsection that she could not get rid of, no matter how much she tried.

“I’ve had this stomach forever,” the makeup blogger based in Los Angeles tells PEOPLE. “When I quit smoking, that’s when it got out of control. I was only eating chicken and salads, and going to the gym five days a week with a personal trainer for an hour a day, and I looked really good – except for my stomach.”

O’Brien – who describes her pre-surgery body as spider-like because of her “spindly limbs and this round belly” – made the decision to get plastic surgery when people continually congratulated her on a pregnancy that didn’t exist.

“I thought, I’m just going to take it into my own hands and do it,” says O’Brien, who blogged about her liposuction for Harper’s Bazaar.

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O’Brien went for a consultation with Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Marc Mani and opted for multiple procedures – liposuction of her stomach and chin, fillers in her face, and a blephoraplasty (a procedure to remove under-eye bags).

She shared her decision to undergo plastic surgery on Facebook with a tongue-in-cheek video that got 2,000 views overnight.

“I’m very open,” she says of going public with her potentially controversial choice. “People were emailing me from all over the country!”

In response to anyone who may critique her for having lipo when she was already so small, O’Brien explains that her size actually necessitated the procedure more.

“In fairness, because I was so tiny before, it made it worse,” she says. “I was a stick-figure with a round [stomach]. I really did look like a pregnant person and I was just sick of it.”

Seven weeks after the surgery, she has no regrets.

“I’m so happy,” she says. “I would do it again in 30 seconds.”