Malvern, PA
Trying to lose weight in just one part of your body often doesn’t work, but liposuction or liposculpting can provide the solution. People often come in for cosmetic surgery consultation hoping to get rid of fat in one particular area, location, or spot. Other people will try to lose weight in this one spot alone. People might want to lose fat from just the stomach. Others will want to lose fat from just the outer thighs. This type of weight loss in one problem fat area doesn’t usually work. You can not lose wight in isolated areas or in just one location or spot. This educational writing reviews the tremendously successful operation and results that can come from liposuction in selected areas. It was written in response to a question from a patient in Malvern, PA.
The reason isolated weight loss in one area doesn’t work is because you can’t change how your metabolism works. You can’t change how your body stores fat. When we gain weight and start to store fat, it is stored in multiple places in our body. The biggest area is intra-abdominal fat which is hidden on the inside beneath our abdominal muscles and around the intestines. We might see the fat gain or the changes in particular locations or anatomic spots. Some will see the added fat in their breasts, hips, or the stomach. When we lose the fat, we tend to lose the fat in the same places. But, you can’t selectively choose where you gain fat or where you will lose it. For those interested in more information on intra-abdominal fat or inside fat read our educational writing.
Some people hope to lose the fat from just the hips and not the breasts. Or they might hope for loss in the stomach only. Many manufacturers on TV will sell products like the “thigh-master” or the “abdominizer” to promote isolated fat loss in these isolated areas. These machines don’t work.
Machines like these tone muscles. They can’t change your metabolism, and they do not lead to weight loss in the one area selected. A person might gain muscle tone in this area and make it look better, but muscle exercises don’t make the fat go away in the area. It can however actually make the muscles bigger and make you look better in the area. It can increase tone, but not selective fat loss. You can not have selected fat loss in one area. You can’t override your own essential metabolism.
Fortunately, liposuction and liposculpturing can give isolated weight and fat loss in one problem fat area. This is because the surgery can be done to one targeted area. For example, let’s say a person can’t get rid of stomach fat and has been working hard on this area. Liposuction can target just this area and can help to a high degree in removing fat from this spot or location.
The best candidate for liposuction surgery is the patient who has been exercising and has localized or isolated fat deposits. This is considered the ideal candidate. However, many people can have liposuction. Patients who are over-weight can also have liposculpting. People who have generalized fat all over their body can, of coarse, have cosmetic surgery and fat removal. These patients will have to select which areas are the worst and the most important. You can’t suction the whole body at once. The ideal candidate, however, has exercise resistant fat in a particular area that can not be targeted with exercise or weight loss. The cosmetic liposuction procedure, however, specifically targets and hits the spot with the problem fat. It is in essence- an operation that “hits the spot!”
Spot weight loss doesn’t work. You can’t change how your metabolism works. But liposuction can be done to particular areas to selectively remove fat from the areas we have the most fat.
The surgery in general is highly successful. Most people find the recovery relatively easy. Many patients can go back to work in just a long weekend. The results typically give high degrees of satisfaction. Realistic expectations are still important to understand.
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I am a board certified plastic surgeon who practices exclusively cosmetic surgery. Contact us today for a complimentary consultation. Liposuction can be discussed in detail and how it can help you!
