Life After Liposuction: Six Tips for Maintaining Results After Your Procedure

Liposuction is one of the most popular types of surgery our clinic performs. This is because it is one of the most versatile cosmetic surgeries out there. This treatment is also highly sought after as liposuction can be performed on both men and women.

For starters, liposuction can be performed almost anywhere on the body where stubborn fat can form. This can include the stomach, love handles, chest, back, double chin, upper arms, thighs, ankles, buttocks, and more.

Receiving liposuction can be a transformative experience, allowing patients to achieve a more desired body contour and shape in their designated areas. Liposuction allows for removing stubborn fat that diet and exercise cannot remove alone.

However, it is important to note that despite the common misconception about the procedure, liposuction is not a weight loss solution surgery. A patient typically does not lose more than ten pounds from a procedure, with the average two to five pounds.

The strategic use of liposuction does, however, remove stubborn fat from the body and improve the smoothness, tightness, and overall improvement to the body’s contour, resulting in a slimmer, more fit appearing state. The photos detailing the before and after liposuction treatment can be great examples of how efficient the procedure can be.

The fat cells removed from the body during the treatment are permanently removed, and thus results can remain indefinitely without needing another procedure, even as they age. However, this hinges on some key components. While the fat cells are now gone, new fat may appear if patients treat the procedure as a solution rather than working to maintain their results.

Here are six helpful tips for maintaining the results of liposuction treatment for ensuring stubborn fat stays away for good.

1) Maintaining a Healthy Diet

Maintaining a healthy diet is instrumental to keeping your post-liposuction figure and overall physical health. Ensuring that your diet is full of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and proteins like lean meat (such as poultry and fish) and nuts have an endless list of benefits to them.

Additionally, avoiding refined sugars and saturated fats where possible is beneficial, as foods high in these directly lead to the creation of new fat in the body. Refined sugars are high in empty calories while also impacting your body’s blood sugar and hormone levels. Having prolonged high blood sugar levels can create a condition known as hyperglycemia, which makes your body resist insulin production.

Insulin is a hormone created by your pancreas that converts your body’s sugars to energy. Hyperglycemia prevents your cells from responding to the insulin and leads to weight gain, excess creation of body fat, inflammation, and other health issues.

It is also a good idea to reduce your sodium intake. Unfortunately, sodium can find its way into many of the products we buy, with things like canned soups, packages of ramen, and cooking broths are all loaded with high amounts of sodium. Just one package of ramen contains 88% of your daily recommended sodium.

An overindulgence of sodium in your diet not only leads to health risks such as strokes, heart conditions, and autoimmune diseases, but it also has a direct link to weight gain. High levels of salt in the body create an extreme thirst, but rather than simply passing water through your body when you drink; it absorbs it instead to try and dilute the sodium, leading to a retention of water and weight gain.

2) Stay Well Hydrated

We’ve all heard the adage of needing to drink eight glasses of water a day, which roughly translates to two litres. While it might sound excessive, it’s true. Your body is at least 60% water, and maintaining a proper water intake is one of the healthiest things you can do for your body.

There are many benefits to staying well hydrated. For starters, it helps regulate your body’s ability to digest food and transport the nutrients within it. Water also helps you feel full for longer, and many times, when a person might feel like snacking, they may be thirsty instead. Staying hydrated may help to curb these feelings. Staying hydrated can also help a person retain focus and energy in their day, which can help with staying motivated during daily tasks such as exercising.

3) Don't Skip Mealtime

Missing meals can happen, whether your day becomes too busy to take time out for a break, or perhaps one is too tired to prepare a proper meal after a long day.

In other cases, skipping lunchtime may be a tempting option to save on your daily calories – but this is an unsafe and ineffective mindset to have. There’s a reason dietitians recommend having three proper square meals a day, plus snacks. When a person skips a meal, your body goes into starvation preservation mode. This means your metabolism slows down and increases the enzymes that store fat and calories in your body to protect you.

This can also lead to an increase in stress and irritability. When your body is running low on energy, it releases adrenaline and other types of hormones to try and keep your body alert and awake. Running your body on these hormones can lead to higher blood pressure, headaches, poor sleep, and lack of focus. Worse, the lack of carbohydrates in your body can cause your blood sugars to drop dangerously and cause dizziness and nausea.

4) Exercise at Your Own Pace

Liposuction is not a replacement for exercise. While the procedure removes fat that may not have been able to dissipate on its own through exercise, maintaining a proper regime will help new fat from forming again in the cleared area.

Cardio and aerobic exercises are important for keeping your body lean by burning fat and calories, building endurance, and keeping your heart healthy. Meanwhile, strength exercises help you stay toned and build muscle definition.

Exercising doesn’t mean you need to have a full-time gig at the gym, either. The most important part of the exercise is simply making sure you do it in a way that works for you. While some people might enjoy the solo time of concentration from running on the treadmill at the gym, others may find their solace in light cardio in front of the tv while watching their favourite show or playing one of the many five or ten-minute workout videos available through YouTube.

If you’re working from home and find yourself situated for long periods, getting up and moving around every 30 to 60 minutes will help get your blood flowing; alternatively, a standing desk or exercise ball as a chair can all help work as a passive exercise through your workday.

Strenuous exercise can be resumed roughly six weeks after liposuction.

5) Follow The Post-Operative Plan

Following the proper instructions while recovering from your liposuction is critical to reduce the time it takes for your recovery following your treatment and thus see the results of your surgery. This means sleeping in the proper positionings, wearing the assigned compression bandages to reduce swelling and bruising, not overextending yourself, and returning for all follow-up appointments.

Our clinic offers an extensive “After Liposuction” program, which allows our patients to see the best possible results from their procedure.

We typically begin this program around 12 weeks following your treatment or whenever your body has had ample time to properly heal. During this program, you will return to us for additional non-surgical procedures such as muscle toning, skin tightening, and other procedures that can help reduce the localization of fat, such as CoolSculpting. These procedures are included in your initial billing of liposuction and do not bring an additional cost to yourself.

6) Start the Routines Early

On average, it can take a person 66 days to form a routine habit from a new behaviour. It can be tough to make these changes while you’re recovering from an extensive surgical procedure, so to make the above steps easier to integrate into your life, we recommend starting them as early as possible.

If you’re already maintaining the healthy habits of diet, exercise, and staying hydrated, you’ll find that not only will your surgical recovery go smoother and faster, maintaining these habits will be far easier to maintain during your recovery process, allowing you to enjoy the results of your liposuction for years and years to come.

Liposuction at Toronto Plastic Surgeons

Our clinic features some of the top Toronto liposuction surgeons around. Dr. Bell has been performing expert levels of cosmetic surgery such as liposuction for over 20 years and is named one of the best plastic surgeons in the world by W magazine.

With such dedicated surgeons working at our clinic, we are proud to offer a great variety of methods and techniques when it comes to liposuction and body contouring services.

Here are some of the many types of liposuction treatments we offer at our clinic.

BodyTite™

BodyTite™ is a method of liposuction that uses a handheld electrode to generate radiofrequency energy over the fat cells. This is done by first inserting a small probe in the surgery area and running the electrode over it. The radiofrequency bounces between the electrode and probe, generating enough gentle heat to liquefy fat in the area.

Liquified fat allows for a much simpler and less invasive removal, allowing for a gentler surgery and easier recovery. This heat also stimulates your body tissues into a process of gradual tightening, allowing a soft tissue contraction as high as 40-50 percent over one year following the procedure.

SmartLipo™

SmartLipo™ also utilizes heat like a BodyTite procedure does, albeit in a slightly different way. SmartLipo in Toronto utilizes energy generated from laser technology, which is beamed directly into the liposuction treatment area and gently melting for easier extraction and stimulating soft tissue contraction following the procedure.

VASERLipo™

VASERLipo™, standing for “vibration amplification of sound energy at resonance, “utilizes ultrasonic waves to break up and vibrate fat cells until they liquefy. This is one of the quickest liposuction methods our clinic offers, usually only taking 30-45 minutes to perform the procedure.

Tumescent

Tumescent liposuction utilizes a solution known as epinephrine, injected into the designated liposuction area, flushing the unwanted fat cells and causing them to expand and firm up, allowing for easier control and contouring while removing the fat. Simultaneously, the solution also temporarily shrinks blood vessels, which results in far less bleeding, bruising, and swelling during and after the procedure.

Non-Surgical Liposuction Options

We understand that surgical options are not for everybody. This is why our clinic offers an extensive range of non-surgical body contouring procedures that are effective in slimming down the body’s appearance and depleting fat cells without the use of incisions.

Some of these methods include:

• CoolSculpting
• Evolve
• SculpSure
• Vanquish
• EMsculpt
• BodyFX
• Vanquish
• Venus Freeze
• Excilis
• VelaShape 3

Fat Transfer

A fat transfer, or fat grafting, is the name for a two-part procedure used to help create volume in a desired area of the body while creating a more streamlined appearance in other areas.

This is done by using liposuction to remove unwanted fat from the body in areas such as the thighs and stomach and redistributing it into an area that would benefit from additional fullness. Two such popular examples of this procedure would be the Brazilian butt lift (BBL) and a fat transfer breast augmentation, an alternative (or supplemental) procedure to implants.

If enough fat is not present in a singular donor area, it may be required to take from multiple areas at once. Patients who receive a fat transfer get to enjoy the benefits of receiving an overall slimmer body contour in areas they may have been insecure about while regaining the confidence in the enhancement procedure they initially sought out.

Liposuction VS. Tummy Tuck

The between liposuction and tummy tucks is that a tummy tuck is a procedure that removes loose and excess skin from the stomach, while liposuction targets the removal of fat beneath it. These two procedures can be performed either separately or combined for even more beneficial and defined treatment.

Contact Us Today!

If you’re struggling with stubborn fat cells and considering liposuction, or any of our body contouring procedures, our specialists at Toronto Plastic Surgeons would be happy to help guide you through any questions you may have about the procedure.

Our clinic performs with the highest of integrity and hosts the forefront of modern liposuction technologies. It’s never been a better or safer time to get a body contouring procedure. You can reach us by booking a consultation with us online or by calling us at 647-723-3739 and speaking with one of our clinical staff, who will happily help start you on the path to confidence in your body.

FAQs

How Much Weight Can I Lose With Liposuction?

Liposuction is designed for body contouring rather than significant weight loss. Ideal candidates are individuals with stubborn fat pockets who are already within 10-15% of their target weight and in good health. While you may experience some weight loss after the procedure, the main goal is to sculpt and enhance body shape, not to shed pounds dramatically.

How Long Do the Results Last?

The results of liposuction are permanent, as the fat cells removed won’t come back. However, maintaining the results requires keeping weight gain under 10-15 pounds. Gaining more weight than this can diminish the effects, as new fat may develop in untreated areas, altering your post-lipo contour.

Do Fat Cells Come Back After Liposuction?

No, the fat cells removed during liposuction are gone for good, and your body won’t regenerate them in the treated areas. However, the remaining fat cells can expand if you gain weight. This means that while the treated area may stay relatively slim, you can still gain fat in other parts of your body.

Can I Gain Weight After Liposuction?

Yes, it’s possible to gain weight after liposuction. Although fat cells won’t return to the treated area, any weight gain can cause fat to accumulate elsewhere. For example, if you had liposuction on your abdomen, future weight gain might show up on your thighs, arms, or buttocks, which can affect the overall contour achieved through the surgery. Maintaining a stable weight is key to preserving your results.