If you’re considering liposuction, you’re in good company — every year in the United States, over 200,000 people choose to sculpt away unwanted areas of fat and redefine their bodies with liposuction, making it one of the nation’s top five most requested cosmetic procedures.
Despite its popularity, liposuction remains plagued by misconceptions. As aesthetic medicine experts who specialize in noninvasive and minimally invasive liposuction techniques, our skilled team at Smooth Body Contours in Orlando, Florida, and Sandy Springs, Georgia, wants to debunk a few of the most common myths about this versatile and highly effective body shaping solution.
Fact: Liposuction is not a weight-loss solution, meaning it doesn’t treat excess body weight or obesity. Instead, it’s a body contouring technique that “spot-reduces,” or gets rid of specific, localized areas of stubborn fat that are otherwise resistant to the effects of diet and exercise.
The best candidates for liposuction are within a healthy body weight range and have specific localized pockets of fat they’d like to reduce. Most people only shed 2-5 pounds of unwanted fat when attaining their body shaping goals through liposuction.
Fact: Cellulite’s characteristic lumps, dimples, and undulations come from the way normal, subcutaneous fat pushes up against the connective tissue bands beneath the surface of your skin. Because liposuction removes soft, fatty tissue without affecting your skin or connective tissues, it can’t get rid of cellulite.
What liposuction can do, however, is diminish the appearance of cellulite by spot-removing some of the fat that contributes to an area of skin puckering. Our noninvasive manual cellulite treatment, on the other hand, can help you attain a significant reduction in the appearance of cellulite lumps and dimples (with or without liposuction).
Fact: Performed through small incisions and with the aid of general anesthesia, conventional liposuction is a surgical procedure. While it’s not a major operation, surgical liposuction does usually require at least a week of downtime followed by 4-6 weeks of restricted activity while healing.
But this highly effective body contouring technique has come a long way since the advent of conventional liposuction. At Smooth Body Contours, we’re pleased to offer both noninvasive liposuction (laser lipo) and minimally invasive (Smooth Lipo) liposuction options to help you get the body you want with minimal downtime.
Fact: While it’s true that liposuction gives you instant body contouring results that can help you attain the physique you’ve always wanted, those “effortless results” aren’t guaranteed. The fat cells that liposuction gets rid of are gone for good, but if you don’t make healthy lifestyle choices, other fat cells in the treatment area still have the capacity to grow and expand the area.
The best way to maintain your new body shape? Exactly what you might think: Stay physically active and eat a healthy diet that emphasizes wholesome, unprocessed foods and limits highly processed food products that are rich in added sugars, saturated fats, and sodium.
Fact: As we’ve mentioned, liposuction removes targeted areas of soft, fatty tissue without affecting nearby skin or connective tissue structures. Accordingly, reasonably good skin laxity is an important prerequisite for liposuction, since your skin must be able to naturally contract to your new shape.
If you have poor skin laxity — or some degree of skin sag and reduced elasticity — in the area you’d like to treat, liposuction alone may result in a deflated appearance. In such cases, we may recommend that you have a skin tightening treatment in conjunction with liposuction.
Fact: Liposuction targets subcutaneous fat, or the kind that collects between your skin and your muscle tissue. If your belly is bigger because of deep visceral or intra-abdominal fat — the kind that collects below your muscle tissue and accumulates around your organs — diet and exercise are the only solution.
Fact: Liposuction is popular among men and women alike, ranking among the top five most popular cosmetic procedures for both genders. Common treatment areas for women include buttocks and hips, love handles and belly, thighs, and upper arms; common treatment areas for men include the abdomen, chest, and love handles.
To schedule a consultation or learn more about the liposuction services available at Smooth Body Contours in Orlando, Florida, and Sandy Springs, Georgia, call or click online today.
