How much weight do you lose with body contouring?

In recent years, body contouring procedures like CoolSculpting and liposuction have become extremely popular. People often opt for body contouring procedures to eliminate stubborn pockets of fat, such as the fatty region around the midsection. However, it’s worth noting that body contouring procedures provide an aesthetic improvement without significantly affecting your bodyweight—that is, body contouring procedures aren’t the same as weight loss procedures. The amount of weight you lose is usually negligible, and a patient is best off opting for body contouring procedures when they are already close to their ideal weight.

Body contouring isn’t the same as weight loss procedures

There are a fixed number of fat cells in your body. When you gain or lose weight, you don’t gain or lose fat cells—the existing fat cells simply become larger or smaller. Body contouring procedures simply remove some of these fat cells from highly concentrated regions, such as your flanks, thighs, or abdomen.

However, there’s also a limited amount of fat cells that can be safely removed from your body. That’s why body contouring procedures only help “sculpt” your body rather than produce any significant weight loss. The remaining fat cells in your body can still become smaller or larger with weight loss or weight gain. But the fat cells that have been removed through body contouring don’t recover or regenerate, which means you won’t gain weight in the same region anymore.

You should be close to your ideal weight for a body contouring procedure

One of the ways to benefit most from a body contouring procedure is that you should be close to your ideal body weight. As mentioned previously, a body contouring procedure isn’t meant for weight loss but rather for sculpting and target fat reduction. Once you’re close to your ideal weight, but have a hard time getting rid of stubborn fat, a body contouring procedure helps you get through the finish line.

Body contouring is a suitable procedure after significant weight loss

While body contouring can’t help too much with weight loss, it is a suitable procedure after you’ve already gone through significant weight loss. When you lose large amounts of fat in a short period, either through exercise and diets or through a weight loss surgery, you’re likely to have excess skin tissues hanging on your body. The presence of this skin tissue gives the appearance of being fat, even if you’ve lost more than a hundred pounds. Body contouring is a suitable procedure to remove or trim the excess skin tissue, putting the finishing touch on the results you originally sought with weight loss.

If you’re close to your ideal body weight but are having a hard time getting rid of the last bits of stubborn fat, contact us at Avalon Lipo & Aesthetics to discuss your many body contouring options.