Why you should only need one lipo sesh

OP. DR. YUNUS DOĞAN

One and done or continuous weight-loss tool?

Oh, to eat chocolate cake and not have it settle on your hips. If only you could drink alcohol every night of the week while maintaining six-pack abs. Is the hardest decision of the day where to eat lunch, McDonald’s or KFC?

You’ve done your research and found the perfect surgeon - maybe you even took our advice for that process - for your plastic surgery. Did you have plastic surgery in Istanbul? Maybe you sought out a session of 360 liposuction to tackle that tough belly fat around your midsection. Now you’re home and healed and hungry. What to do?

What if we told you your life choices are no longer important? Eat what you want and don’t exercise; you can just go get some more 360 liposuction every now and then and erase your bad decisions, just like vacuuming crumbs off your sofa. Liposuction means never having to eat right or exercise again. You, my friend, have a free ticket!

Sound too good to be true? It should, because it’s wrong. Wake up people, it’s time to take control of your life. Stop thinking of 360 liposuction as a quick fix for losing weight. While some patients might genuinely require two rounds of liposuction based on their individual situations, the average frequency in which you should have liposuction is minimal: just once!

One fat lost can mean another fat gained

When we first talked about liposuction, we defined the two types of fat in your body: visceral and subcutaneous. Visceral fat is deep inside, near your vital internal organs. It’s like heavy-duty bubble wrap that keeps your important bits from bumping into each other as you move. This fat is necessary and you should strive to have somewhere under 10%.

Subcutaneous fat sits just below your skin’s surface. You can grab and squeeze it. When your plastic surgeon crams the cannula in to work the liposuction magic, it is the subcutaneous fat that is sucked out.

Since it’s a little more difficult to grab your visceral fat - it’s hard to pinch a beer belly - how do you know how much you have? The secret to knowing how much waste you have is in your waist. Measure it! Your waist size can indicate how much fat you have inside along with helping you calculate your BMI. Here are some ways you can learn about your measurement. Grab your tape measure and use the Luxembourg Institute of Health’s online calculator to see your visceral fat percentage now.

Many patients view 360 liposuction as a free pass to reckless nutrition. It’s a common misconception that once you’ve had liposuction, you can’t get fat again. This is simply not true. Liposuction does remove fat cells but it will never remove all of them. You will always have fat in your body. While it is true that fat cells don’t grow back or regenerate, the remaining subcutaneous fat you have in your body can expand in size if you’re eating the wrong food.

Likewise, your visceral fat will grow if you’re making poor lifestyle choices. Read that again. You can increase the fatal fat if you continue eating poorly after 360 liposuction. Visceral fat isn’t always as visible as subcutaneous but it’s more dangerous.

The only way to remove visceral fat is proper diet and adequate exercise. Healthline.com published a list of 10 common misconceptions regarding liposuction. Read their article to discover if you’ve been misled or misleading yourself.

One-derful 360 liposuction

Fancy a quick history lesson? Liposuction was never intended to be part of an ongoing maintenance plan. It was created as a corrective action to realign your body with your desired goal. It is a one-time solution for one problem area. Then after your surgeon has sculpted your body, you need to take responsibility and maintain your results. There is no magical medical cure for fat and no easy way out.

In fact, if you want to press your luck and play fat roulette by eating unhealthy foods, you run the risk of throwing your new, sexy body out of proportion. Verywell Health has some great advice on how to make your 360 liposuction results last for the rest of your life. (Spoiler alert: their article does not discuss fatty foods or a sedentary lifestyle.)

The last stitch

Plastic surgery isn’t easy. And you know that 360 liposuction has its share of risk and complications. After taking the time to understand the procedure that best suited your needs, find your world-class surgeon and endure the surgery and recovery, now you think you’re ready to rest on your doctor’s laurels. The old way of thinking encourages you to kick back with a cold one and some takeout, gazing down at your chiseled physique before you do some unnecessary carb-loading. It’s time to change your mind to match your body.