Complete Body Contouring Guide

Maintaining a healthy weight can be challenging, so you aren’t alone if you’re struggling to lose weight. We live in a society where much of our day is devoted to sedentary work and our meals are calorically dense. Unless you’re careful, it’s all too easy to find yourself carrying weight you don’t want. Unfortunately, the widespread need to maintain a healthy weight has led many people to look for quick and easy solutions that don’t necessarily exist. To give you a better sense of what you can do and the solutions that become available as you make progress, we’ve put together this complete body contouring guide.

Body contouring is not a weight loss solution. This category of plastic surgeries are designed to remove small pockets of fat and extra skin. In most cases, body contouring is reserved for patients who are right around their target weight. But you may have a few stubborn bits you can’t get rid of. Now that can be really frustrating if you were hoping to have body contouring in Houston as an initial part of your weight loss journey. Still, the truth is that your board-certified surgeon can only remove so much fat with liposuction before it becomes dangerous for you.

The good news is that this doesn’t mean body contouring can’t help you down the road. It just means that there are other things you need to do first if you want to seriously pursue reaching a weight that makes you feel more like yourself. There are surgical options to decrease the size of the stomach. But you may also choose to simply maintain a caloric deficit using a calorie tracker. Either way will take time. But you will slowly lose weight as long as the caloric deficit is maintained.

Preparing for Body Contouring

Once you’ve gotten within about five pounds of your goal weight, it’s time to meet with your board-certified plastic surgeon at Linville Plastic Surgery in Houston. Depending on the extent of your weight loss, you may consider three different procedures:

Liposuction: This procedure removes small pockets of fat that you’re unable to lose with diet and exercise.
BodyTite: This is a slightly different procedure. BodyTite uses laser-assisted liposuction to remove small pockets of fat and tighten the surrounding skin.
Skin Removal: In cases where there has been dramatic weight loss, you may have excess skin that needs to be excised. This procedure cannot always eradicate stretch marks. But your board-certified plastic surgeon will carefully excise excess skin to minimize the appearance of your stretch marks afterwards.

Discussing Your Options

During your initial consultation, you and Dr. Linville will discuss the best options depending on your personal goals. In some cases, your procedure will be set after you have maintained a relatively steady weight for 6-12 months. This is not meant as an affront, but it is common for people to struggle with maintenance at first.

Although liposuction permanently removes fat cells, your remaining fat cells will simply grow if caloric balance isn’t maintained. Without a history of maintenance, there is a risk that you could stretch your remaining skin. This could lead to complications. It may be frustrating. But ensures your safety while giving your skin enough time to shrink back.

What Body Contouring Can Do

Body contouring can help you to truly enjoy the benefits of your hard work by targeting problem areas that don’t respond well to diet or exercise. It is the final piece of your weight loss journey where everything comes together to show you the real results of your dedication.