There are many reasons why people will travel to Harley Street to consult with a plastic surgeon in London, with treatments either to add, remove or reshape their body in a way that makes them feel happier, healthier and more confident.
One of the most popular procedures in this regard is liposuction, which is a procedure used to remove unwanted body fat in areas where it commonly collects, such as the stomach, thighs and hips.
However, for people doing their initial research into the procedure, there is a lot of misinformation, to the point that many people who come to their initial consultation may not even be asking the right questions.
The Wrong Questions
A common question people ask when looking into liposuction is “how much weight can be lost using the procedure”. This is not really the right question to be asking.
Liposuction is not a procedure that is designed to help you lose weight but instead is a body-sculpting procedure designed to help remove stubborn deposits of fat that cannot easily be removed through diet and exercise.
In some cases, a liposuction procedure removes less than half a stone of fat, with many surgeons being wary to remove more than this as the more fat is removed from the body through the surgery, the greater the risks of complications.
The other, similar question to ask is how many inches of waistline can be removed through a treatment such as VASER liposuction, and the answer to this can vary dramatically depending on the individual circumstances.
In some cases, often involving people who have recently lost weight and are closer to their ideal body weight, they can lose several inches from their waist, but in other cases, people will improve their sculpting but not lose too many inches.
It is an ideal procedure for the end of the weight loss journey, rather than its beginning.
Factors That Can Affect Results
Liposuction removes subcutaneous fat, which are layers of fat that are just below the skin. This accounts for a lot of fat build-up in the body, but not all of it.
In some cases, fat can accumulate inside the abdomen itself, which cannot be removed through this procedure, although in some cases this can be assisted with the help of an abdominoplasty (tummy tuck), which removed fat from the stomach, fixes the muscle wall and removes excess skin.
The areas of the body that can be treated can change depending on the gender of the patient. The areas where fat accumulates in men are sometimes quite different than those for women, and the focus is more on sculpting areas rather than reduced waistlines.
Naturally, because different parts of the body accumulate fat in different ways, the results will vary depending on which and how many areas are treated.
Typically results can be seen quickly, and your doctor will recommend wearing a compression garment for a while.
These results, assuming no dramatic weight gain, can become permanent, although yo-yo dieting or huge amounts of weight gain can cause fat cells to form in areas treated by liposuction.
