Maintaining Your Liposuction Results: What to Do After Lipo
One of the most effective and popular body contouring methods, liposuction, is a safe method eliminating localized fat pockets from the body. Through liposuction, a skilled physician can immediately reshape the contours of the body to improve its overall appearance.
Many patients share one common misconception: that fat removed via liposuction can never come back. Unfortunately, fat can return post-lipo… if you let it. A patient who gains a significant amount of weight (over 10% of their body weight) following their procedure will develop new fat cells throughout the body, including the treated areas.
In order to maintain results of a liposuction procedure, patients must maintain their post-liposuction weight. If a patient weighed 140 pounds prior to their procedure and 10 pounds were removed, fat cells will continue to stay away if the patient maintains a weight at or below 130 pounds.
For many, this means some long-term lifestyle changes when it comes to diet and exercise. Here is a very basic list of do’s and dont’s for maintaining your liposuction results:
Watch Your Calories
Use this simple calorie calculator to determine the number of calories to maintain your post-liposuction weight. Then focus on meeting (not exceeding) your daily caloric needs. The process of counting calories can be very helpful as it increases your awareness of what you eat and drink.
Avoid Bad Foods
Eliminate processed foods and limit sugar-packed drinks, such as sodas and juice, from your everyday life. Limit your intake of sugars, simple carbohydrates, and saturated fats. Saturated fats are primarily found in animal fats from pork, beef, poultry with skin and dairy products such as butter, cheese and milk. A common guideline is to limit calories from saturated fat to 5% to 6% of total calories ingested daily.
Eat Good Foods
Instead of trying a short-term fad diet, focus on eating a nutritious, balanced diet. Replacing foods high in saturated fats with foods high in monounsaturated and/or polyunsaturated fats can help with a balanced diet. A few suggestions include replacing some of the meat you eat with beans or legumes and incorporating more fruits, vegetables, lean protein, and whole grains into your diet.
Smaller (More Frequent) Meals
Instead of eating 3 daily meals, shoot for 5-7 smaller meals spread throughout the day. Eating several smaller meals can help boost your metabolism, maintain energy levels, and prevent hunger that may lead to unhealthy food choices.
Drink Lots of Water
Staying hydrated by drinking plenty of water can help control hunger, maintain high metabolism levels, and aid in digestion. As a side benefit, proper hydration can also help keep your skin looking its best. One should aim to drink about 1 ounce of water for every kilogram of weight or roughly drink half of your weight in ounces. For example, a 130 pound person should drink 60 ounces of water daily.
Exercise Regularly
Develop a consistent exercise routine, preferably featuring activities that you truly enjoy (which will better your chances of sticking to it). A mix of aerobic exercises (to burn calories) and lifting weights (to build muscle and increase your metabolism) is most ideal.
While liposuction is life changing, it’s not magic. Patients who return to old (unhealthy) habits after their procedure can lose all the enhancements the procedure allowed. So, make an investment in yourself! Choosing a healthy lifestyle will keep your new silhouette around permanently.
Rawn Bosley, MD is a board-certified dermatologist and dermatologic surgeon. His professional interests include medical, surgical and cosmetic dermatology, including injectable fillers, neuromodulators and laser surgery. He is a member of the American Academy of Dermatology, American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, National Medical Association and the Texas Medical Association.
You make a good point that drinking water will help you control your hunger. I weigh a lot more than I’d like to, and I can’t seem to get rid of it. I think that I’ll need to find someone who can do liposuction for me then use your tips to keep it off.
A good friend of mine was looking into getting a liposuction surgery the other day. She was interested in learning how to keep the results on and stay healthy. She would love knowing to drink lots of water to create a high metabolism.
Thanks for this advice for maintaining the results of a liposuction. It’s good you should try to make sure you count your calories and be aware of what you eat and drink. It also could be a fun way to try eating new foods you hadn’t considered before while meeting your calorie count.
You make a good point that drinking a lot of water can help you control hunger and keep your lipo results. I weigh a lot more than I’d like to, and I can’t seem to get rid of it. What do you think of back to back lipo procedures? Should I go see my surgeon to discuss?
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for reading our post and submitting our excellent question. It may be possible to undergo additional liposuction treatments, however you should always talk this over with your surgeon. They will be able to advise you on the potential results of additional procedures and/or if you actually would benefit form a different treatment.
Thanks,
WD Staff
I appreciate your advice for liposuction. My wife is looking at getting this done, and I’m sure she’ll appreciate these tips. She does like her Coke, but I’ll tell her that sugary drinks aren’t good.
Here’s a tip that helped me: Drinking a lot of water can help to control hunger as well as maintaining the results of a liposuction.
I am considering lipo after years of trying to lose weight. The exercise just hasn’t been enough to get the results I have wanted. These seems like great tips to maintain the results after I do go through with it. I will start trying to cut processed foods now to prepare.
I have belly fat and I have done many tricks to lose but in vain. As i learned Liposuction treatment is permanent solution to remove extra fat. Thanks for post!
You mentioned that we should avoid sodas and juice.
Sodas should be avoided surely, however, I am not too sure about juices. Can I continue to have sugarless juice of citrus fruits like fresh lime, mousambi, watermelon and pineapple
Hi Nikunj,
Thanks for reading our post and submitting this great question! I want to say that we are not an authority on nutrition, so we would encourage you to consult a certified nutritionist, they will be in a better positioning to provide any diet related counseling.
With that said, I personally think juices of that nature are great. I think the author was referring to highly processed juices which have a ton of added sugars.
The main point is to continue a healthy lifestyle – both eating a well balanced diet and regularly exercising. That will ensure you maintain liposuction results for the longest period possible!
Thanks,
WD Staff
Cosign with limiting the number of sugary drinks you consume after having liposuction to maintain your results. Soda’s and juice are the one of the main reasons people gain weight in first place
I love your tip about drinking a lot of water as it helps control hunger and maintain metabolism levels.
I appreciated your recommendations to get rid of processed foods and sugary drinks from your diet and eat 5-7 smaller meals a day instead of 3 big ones. Will use that in our practice