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For years Liposuction has been the darling of the fat loss set – that part of it who could not be bothered with fixing their lifestyle & metabolism. It is equally as popular with Women & Men, and is very, very lucrative…
The traditional before & after fo Lipo ads with way too much fat being removed this way...
Quick, relatively painless with a hint of danger to spice it up Lipo has been the mode of choice for actors, actresses, body builders, matrons, aging gigolos, the rich the vain and in a very few cases those who needed it as a medical necessity.
The news is in though and it is not good for lovers of Lipo – the fat comes back … and where it comes back to is health threatening.
You can almost hear the shonky Plastic Surgeons weeping from here….(the good ones actually say that Lipo is NOT a get out of fat jail free card and that you will regain the fat if you don’t address factors like food intake, exercise and metabolism). Thing is Lipo along with rhinoplasty (nose jobs) and breast enlargement is one of the 3 most popular and profitable cosmetic procedures undertaken in the developed world.
The April 7th 2011 edition of the journal ‘Obesity’ published the results of research, conducted by a team from the University of Colorado. This research not only assessed if the fat returned after liposuction, but where the body stored the returning sludge.
Invasive & potentially dangerous
You see Lipo actually ‘works’ by sucking fat cells out of the body – by removing them. Cosmetic Surgeons do this by inserting a canula through an incision in your body, pumping in a saline solution and then working the canula back & forth under your skin with the vacuum turned on…More modern approaches use lasers and vibration etc but the fact remains it is an invasive form of surgery that carries substantial risks.
The theory was that with these fat cells gone you would not only lose the fat vacuumed out but you would not regain the lost fat. Not true – you do get the fat back, just not in the same place… So you risk disfigurement, infection and at the very least several weeks of pain for a procedure that does not deliver as it has been advertised…
The researchers took a group of 14 non-obese women, performed some Lipo on their thighs and monitored them at six weeks, six months and one year after the surgery.
Women assigned to the control group did not have the Lipo performed on them.
The results found that after a year the fat not only returned but was now redistributed to the stomach area instead of the thighs. After 12 months there was no difference in bodyfat between the control and Lipo groups.
Lipo CAN fix this - but it won't last without other changes...
Although only a small study, and yes there is a lot of noise about that!!, the results support widely known anecdotal evidence from patients and Cosmetic Surgeons. The fat comes back if you don’t clean up your act – especially in the areas of diet & exercise.
So – the researchers found that a year after Lipo, that fat returned but not to the Lipo site – but to the belly. Lipo on the thighs resulted in increased stomach area fat 12 months after the surgery. This is a less healthy place to store fat.
Even worse – if Lipo was done on the belly, the fat gain after 12 months re-accumulated there, despite there being fewer fat cells. The existing ones just grew in size.
The fact that fat returns and goes to the belly is not really surprising as the belly is an area designed for fat storage in order to cushion, protect, insulate and provide quick energy to our internal organs. The real surprise is that people have undergone this dangerous procedure (Google ‘Liposuction deaths and injuries’ – just avoid the image search) and then kept the rest of their lifestyle as it was.
Not only can you NOT out train a bad diet, it seems you can’t out-surgery one either!!
So Lipo can give a quick cosmetic effect but for lasting body recomposition you need to live a lifestyle like the one we talk about here – eat a high protein, low processed carb, moderate fat diet; eat 6
Lipo only gives this if you also eat & exercise the right way...
times a day, exercise at 3 times a week using a HIIT / Interval protocol so you fire up your EPOC; go for a walk, hug your loved ones, do some stretching – move & have fun.
If you don’t the results of any quick fix – surgical or other will not last…
See you next time.