Body Contouring

Body contouring, or body sculpting, is a medical or surgical procedure that aims to reshape an area of the body. It may involve procedures to:

• Get rid of extra skin.
• Eliminate excess fat.
• Reshape or contour the area.

Body contouring does not usually help you lose weight. Instead, it helps shape the body and address specific areas where weight loss isn’t effective or after significant weight loss results in extra skin.

Nonsurgical body contouring is called lipolysis. There are several lipolysis methods:

• Cryolipolysis uses very cold temperatures to destroy fat cells (for example, CoolSculpting®).
• Injection lipolysis involves putting deoxycholic acid into the body to target fat cells.
• Laser lipolysis uses lasers to destroy fat cells.
• Radiofrequency lipolysis uses ultrasound waves and heat to target fat cells.

Sometimes, the results can vary.

Options for surgical body contouring include:

• Liposuction: Liposuction (lipo) suctions out fat deposits.
• Lifts and tucks: These surgical procedures remove excess fat and extra skin. Examples include a tummy tuck (abdominoplasty), facelift (rhytidectomy), breast lift (mastopexy) and double chin surgery.

People choose to have body sculpting to look and feel thinner or to attain a certain shape. It’s often used on specific areas of the body when diet and exercise aren’t making a difference.

Surgical options can also remove extra skin to make the skin look smoother and younger. Such procedures can help people who have excess skin after significant weight loss. It can also improve loose, saggy or wrinkled skin that occurs with natural aging.

Body contouring can target most areas of the body. Common sites include:

• Thighs.
• Arms.
• Back.
• Belly and flanks (love handles).
• Buttocks.
• Neck and chin.

The results of body contouring are generally long-lasting, provided that you maintain a stable weight and general fitness. As your body ages, it is natural to lose some firmness. However, most of your initial improvement should remain. Although good results are expected from your procedure, there is no guarantee.

Body sculpting doesn’t use targeted cold temperatures, it uses advanced laser technology. It kind of works the opposite way to Coolsculptng. Instead of the fat cells being frozen to death, they are heated to death. In the same vein as Coolsculpting, results from body-sculpting can’t be seen overnight.

For the most part, many body contouring treatments can help you reduce unwanted fat cells depending on the system used, the area of location, and your current amount of body fat. Body contouring services are not a weight loss treatment.

With weight loss, you burn the stored fat within your cells. This causes the cells to shrink in size. They are still there; you can regain that weight if you change your habits. By contrast, body sculpting removes those cells from your body entirely.