Building Your Muscle Tone After Liposuction Surgery

So, you finally got through liposuction. Congratulations! You think you’ve said goodbye to your fat cells for good. But, did you know that even though fat won’t be there where it was taken, your body might compensate for the loss in other parts? It’s therefore important that you take some necessary steps after liposuction if you want to keep that slimmer body.

Liposuction does not guarantee 100% fat-free Bodies

Liposuction has been a popular cosmetic procedure in the United States for some time now. People are getting more and more into it, thinking that it’s the quickest way to lose fat. It isn’t true that liposuction takes out your fat cells and they prevent it from coming back ever. But a recent study in Brazil concluded that the procedure actually triggers your system to produce fats in other parts of your body. Visceral fat enveloped themselves around the subject’s muscles, and these fats are even more harmful than the ones you had taken out.

The Solution

Let’s face it: there really are no guaranteed shortcuts for weight loss. Liposuction can only make you lose a little fat. The rest is still up to you. So if you really want a healthier and slimmer you, then you have to go back to good old exercise and diet.

Why exercise?

People might ask, why would you need to work out when you just had fat taken out? Aside from preventing visceral fats from forming, activity is also needed by your body so that your blood wouldn’t clot. Too much rest after surgery would make the blood clot at vital organs like the lungs, causing more problems for you. You can ask any doctor about this – in any surgical procedure, you only need a few days rest and then you need to get back on your feet.

After liposuction, your skin would become loose and sag in some places. You can always wait until your skin rights itself back to normal. But, with exercise, a proper diet and massage, your skin would tighten up faster and would yield better results.

Exercise After Surgery

Exercise after liposuction does not necessarily mean you literally need to run after the procedure itself. You might run into the risk of opening your wounds or having internal bleeding. Doctors recommend that you take a brief stroll a couple of days after surgery. After a few days of walking, you can kick it up a notch by doing a quick run or a short jog. Normal exercises can be resumed after a couple of weeks.

The best form of exercise after liposuction is light aerobic exercise. A simple walk around the block would also do. Trainers and physical therapists recommend you start with 25% of what you used to do before, then gradually increase the work you put on your body. Also, be wary of what your body tells you while you’re walking. If you feel too tired or if there is pain, then you need to stop. There’s no need to push yourself more than what you can handle.

Resistance Exercises

A rather unpleasant side-effect of liposuction, aside from the scars is the presence of sagging skin. While you were storing all that fat, your skin stretched. Now that the fat was taken out, your skin would be loose and you now bear stretch marks. As mentioned above, you can always wait for them to disappear. But the quickest way to get rid of stretch marks is to have massages and do muscle toning.

Resistance exercise, or basically carrying a load, is the quickest way for your skin to recover from being stretched out. It also helps you burn more calories and thus, decrease the risk of your body to store up visceral fats.

You can start slowly with some small weights at first, particularly focusing on the arm and thigh area. It should be introduced slowly, like aerobic exercise, and should be started about a couple weeks after surgery. Again, let your body guide you as to how much weight you can lift. The moment you feel any discomfort, stop for a while and continue the next day. After a month, you can resume with normal training weights, or as much as your body can handle. Here’s a site that has a simple resistance exercise program that you can follow.

Diet

Exercise alone is not enough to make sure those fats won’t reappear. A proper diet must also be observed. Here are some tips on what to eat and what to avoid:

• Avoid fatty food and those rich in calories. You may want to start calorie-counting, just to be sure. Remember, you’ll be doing exercise as well. Take that into account when you’re counting in calories.
• Eat foods that are rich in fiber and protein. If you want to have more muscles and a toned body, focus on your protein intake.
• Drink plenty of water. Aside from reducing the risks of dehydration while working out, water returns the skin’s elasticity. In short, it hastens the process of skin firming.

Other methods

If you don’t mind going through another procedure, you can always undergo laser treatment. It’s absolutely needle-free, but it will cost you. You can also have your skin tucked. Then again, it’s another surgery and you’ll have to spend even more. Just remember, the key is exercise and a healthy diet. If you follow all these steps, you can permanently say goodbye to those body fats.

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