When Would Be the Best Time to Get a Mommy Makeover?

If you’ve recently had a baby and are wondering “How long should I wait to have a Mommy Makeover?” our Palm Desert-based Cosmetic Surgery Institute team can talk to you more about your goals and help you decide when the right time may be for you.

Although bringing a new life into the world can be a rewarding experience, you may not be so happy about the related changes to your body, such as flatter breasts, weakened core muscles, looser skin, and resistant pockets of fat in certain areas. Even exercise and a healthy diet may not be enough to address these issues, which can add to the desire to work on them as soon as possible.

While a Mommy Makeover can boost self-esteem and confidence by enhancing the appearance of the breasts, abdomen, and any other areas you may want to improve, and the customizable procedure includes treatments designed to target post-pregnancy concerns, there are timing issues to consider.

If you’re wondering how to determine whether the timing is right for you, here’s what you should know:

It goes without saying that childbirth is a highly taxing event for your body since your body undergoes numerous physical changes and your energy is depleted as the baby grows. Considering all of this, the body needs time to heal after you have a child, so you should wait until your body is fully healed and you are close to an ideal, stable weight before having a Mommy Makeover.

Know that you will get better results if you are closer to your goal weight, so it is better to try to lose some weight naturally before having the surgery—if you gained weight throughout your pregnancy. It’s commonly recommended that you wait for at least six months to one year after you have your child, though every person is unique.

Since an additional pregnancy could undo the results from a Mommy Makeover, it’s also advisable that you wait until you’ve decided not to have any more children. A new baby will do everything the prior baby did, including stretching out abdominal skin, causing the breasts to get larger to support milk production, and more.

Finally, keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to have a Mommy Makeover when your children are still young. You don’t even have to have children at all! Any patient who wants to address multiple breast and body issues at once can talk to Dr. Mo Zakhireh about their options.

Contact the Cosmetic Surgery Institute by calling (760) 837-0364 or reaching out via a contact form online to discuss surgical options to restore your body to a pre-baby appearance.


Who Are the Best Candidates for Liposuction?

 

How do you know if you’re a good candidate for liposuction?” Our Palm Desert-based team hears this question from patients who are considering body contouring treatments. While there is no single way to determine whether surgical fat reduction is ideal for a person, there are a few criteria to consider when considering the procedure.

When body fat doesn’t respond to diet and exercise, the persistent pockets and bulges can make you frustrated and prompt you to want to look for other options, such as liposuction—a life-changing procedure that involves reducing excess subcutaneous fat from specific areas of the body to create slimmer, better-defined contours.

Ideal candidates for liposuction include patients who:

  • Are within 30 percent of their ideal body weight
  • Are happy with their overall body size and maintain a stable weight
  • Are unhappy with the appearance of fat deposits on some area of the body, which is diminishing their quality of life
  • Have firm, elastic skin and good muscle tone
  • Maintain a positive outlook and realistic expectations
  • Are non-smokers
  • Are unable to reduce stubborn fat deposits with traditional, non-surgical methods like exercise and dietary changes

Patients who are bothered by cellulite or stretch marks, are overweight or obese, have a severe illness or infection that could impair healing, or have poor skin elasticity may not be eligible for liposuction—but can talk to our team about other options and strategies.

Also, remember that liposuction can only remove up to 10 pounds of fat or so.

If you have recently given birth or lost a significant amount of weight, you may have some loose, stretched-out skin—and removing more fat could make the lax skin even looser. Skin can also lose some of its elasticity as you get older. Patients with sagging skin can still choose liposuction, but may also want to consider a tuck or lift to remove the excess tissue.

The first step in any case is to have a consultation, tell us about your goals, and ask us about the cost, risks, and benefits of this surgery. Before committing to the procedure, ask us if it is the best option for achieving your goals.

Ready to get started? Our Cosmetic Surgery Institute team is available to help. Call us at (760) 837-0364 or submit a contact form to request a consultation if you want to discuss surgical options to reduce stubborn fat for more streamlined contours.


Will Fat Come Back After Liposuction?

Even people who are in great shape can still have areas of excess fat that they wish they could reduce. Unfortunately, exercise and a healthy diet may not be enough to reduce stubborn fat that clings to isolated areas due to genetics, age, or hormonal factors. Liposuction, which involves the selective surgical removal of subcutaneous fat from stubborn areas, is ideal for re-shaping the body and producing major aesthetic improvements to boost confidence. With that in mind, many patients who are having surgical body contouring procedures want to know: Does fat removed from liposuction come back? Our Palm Desert-based team at Cosmetic Surgery Institute knows that patients enjoy the transformative results they can achieve with this treatment—but also that they are frequently concerned about the potential lifespan of those results.

While liposuction is a highly popular cosmetic procedure, it is also one of the most misunderstood treatments. If you’re worried about fat returning, here’s what you should know:

The fat that is surgically removed during a liposuction procedure is indeed gone for good. Since the fat is literally taken out of the body and those fat cells can’t regenerate, there’s no need for patients to worry about the same fat coming back in the areas that were treated. This means that many patients will be able to enjoy the dramatic outcome from the procedure essentially forever.

However, it is important to remember that if a patient gains weight after liposuction, it’s likely that the results will look less impressive as remaining fat cells—in the surgery area as well as other areas—can become enlarged. If a very significant amount of weight is gained, new fat cells can be created even in treated areas.

Therefore, it’s important to maintain your post-liposuction weight to maximize results. Continue to eat well, exercise regularly, and be aware of your overall health.

Regardless of whether or not you gain weight, patients should know that there will still be comparatively fewer fat cells in treated areas than in untreated ones. Fat-reduction surgery alters a person’s distribution of fat, so volume or “bulk” may be stored in other body areas. This means that a new body shape will remain mostly the same and look better than it did if the patient hadn’t had liposuction.

Our Palm Desert-based Cosmetic Surgery Institute team can provide a more comprehensive answer to patient questions during a personalized consultation. Call us at (760) 837-0364 or submit a contact form to request an appointment with a board-certified plastic surgeon to discuss liposuction.


What Strategies Can Maximize Liposuction Results?

Is a more sculpted physique one of your resolutions? Sometimes diet and exercise can only take you so far, so patients will turn to surgical fat reduction as a way of finally reducing the volume of excess fat on isolated parts of their body. Liposuction isn’t a weight loss technique, but it’s ideal for the patient who has reached their goal weight and just has a few areas they wish were a bit slimmer. Along with enhanced body contours, liposuction patients also often report having better self-esteem and feeling more confident. Once unwanted bulk has been removed via surgical fat reduction from our Palm Desert-based team, the fat can’t regenerate, so patients enjoy lasting slimmer contours.

That doesn’t mean, however, that patients can return to unhealthy habits after the surgery. One or two extra pounds might not make much of a difference, but remember that if you don’t maintain a healthy lifestyle and you do gain a significant amount of weight in the future, the remaining fat cells in the treatment area could become enlarged. Fat cells in other parts of the body may also grow in size, leading to new bulges in unexpected areas.

If you’re considering liposuction to enhance your body shape, we have some tips to help you boost the outcome from this procedure.

Exercise Regularly

Although you won’t be able to engage in any intense exercise while you’re recovering, going for walks is important after surgery to prevent blood clots and help you to heal at a faster rate. Once you’ve recovered and your surgeon has given you approval to do so, return to your normal exercise routine as soon as you can.

Maintain a Healthy Diet

Even if you’re exercising frequently, you might not notice the slimming and contouring effects of liposuction if you have unhealthy eating habits. Avoid processed foods, refined sugars, and simple carbohydrates as much as possible.

Wear Your Compression Garments

The ultimate results from liposuction may not be noticeable until post-surgical swelling goes down. Compression garments keep this side effect under control and improve contours in the treatment area.

Thinking about having liposuction to reduce stubborn deposits of fat? For more advice on surgical body contouring, contact our Palm Desert-based Cosmetic Surgery Institute. For more information, give us a call at (760) 837-0364 or submit a contact form to request a consultation with a board-certified plastic surgeon.


Why Should You Combine Liposuction with Renuvion Skin Tightening?

It can be frustrating when small pockets of fat on specific areas of the body remain resistant to dieting and exercise. For men, the midsection is the default area for fat storage, so it’s common for guys to find it harder to maintain a slim waistline, while women tend to have more stubborn fat on the lower body areas, such as the hips and outer thighs. Regardless of where you have unwanted fat, it may not always be possible to get rid of it on your own. That’s why so many patients decide to have liposuction for body contouring from our Los Angeles-adjacent Cosmetic Surgery Institute.

Surgical fat reduction allows patients to finally get the slimmer, shapelier, and more sculpted body they’ve always wanted. This treatment provides lasting results, and one of the advantages is that it won’t leave long scars. One of the ways you can maximize the results from liposuction is by combining it with Renuvion, a radiofrequency skin-tightening technique that our doctors provide for surgical body contouring patients.

Here are some of the reasons why we recommend having this skin tightening procedure and liposuction at the same time.

Repair Sagging Skin

When we gain weight, our skin often becomes stretched out to accommodate the increase in volume. Even though liposuction is an excellent fat removal tool, there is one drawback to this treatment: It can’t tighten skin that has lost elasticity. In fact, if you already have very loose skin, liposuction could make it look droopier. This is why liposuction is best for younger patients who have good skin elasticity.

But by adding Renuvion to your procedure, we can tighten sagging skin on areas such as the lower face, abdomen, breasts, neck, back, flanks, arms, knees, and legs. This gives the patient more transformative results than either treatment would be able to on its own. Renuvion combines radiofrequency and plasma to prompt the tissues to contract while stimulating collagen production. 

Minimally Invasive 

Renuvion is ideal for those who want to tighten their skin without additional surgery. There are tiny incisions, almost no scarring, and downtime is minimal. 

Find out about how Renuvion can be combined with liposuction for body contouring at Cosmetic Surgery Institute in Palm Desert. Call us at (760) 837-0364 or submit a contact form to request a consultation with a board-certified plastic surgeon. 


What Are the Best Ways to Improve Liposuction Results?

Even if you’re in mostly good shape, there may always be one or two areas that you wish you could slim down, whether the stubborn fat forms love handles, a belly bulge, thick thighs, a double chin, or something else. The reason why liposuction surgery is so effective is because it directly removes the fat cells that you can’t lose from select areas through exercising and dieting. When you’re having surgical body contouring at our Los Angeles-adjacent plastic surgery practice, what you do before and after the procedure can play a major role in the results. This is why it’s important for patients to do their research on both surgical preparation and aftercare.

Ever wondered if there were a way of getting better liposuction results and healing at a faster rate after surgery? Here are three tips for maximizing the outcome of this fat-reduction technique. 

Maintain Good Health

The ideal candidates for liposuction are in a good state of health with no urgent medical issues and are close to their ideal weight. In the time leading up to your surgery, exercise regularly and eat a healthy diet. Quit smoking, as the habit could increase your risk of complications from surgery. Drink plenty of liquids to avoid dehydration. 

Wear Your Compression Garment 

Compression garments help to relieve the discomfort and swelling that are known side effects of liposuction. They help your body to absorb some fluids and prevent a buildup, as well as help your skin to retract smoothly around your newly slimmer contours. This allows you to heal faster and look better once your body adjusts to its new shape. 

Start or Resume Working Out 

If you aren’t exercising already, start a workout routine after we give you approval to do so following your liposuction surgery. If you’re already a workout regular, we’ll let you know when it’s safe to continue your typical routine. Exercising helps to build muscle tone, which will make you look more sculpted and avoid future weight gain. 

If you’re ready to sculpt more balanced and proportional contours to enhance your body shape, talk to our team at Cosmetic Surgery Institute for more advice on liposuction for body contouring. Contact us by calling (760) 837-0364 or submit a contact form to request a consultation and find out what to expect before and after this surgical fat-reduction treatment. 


4 Tips for Relaxing While You Recover from Liposuction

Even if you feel confident about having plastic surgery and can’t wait to show off the results, having any kind of procedure can still zap your energy. Once the procedure is over, it can take several weeks before the swelling goes down and you begin to “feel normal” again. Patients often feel a variety of emotions before and after surgical fat reduction in the Los Angeles area, with impatience, frustration, and depression common at first, followed by more positive emotions once they’ve fully recovered. These initial, more negative feelings are to be expected and are perfectly natural, so there’s nothing to be alarmed about. If you’re feeling bored or a little overwhelmed while in recovery, here are a few ways to ease your mind:

1. Use Breathing and Relaxation Techniques 

To keep your stress levels down and relieve some discomfort, try techniques such as meditation, deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, or guided relaxation. Look for a quiet, comfortable area, close your eyes, try to center your mind, and repeat a calming mantra while meditating. 

2. Try Listening to Music 

If you’re feeling tense, consider looking for some new albums or go back to your favorite classics. Finding some new music to listen to is a great way to distract yourself. It quiets your mind, soothes you, and helps you decrease stress because of the chemical reactions it triggers in your brain. 

3. Practice Visualization 

Visualization is another highly effective way of releasing stress and tension. It involves using mental imagery to put yourself in a relaxed state. Rather than worrying about other things, imagine yourself healed and try to think more positively. 

4. Get Exercise

As soon as your surgeon gives you approval to do so, you can gradually incorporate light exercise such as walks or even lifting light weights. Staying active will help you to heal faster and avoid blood circulation issues. It will also help you to cope with stress. 

Think liposuction might be exactly what you need to sculpt your ideal body shape? For advice on what you can expect before and after surgical fat reduction, reach out to our team at Cosmetic Surgery Institute. Get in touch with us today by calling (760) 837-0364, or submit a contact form to request a consultation, and we’ll get back to you shortly. 


Can Liposuction Help to Get Rid of Stubborn Fat Pockets When I’m Close to my Goal Weight?

No one has the
“perfect” body, and beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. However, there’s also
no harm in having a cosmetic treatment like liposuction. From
Los Angeles
to
Palm Desert, everyone wants to feel more confident and comfortable in their own
skin. Although there’s a common misconception that surgical fat reduction is
meant for fatter people, this strategy isn’t designed as some kind of magic
bullet for weight loss, nor as an easy way for patients who are very overweight
or obese to lose a significant amount of overall body weight. In fact,
liposuction is ideal for those people who have already hit a healthy weight for
their height—and have managed to stably maintain their weight at or close to
their goal. Continue reading to learn how liposuction can fine-tune your body
shape in this situation.

Liposuction works the
same for thin, athletic patients like runners and weightlifters as it does for
patients who are slightly heavier. So if you’re average weight-wise but just
have a few flabby areas of excess fat that you’ve been unable to tone up—like
belly fat, double chin, or thigh fat—you may be an ideal candidate for the
surgery.

This procedure alters
your body’s proportions and silhouette by removing some of the soft, grabbable
fat from below the skin so that the surface contracts around your newly slimmer
contours. Are you one of those people who always has thicker thighs even after
losing weight from elsewhere, or a rounded stomach even when you are at your
slimmest? When you’re restricting your calorie intake and working out
frequently, your body might get sculpted in some areas, but you also might not
be able to attain the figure you want because of genetics, hormones, or
age-related weight gain.

Liposuction is the ideal
technique for getting rid of this fat, even if you only have a modest amount of
it that needs to be taken out. If you have a thinner frame and are thinking of
having liposuction, it’s better to go to an experienced surgeon who knows the
right techniques to lower the risk of contour irregularities.

Cosmetic Surgery
Institute also offers Renuvion
laser for skin tightening in combination with liposuction.

Ready to plan your
liposuction with the physicians at Cosmetic Surgery Institute? For
more information on surgical procedures, call us at (760) 837-0364 or send us your
info
via contact form to request an appointment.


What Are the Benefits of Combining Your Tummy Tuck with Liposuction?

Although the abdominal area is a common place for people to
store excess weight when they put on a few pounds, belly fat isn’t always
linked to being overweight. You can be very slim but still have some resistant
flab around this area—flab that refuses to budge despite dieting and exercise. Some
people simply have a body type that makes them prone to being heavier in this
area. Others experience fullness in this area because their muscles and skin
have been stretched due to aging, weight loss, or pregnancy. If you’re planning
on a tummy
tuck in Palm Desert
to tighten and flatten your abdominal area,
adding liposuction to the treatment can give you enhanced results.

Although both tummy tuck surgery and liposuction are highly
effective on their own as standalone procedures for reshaping the abdominal
area, the Cosmetic Surgery Institute team believes that having them done at the
same time can produce optimal results for certain patients. While the terms are
sometimes used interchangeably by patients who don’t know the difference, tummy
tucks and liposuction accomplish very different things. In this post, we
explore some of the advantages of combining the two.

1. Removing
Fat While Tightening Skin and Muscle

Liposuction allows you to have some of your subcutaneous fat
suctioned away from specific areas. A tummy tuck can also involve some fat removal,
but the procedure focuses on removing excess skin, tightening the remaining
skin, and repairing muscles to improve your mid-body contours. By having these
procedures done together, you’ll be able to remove a larger amount of diet-resistant
fat while addressing skin and muscle laxity at the same time.

2. Addressing
Transition Areas

As opposed to a tummy tuck, which is solely focused on the
abdomen, liposuction can be used to reduce fat in other areas surrounding or
near the stomach, including the hips, thighs, flanks, and back. This improves
your overall contours and emphasizes the results of the tuck.

3. Less
Recovery Time and Discomfort

By having both surgeries done at the same time, you’ll only
have to schedule a single appointment for the procedures. That also means you
will go through just one recovery period instead of two. Studies have shown
that this strategy has a low complication rate, which is very appealing for
patients.

For more information on what’s involved in liposuction and a
tummy tuck from Palm Desert’s Cosmetic Surgery Institute, as well as other body contouring
procedures, get in touch with our team today. Call us at (760) 837-0364 or send us your info via contact form
to request an appointment.


Weight Loss Basics: Which Areas Do We Lose Body Fat from First?

Although it’s not a weight loss tool, liposuction from our
Palm Desert
Cosmetic Surgery Institute allows you to do
something that exercise, and dieting can’t accomplish: remove targeted pockets
of fat from isolated spots. Understanding the basics of fat loss—and why it’s
so difficult to “spot reduce” unwanted bulk in certain areas—can help anyone wondering
why their daily exercise routines and low-carb lunches aren’t touching a pesky
double chin or love handles.

Unfortunately, although your overall body fat percentage may
be lower after weeks or months of working out and reducing your calorie intake,
you may be frustrated when you notice that the areas you want to lose weight
from don’t seem to ever grow any slimmer. Additionally, many people get to a
point where exercise isn’t enough for them to get to the point where they have achieved
their body contouring goals.

A balanced diet and getting enough routine physical activity
certainly keep you healthy. However, if you’ve reached a weight-loss plateau—meaning
you’re still following your exercise and diet closely, but are temporarily unable
to lose any more weight—cosmetic procedures may be the best option for helping
you attain the shape you want.

Body fat or adipose is a connective tissue that has many
important health benefits, including temperature regulation, balancing hormone
levels, improving reproductive health, and serving as an energy reserve to use
for fueling our activities.

You may notice that whenever you gain weight, it usually
goes to one or two areas. For some people, it’s the belly. For others, it’s the
thighs and buttocks. Ideally, we could simply do exercises that focused on
specific areas to make them thinner. For example, wouldn’t it be great if running
and squats would automatically give someone smaller thighs? Sadly, fat doesn’t
work that way.

The way that our bodies distribute fat and the “order” in
which it is lost is mostly determined by genetics, gender, metabolism, and body
shape. Women typically store more fat in their hips and thighs because it is
essential for childbearing, so these may be the last areas to reduce in volume.
Men tend to have more at in the abdominal area.

Also, the most recent area where you gained weight is likely
where you lose it from first.

Generally, you’re likely to retain your same basic body
shape—but in a smaller size—after weight loss. Liposuction, however, can help with
all of these challenges by targeting specific pockets of fat no matter when
they first appeared, as well as improving proportions after you’ve reached a
stable weight. Think of it as customizable body contouring.

Interested in having liposuction in Palm Desert? To request
a consultation with Cosmetic Surgery
Institute
, give us a call at (760) 837-0364 or fill out a contact form.