Dr. Nathan Miller is a board certified cosmetic surgeon and owner of the OKC Lipo in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Specializing in all forms of liposuction, Dr. Miller is a member of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgeons, American Medical Association, Texas Medical Association, and a prospective member of the American College of Surgeons. In this article, he helps to explain how undergoing liposuction can reduce the overall size of a woman’s waist.
When a patient comes in asking to have liposuction performed on her waist, and I can guarantee we really will be whittling down the size of that waist by many, many inches. I would not be doing this—working in this profession and specializing in liposuction—if I did not believe that. So liposuction can really slim a woman’s waist by a large amount.
Liposuction is a legitimate procedure that will not only help patients achieve a more contoured-looking body, but also sometimes help them lose weight at the same time. However, the main thing I try to emphasize to my patients is that this is not a weight-loss procedure. Liposuction is not meant as a way to lose weight—it is a body contouring procedure for men and women.
Inevitably, I have people who will come and undergo liposuction, and they do end up losing weight due to the procedure. That is because I am taking the fat right out of them, essentially. But, of course, weight loss is not our ultimate goal in the procedure. I am not going in there and trying to help them lose a certain number of pounds. And I am never going to tell a patient that I will be able to suck 5 lbs, for instance, out of him. I just wouldn’t do that.
What I will do instead, however, is go in there and try and give my patients that flat stomach they are looking for. I’ll use the techniques we have available to give them those nice hips, or to thin down those thighs. Whatever those trouble spots or problem areas might be, my goal is to fix them up. We are trying to give our patients a more contoured body; that’s the ultimate goal.
Like I said, we do not do these liposuction procedures simply as a way for people to lose weight. However, that usually does become one of the outcomes of the liposuction for many people who come into the office. In terms of how much weight someone can expect to lose during a liposuction, though, I can’t usually say that because everyone is so different. We see so many different patients coming in, that it would be impossible to start giving out one ballpark figure in terms of weight loss.
For example, we might have a male patient one day who comes into the office and he is 6-feet tall and weights 250 lbs—with a big beer gut, let’s say. Now, another day, we might possibly be seeing a much smaller housewife who is coming in because maybe she just had two babies and she just needs a little bit of help getting a jumpstart around her flanks. These are two extremely different patients, who can expect extremely different outcomes from their procedures.
So trying to compare how much weight these people are going to be losing during their liposuction would be like comparing tomatoes to watermelons. When you start looking at how much weight a patient can expect to lose from a procedure, a lot of variables are in there. They are totally different things when you start comparing patients with such varied body types and backgrounds.
Overall, the amount of weight or inches a patient can expect to lose during a liposuction procedure just really depends on how much is there to start with. However, like I said, liposuction is a very real and legitimate procedure that can greatly reduce the size of your waist in inches—and I would not be performing this procedure on men and women if this was not the case. And gosh, if you have fat there, I will find it, and I will help you get rid of it. I can guarantee that.
The information in the article is not intended to substitute for the medical expertise and advice of your healthcare provider. We encourage you to discuss any decisions about treatment or care with an appropriate healthcare provider.
