We’re going to state the obvious — fat is tough to get rid of. You cut your calories, pound the pavement, and lift weights, but stubborn pockets of fat just seem to laugh at your efforts, leaving you frustrated and exhausted.
The good news is there are solutions for targeting these troublesome areas of fat.
To help you better understand your choices in fat-busting treatments, Dr. Manuel Lopez and our team of Master Certified Body Contouring Specialists at Advanced Aesthetics Lopez Plastic Surgery and L Med Spa will focus on two of the more popular ones: CoolSculpting Elite® and liposuction.
We want to spend a moment first discussing the science of fat.
First, we want to emphasize that you can’t target specific areas of fat in your body — spot reduction is largely a myth. When you lose fat, your body releases its stores according to its own biological directives, not your wishes.
Another point we want to make is that you generally carry the same number of fat cells in your body as an adult. When you gain or lose weight, your existing fat cells expand and shrink, respectively.
So, when we say fat can be frustrating, we’re not exaggerating. Thankfully, some workarounds can help you achieve your body-shape goals.
Now, let’s get to the good stuff—how we can reduce those bulges of fat around your body. At our medspa, we offer the innovative CoolSculpting Elite system, which relies on cooling energy to freeze and kill off fat cells in your treatment areas — up to 25% of fat cells, to be more precise.
With this type of body sculpting, we can reduce your overall number of fat cells. However, you should bear in mind that remaining fat cells can still grow in size again, so you need to maintain your great results.
A great advantage that both CoolSculpting and liposuction share is that they’re able to work around Mother Nature and target the areas of fat you want to eliminate, including tough spots like your belly, butt, hips, arms, and anywhere else where fat has piled up.
Another great attribute that CoolSculpting offers is that the technology is non-invasive — the energy passes harmlessly through your skin to target the fat cells below. That means there’s absolutely no downtime after your CoolSculpting treatments, and you’re free to get back to your normal routine immediately.
This approach to fat reduction is gaining significant traction. In 2022, nearly 700,000 non-invasive fat reduction procedures were performed in the United States.
Now, let’s turn our attention to liposuction, another popular way to reduce fat. In 2022, more than 325,000 liposuction procedures were performed in the US, making it the number one cosmetic surgical procedure that year.
However, you’ll notice that the number of liposuction procedures performed in 2022 was less than half of the non-invasive fat reduction procedures like CoolSculpting.
The primary reason behind this difference is that liposuction is a more invasive way to eliminate fat. First, you need to be anesthetized. Then, the practitioner makes incisions, through which they thread a cannula (a tube) to loosen and suction out your fat.
Since liposuction is more invasive, there’s considerably more downtime afterward, and you run the risk of infection and anesthesia complications.
Despite the risks and downtime, people opt for liposuction because it can remove more fat than our CoolSculpting Elite system. With liposuction, 5-8 liters of body fat can be removed, which is more than we can accomplish with CoolSculpting.
For our purposes, we’ve found that CoolSculpting is an excellent solution, and it meets most of our clients' goals, so we don’t even offer liposuction. However, we recognize that some clients might benefit from more substantial fat reduction, and we can point you in the right direction for liposuction.
For the rest, we believe that CoolSculpting is the perfect fat-busting solution.
If you’d like to see for yourself how CoolSculpting can help you combat stubborn fat, please contact us at one of our greater San Antonio and Boerne, Texas locations. Our friendly staff is available to assist and answer your questions.
