Am I a Good Candidate for Nonsurgical Body Sculpting?

American culture has become highly visual since social media took off a couple of decades ago. Living in the age of the selfie, you see your good points and your flaws as you engage in social media. Whether you’re a millennial or a baby boomer, you want to look your best in videos and photos on internet platforms and, of course, in person.

The number of nonsurgical fat-reduction procedures continues to grow year by year. There are good reasons for this: Nonsurgical procedures involve significantly less risk than surgeries such as liposuction and tummy tucks. They also don’t require anesthesia. 

Nonsurgical body-contouring procedures are also less costly in terms of recovery time and money. Most involve little to no downtime, and some take as little as 25 minutes.  

Board-certified plastic surgeon Jack Hensel Jr. with Lowcountry Plastic Surgery Center in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, provides a variety of body-contouring options. The first step is a consultation to determine your goals and to see if body contouring is a good answer for you. 

The consultation for body contouring 

Dr. Hensel meets with you and listens to your goals. What do you want to achieve? He explains that nonsurgical body contouring is not a weight loss solution. If you’re significantly overweight, the procedure isn’t geared to you. Instead, body contouring helps you eliminate trouble spots that you haven’t succeeded in remediating with diet and exercise. 

All bodies are different. Perhaps you carry a little excess fat in your abdomen, or perhaps in your buttocks or thighs. You want to eliminate that slight bulge when you wear fitted clothing. You don’t want and don’t really need a surgical procedure to accomplish your goals. If you have larger areas of fat to combat, a surgical procedure such as liposuction may be more appropriate.   

You need to provide your complete medical history to Dr. Hensel, including any past surgeries, health issues such as high blood pressure, current medications, and allergies. 

If you’re cleared medically to proceed with the procedure, Dr. Hensel. wants to ensure your goals are realistic. He shows you before and after photos of other patients who have had body contouring on the target areas you want to slim down. In thinking of the procedure using an analogy to a change in your hair, body contouring is akin to getting a trim that shapes up your style and eliminates straggling strands of hair, whereas surgery is analogous to a haircut that removes inches of hair and noticeably changes your hairstyle. 

Body-contouring options

Nonsurgical fat reduction uses cold energy or heat energy to destroy the integrity of the fat cells being targeted. Coolsculpting, or cryolipolysis, freezes the fat cells. SculpSure uses laser energy to destroy the fat cells. In both procedures, the skin is protected and left unharmed. Both are effective on several areas of the body: abdomen, flanks, back, inner and outer thighs, and under the chin. Coolsculpting is also used on the buttocks and upper arms. 

Does your chin really bother you? Kybella is a procedure specifically designed to improve the way your chin looks and eliminate excess fat. 

Emsculpt is a body-contouring procedure that focuses on your abdomen or buttocks. It increases muscle tone to give you more defined buttocks and a trimmer abdomen while eliminating fat cells. All of the procedures are FDA-cleared to reduce those stubborn trouble spots of excess fat. 

Call or book an appointment online with Lowcountry Plastic Surgery Center to learn whether body contouring is the right answer to your aesthetic needs.