Have you ever strolled down North Shore Beach and wondered how so many people have such flawless contours? The key to a perfectly-shaped butt isn’t countless hours of weighted squats and lunges. For many people, ideal contours come from cosmetic procedures. At Metairie Plastic Surgeons in Metairie, LA, we offer, among other procedures, the Brazilian butt lift to help people improve their contours and self-esteem.
How Long Will the Results of a Brazilian Butt Lift Last?
To understand how long you should expect the results of a Brazilian butt lift to last, you have to understand what results you can realistically expect.
Unlike an arm lift or thigh lift, the procedure does not involve removing excess skin and tightening the remaining skin to achieve flawlessly smooth, tight skin. Rather, this lift tightens the skin of your buttocks by augmenting the buttocks with fat donated from other parts of your body.
How Long Fat Removal Results Will Last
The fat removal results from this procedure are permanent. Adults cannot grow new fat cells, so once fat cells are removed from the donor areas, there will always be fewer fat cells in the donor areas.
This means that even if the fat cells in the donor area store energy due to excess calorie consumption, the area will never become as large as it would have if you never received a Brazilian butt lift surgery.
How Long the Augmentation Results Will Last
After we remove fat cells from the donor area or areas, we clean them. Then, we separate the strongest, healthiest fat cells from the damaged fat cells. Only the healthiest fat cells are transferred to your buttocks to give you the best chance of a successful procedure.
However, some of the fat cells will not survive the transfer process.The initial results of your augmentation will last for several weeks. However, not all of the fat cells will take hold. The fat cells that do not take hold will be flushed out of the body.
The fat cells that survive the transfer process will remain in the buttocks permanently. Nevertheless, the only way to ensure the ideal volume remains in your buttocks is to maintain your body fat for six months post-op.
How to Maintain Your Body Fat for Six Months Post-Op
You may be tempted to work out diligently and eat fewer calories than your body needs for weight maintenance once you see the effects of the fat removal from your donor area or areas. However, you must resist the temptation to burn more excess fat from your body for the first six months after your procedure.
Since the fat cells transferred to the buttocks need time to take hold, you need to eat at maintenance. To know how many calories you need to eat daily to maintain your body fat percentage, you need to know your height, weight, and activity level. Once you have that information, plug it into a TDEE calculator, remembering to make sure your gender and activity level are correct.
We love this calculator because it clearly explains how to identify your activity level. Once you know how many calories you burn daily, create a meal plan that provides you with that many calories.
How to Burn Excess Fat After the Procedure
Six months after your procedure, you can feel confident that the transferred fat cells have taken hold, have a healthy supply of blood, and are not going anywhere. At this point, you are free to diet and exercise for fat loss.
If you’ve never lost weight before, or kept it off, the key is to make small, sustainable changes to your lifestyle. Whether you’re a stay-at-home parent or you have a more traditional job, you’re probably too busy to maintain a workout program that has you exercising 10 hours per week.
Realistically, you should try to exercise five hours weekly for fat loss and 2.5 hours weekly for fat maintenance. Moderate-intensity exercises that are great for fat loss include jogging, cycling, slow swimming, and slow indoor rowing.
How to Eat for Fat Loss
Experts agree that burning excess fat at a rate of one pound per week is sustainable. Since a pound of fat is 3,500 calories, you must operate at a deficit of 500 calories daily to lose a pound per week.
Most people experience the most success by burning 250 calories per day through exercise five days weekly and reducing caloric intake by 250 calories five days per week. Twice per week, the 500-calorie deficit is achieved by caloric restriction.
Without knowing your diet, we can’t advise you on where you can start to restrict calories. However, we can offer some general advice that may apply to your situation. The simplest way to cut calories out of your diet without starving or sacrificing your favorite foods is to minimize your consumption of liquid calories in particular.
How to Build Muscle After Your Procedure
While it’s important to not burn excess fat during the first several months after your procedure, it is okay to focus on building muscle. However, you must wait until your body is ready. Everyone’s post-op recovery timeline is unique, but we recommend that you take six weeks off from intense exercises, including resistance training. This ensures that your blood pressure does not increase too much and you will have a smooth recovery.
Once your body is well-rested and ready to put in the effort to build muscle, start exercising the muscles you’re targeting for growth to fatigue. Muscle is built by overtaxing your muscles to the point that they tear at a cellular level. When there is enough protein in your diet, your muscles will absorb the amino acids and build themselves up bigger and stronger than ever.
How Much Protein to Eat to Build Muscle
To build muscle, it is absolutely crucial that you get enough protein in your diet. To ensure you’re getting enough protein in your diet, eat a gram of protein per pound of your body weight. For example, if you weigh 135 pounds, you should eat 135 grams of protein. If you weigh 205 pounds, consume 205 grams of protein. Just keep your TDEE in mind when creating your meal plan.
A common meal planning technique used by bodybuilders is to count macros, or macronutrients. The three macronutrients are fat, carbohydrates, and protein. Fat contains nine calories per gram and carbs and protein contain four calories per gram each. If you need 1,900 calories for weight maintenance and 135 grams (540 calories) of protein, you can consume 151 grams of fat, 340 grams of carbs, or a combination of the two macros to maintain weight and build muscle.
How to Build Muscle and Burn Fat Simultaneously
Building muscle and burning fat simultaneously is simple. You know to build muscle you need to consume a gram of protein per pound of your body weight. You know to lose fat sustainably, you need to consume 500 fewer calories daily than your body needs for maintenance.
The trickiest part of building muscle and burning fat simultaneously is staving off hunger. To make your goal of simultaneous muscle building and fat burning as foolproof as possible, meal plan and make your meals ahead of time. Start by subtracting 250 or 500 from your TDEE to get the calories you need to eat for weight loss.
Then, subtract the calories from the protein you need to eat for muscle building. If you’re concerned about hunger, get most of your remaining calories from healthy fats to keep you feeling fuller for longer.
How Long Does the Procedure Take?
How long your procedure will take depends on several factors including the volume of fat that needs to be added to your buttocks and how many areas you need fat removed from to achieve your ideal contours.
On average, the procedure takes three hours to perform. However, if you are more concerned about improving symmetry and having fat added to one buttock, your procedure may only take two hours. Similarly, you can expect your procedure to take longer than average if you need to have fat harvested from several locations, such as your back, chest, and stomach.
For example, if you have little excess fat, fat may need to be harvested from your hips and flanks to get enough fat to augment your buttocks appropriately. This may result in a 3.5-hour-long procedure. If you need to have a large volume of fat removed, your procedure may take four hours.
How Much Downtime Is There After the Procedure?
Remember, everyone’s post-op recovery experience is unique. However, you can expect to need five days for focused recovery. If you have an office job that requires little standing or walking, advise your supervisor that you need a full week off from work.
After 14 days, you should be feeling as vigorous and healthy as you did before the procedure and may return to a job that requires you to be on your feet. The hardest part about recovery from this procedure is you can’t engage in vigorous activities, such as weight lifting, HIIT, and team sports for six weeks post-op.
If you’re worried about feeling stir-crazy, buy a new videogame, sketch pad and charcoal or puzzle to keep your mind occupied while your body rests. You will be walking down the French Quarter or Warehouse and Arts District of New Orleans in no time.
How to Sit and Sleep After Your Procedure
Depending on the extent of your procedure, you will need to avoid sitting on your buttocks for two to eight weeks post-op. To ensure you sit on the back of your thighs, place a BBL pillow or small cushion in your recovery room where you anticipate sitting the most before you come in for the procedure.
We strongly recommend that you sleep on your stomach for the first two to three weeks post-op unless you had fat donated from your chest or stomach. If you can’t sleep comfortably on your stomach, sleep on your back. Sleeping on your side cuts off circulation and makes it difficult for the transferred fat cells to take hold.
Schedule an Appointment to Learn More Now
If you think a Brazilian butt lift could help you boost your self-esteem by enhancing the contours that currently trouble you, you may be a good candidate for the procedure. To learn more about it, how long the results last, and what you can do to extend the durability of your results, schedule an appointment to visit us at Metairie Plastic Surgeons in Metairie, LA. We look forward to the opportunity to help you achieve the contours you have wanted and worked towards for years.
