You can feel it outside. You can see it at the mall. You can see it in the store windows on Madison Avenue, 5th Avenue, 57th Street and in Soho. The displays are changing in all the stores; in fact, you cannot walk in any of these places without it staring you down from every angle. You guessed it; summer is right around the corner. Are you ready to start slimming down for bikini season? With summertime heat and days at the beach fast approaching, it’s time to start shedding that excess winter weight.
What is the best approach? Diet and exercise are key to successfully getting in the right shape and looking great in that teeny-weeny bikini. However, even with diet and exercise, sometimes you need an extra boost to melt away stubborn fat – fat I like t call FRED . What is FRED? It’s F at R esistant to E xercise and D iet! If you have FRED, it’s time to see a board-certified plastic surgeon for the best surgical or non-surgical body contouring options.
Slimming Down with Your Diet
Everyone knows that if you want to lose weight you need to watch what you eat and eat fewer calories than you burn during the day. It’s simple math, but not easy. Calculating your required daily calories is no easy task. I recommend using a calorie calculator online to figure out exactly how many calories your body needs to maintain your current weight. To lose a pound a week, aim to eat 500 calories less a day than your average daily needs. There is a balance between cutting calories and starving yourself. Too much of a calorie deficit and your body will fight back by conserving as much fat as possible to fuel your daily body needs. We all have a friend that tried to lose weight by just eating rice cakes, or some other crazy diet, and it backfired. Maybe you even tried something like that yourself. Your body is smart; to lose weight you must be smarter than your body.
Exercising to Tone and Contour
It is a well-established fact that if you want to lose weight, you are going to have to put in some work. Cardio and weight training 3-5 times a week are great ways to slim down and get you in good shape for bikini season. You do not have to be a fitness expert or work out like Arnold Schwarzenegger to slim down and lose weight. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends a minimum of 150-250 minutes a week of moderate-intensity physical activity if you want to lose weight: that is only 21-36 minutes a day. A brisk walk through the mall, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, dancing, or simply jogging in place are easy ways to hit your daily exercise goal without ever going to the gym.
The Skinny on Non-Surgical vs Surgical Body Contouring
If you are eating healthy, exercising regularly, and still have that last little bit of FRED you want to eliminate, non-surgical body contouring might be the right option for you. If your FRED is a bit more plentiful and you want more dramatic body contouring results, then you may need a minimally invasive approach to your body contouring such as laser-assisted liposuction (LAL). If you have still more FRED and associated skin and/or abdominal muscle laxity, an Ipanema Tummy Tuck® may be the right solution for you. When considering the best options for either surgical or non-surgical body contouring procedures, it is always best to schedule a consultation with a board-certified plastic surgeon to explain your goals and get his opinion on the best options available to you.
There are several choices available when considering non-surgical body contouring, from freezing away the fat, using a laser to zap the fat or even the use of radio frequency to rid the body area of stubborn fat. CoolSculpting® is one of the more popular trends right now in non-surgical body contouring. CoolSculpting is non-invasive, requires no downtime, and is one of the only FDA approved non-surgical fat reduction treatments. Through a process called cryolipolysis, CoolSculpting freezes the fat cells in the treatment area. Then over the course of several weeks to months, the fat cells shrink, and your body eliminates them.
Summer is fast approaching, and it’s time to rid yourself of that excess winter weight. Diet and exercise should always be your starting point to help slim down to your perfect bikini body. If you have localized, stubborn areas of fat that are resistant to your efforts at exercise and diet, a non-surgical or surgical body contouring procedure might be right for you. You could try CoolSculpting, but if you want dramatic results, laser-assisted liposuction or an Ipanema Tummy Tuck may be necessary to achieve the results you desire.
