Post-Christmas the pressure is on to lose weight. If you’re having trouble budging those last few pounds, the answer may be a little lunchtime lipo.
‘Actually the title is slightly disingenuous, ‘says Dr Frank Innes of Bournemouth’s Snowberry Lane Clinic, one of the few clinics in the area licenses by the care Quality Commission and offering Smart Lipo in the Bournemouth area for the first time.
Dr Innes and his partner Dr Rupert Gabriel are the national trainers in the UK for Smart Lipo, a procedure that earner its ‘lunchtime lipo’ tag as it’s relatively quick and easy and you can drive home and return to work after the procedure.
While diet and exercise should, Dr Innes points out, be the main stays for losing weight, sometimes it’s difficult to shift the last stubborn pounds, which can undermine confidence and self-esteem.
Liposuction is the best option for removing large amounts of stubborn fat. The downsides are that it is expensive, requires a General Anaesthetic and can leave loose pockets of skin or ridging.
Smart Lipo or Laser Lipo is the latest alternative, one of the new generation of assisted liposuction techniques where fat is liquefied prior to suction. It has the advantages of being cheaper as it is done under local anaesthetic and is therefore faster, and it doesn’t leave loose skin as it has a tightening effect due to collagen stimulation in the dermis (the lower layer of skin) by the laser. The disadvantage is that it can’t remove a large amount of fat. It is therefore best used for small stubborn areas and for contouring. It’s ideal for women struggling to regain their figures post-baby, for women unable to shift ‘saddlebags’ and for men, too, with man boobs’.
Vaser liposuction is similar to Smart Lipo except the medium used to liquidize fat is ultrasound.
Several non–surgical solutions can breakdown small amounts of fat, improve skin tone, fade stretch marks and improve cellulite. All these methods use the same principle of stimulating stimulating fibroblasts (the cells which produce collagen) which are located deep within the dermis, the lower layer of the skin. By heating these cells to 45°C, the fibroblasts undergo an inflammatory reaction which causes them to produce collagen. Collagen is responsible for giving skin its elasticity, therefore by producing more collagen you can improve skin tone. Most of the methods employed also have the advantage of making the fat cells more porous causing them to leak and therefore shrink.
There are several machines on the market utilising different means of stimulating the fibroblasts and shrinking the fat cells. One of the best known, Velashape, uses a mixture of radio frequencies and infra-red to shrink fat cells and increase collagen. It’s a non-permanent solution requiring four or five sessions initially and then annual top-up sessions, but it has been clinically proven to show circumferential decrease.
Dr Innes adds that he has had patients who felt so self-conscious about their bodies it was affecting their lives. A recent among women trying to achieve their pre-baby figures found that 88 per cent of women complain of being “stuck” and unable to shift weight from certain stubborn areas and 71 per cent feel less sexy because of their post-baby shape or because of stretch marks or cellulite. Dr Innes says that being able to restore their confidence through the Smart Lipo procedure is one of the most satisfying aspects of his work.