Considering Liposuction

[Hardkill]

On 7/22/2022 at 3:22 AM, Leo Gura said:

It's a bad idea because you'll just gain it back and it will look worse because you will have lost valuable fat cells forever.

Instead I suggest you get serious about optimizing your diet. Stop eating grains and refined carbs and I guarantee you'll lose the weight and keep it off forever. The reason you have belly fat is because you're eating refined carbs and other junk food.

It's not a lack of exercise, it's the bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, etc that you eat.

The problem is that a lot people have an excess of fat cells from having been overweight. Unlike muscle cells, fat cells can actually multiply when you gain too much body fat. That's why even if you eventually slim down a lot after having been overweight, you still end up having a greater number of fat cells than those who have always been slim or lean. Obese individuals particularly have even way more fat cells than those those who have been overweight but not obese.

https://sites.tufts.edu/hkerstjaaalislai/?page_id=549

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29991030/

[soos_mite_ah]

@integral never 

if I did, it was probably before age 7 but I can’t remember much in general from that age much less on what my stomach looked like. 

I did come close to a flat stomach in my early teens but I had a full on eating disorder at the time. 

everyone in my family is somewhat apple shaped even when skinny/fit. Like I have a really fit cousin who does marathons and stuff and works out every day but he doesn’t have a flat stomach. It’s a genetic thing in my family that even when lean, our fat distribution is a little on the stomach. 
 

and also I mean, it’s not like you can spot reduce fat. Sure you can do core exercises but that will build up muscle in your core, not necessarily get rid of the fat. You need to be in a calorie deficit and even then from my experience, you can’t really control where you’re losing weight from. That’s up to genetics which is always important to remember when you watch fitness and what I eat in a day videos because even if you follow it exactly, you won’t look exactly like the people showing you their diet or workout routines. 

[Michael569]

5 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

I did come close to a flat stomach in my early teens but I had a full on eating disorder at the time. 

Were you any happier than you are today back then? Chances are you were pretty miserable and hated your body. 

 

[soos_mite_ah]

2 hours ago, Michael569 said:

Were you any happier than you are today back then? Chances are you were pretty miserable and hated your body. 

Oh absolutely not. 

But what I think is the difference between now and 10 years ago almost is that I sorted out most of the underlying emotional stuff that was going on at the time, surrounded myself with more supportive people, and had more time to educate myself on how my body works and the limits around it. Like I don't have that delusion of looking like I'm 5'8" and being rail thin anymore like I did when I was 13 and I know that unless I do something drastic that I won't be able to lose a considerable amount of muscle (also back then I categorized everything as me being fat even if it literally didn't make sense). 

Now don't get me wrong, I'm still dealing with stuff right now particularly in my home and school environment. I'm also kind of sensitive to my body changing especially since I have been trying to change up my diet so that I have a healtheir metabolism and address the deficiencies I accumulated from habits that went unchecked just because I wasn't getting the negative effects of it then. For a long time, I had a lot of unhealthy habits ingrained to me sold as "tips to be healthy" that went unnoticed because I was much more at peace with my body and didn't hate my body the way I did in my early teens (i.e. intermittent fasting, drinking water instead of eating if you want a snack or chew gum, restricting carbs, binging and restricting due to moralizing food by having "cheat days", trying not to eat more than 1400 calories etc.). And since I'm not doing those things anymore and I'm consistently making the point to eat enough throughout the day, I have put on some weight. I will admit, that has been messing with me as of recently and I'm still working through it.

But something that I've noticed is that even most of the time when I am at peace with my body, whether it's my arms, my legs, my height, my chest, my face etc., the one thing that never budges is my stomach. I feel like the difference between then and now is that back then if I considered something like this, I would want to get everything done. Now it's just one part of my body and that's it.  I guess I can see the relativity of how I like some parts of my body or hate them depending on a variety of factors. But with my stomach, I've always really consistently hated the way it looks.

[Consilience]

Working out the core does not spot reduce fat. This is a huge misconception in the fitness industry. Cardio is not nearly as helpful for body recomposition as weight lifting.

The biggest adjustments you need to make are 

1) Progressive overload to your weight training - if you aren’t consistently getting stronger, you want be growing muscle which is what increases the metabolism and increases the passive fat burning weight lifting is known for. This process is called EPOCH. But if you’re just lifting the same amount of weight, same number of sets, same reps without making progress, progress will stall.

2) Training close enough to failure without hitting failure - if you train to failure, this eventually creates issues for your nervous system and overall recovery. Sometimes training extra hard and going to failure can be fun, but for sustainability purposes, it must be used sparingly. Instead, you should focus on training anywhere from 1-3 reps away from failure each set. This has been shown to be a sufficient training intensity for hypertrophy, which again, look at point 1.

3) Protein intake! Your macronutrient composition is extremely important. Carbohydrate quality matters very little when it comes to fat loss and muscle gain. Look into if it fits your macros/flexible dieting. It’s a whole movement in the natural bodybuilding scene. However, carb quality will have a big impact on energy levels, mental health and other health outcomes so don’t just ignore it, but in terms of body recomp, you need to focus on macros. You should aim for 20 - 30% of calories coming from protein and filling the rest with carbs and fat based on what makes your body feel the best for workouts and what helps satiate for hunger management. 

4) Don’t cut out carbs - calorie deficits are what help people lose weight. Calorie deficit + what I listed 1-3 = fat loss. Fat loss = what you want, not weight loss. Moreover, carbs are very important for keeping your weight training progressing. You’ll make much less progress eating a protein/fat only diet and therefore, wont be as successful with recomping your body the way you want. 
 

5) Weight lifting > cardio - to reiterate, cardio is not going to be nearly as effective with what you’re going for as weight lifting.

I have a bs in nutrition, bs in kinesiology, trained and ate like a bodybuilder for about 6 years, and used to be a personal trainer. Ive seen it all… by far the biggest misconception people came to me with was thinking cardio and core workouts would help with their belly fat. The biggest areas of ignorance were the importance of weight lifting with progressive overload and the importance of protein intake. 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Consilience

[soos_mite_ah]

46 minutes ago, Consilience said:

Working out the core does not spot reduce fat. This is a huge misconception in the fitness industry. Cardio is not nearly as helpful for body recomposition as weight lifting.

The biggest adjustments you need to make are 

1) Progressive overload to your weight training - if you aren’t consistently getting stronger, you want be growing muscle which is what increases the metabolism and increases the passive fat burning weight lifting is known for. This process is called EPOCH. But if you’re just lifting the same amount of weight, same number of sets, same reps without making progress, progress will stall.  Done. I love progressing in weights. It's what I use to track progress since looking at my weight and measurements hasn't been the healthiest for me. 

2) Training close enough to failure without hitting failure - if you train to failure, this eventually creates issues for your nervous system and overall recovery. Sometimes training extra hard and going to failure can be fun, but for sustainability purposes, it must be used sparingly. Instead, you should focus on training anywhere from 1-3 reps away from failure each set. This has been shown to be a sufficient training intensity for hypertrophy, which again, look at point 1. Done. I try to aim for close to failure or failure depending on the exercise to avoid injury. 

3) Protein intake! Your macronutrient composition is extremely important. Carbohydrate quality matters very little when it comes to fat loss and muscle gain. Look into if it fits your macros/flexible dieting. It’s a whole movement in the natural bodybuilding scene. However, carb quality will have a big impact on energy levels, mental health and other health outcomes so don’t just ignore it, but in terms of body recomp, you need to focus on macros. You should aim for 20 - 30% of calories coming from protein and filling the rest with carbs and fat based on what makes your body feel the best for workouts and what helps satiate for hunger management. I haven't been tracking macros as I previously had a dysfunctional relationship with food. However, I don't mind tracking protein or tracking with the intention of making sure I get enough in. It's just the resticting that often causes me to spiral. 

4) Don’t cut out carbs - calorie deficits are what help people lose weight. Calorie deficit + what I listed 1-3 = fat loss. Fat loss = what you want, not weight loss. Moreover, carbs are very important for keeping your weight training progressing. You’ll make much less progress eating a protein/fat only diet and therefore, wont be as successful with recomping your body the way you want. Question on the calorie deficit. So I've been eating more than usual to get my metabolism back on track. I noticed that now if I don't eat enough I'm prone to hunger headaches. On top of that I'm currently studying abroad so I'm not weight lifting rather I'm walking 5-7 miles every day (tours, seeing cities etc.) in addition to my unintentional calorie deficit. I noticed my clothes getting loser but I noticed that I still have the same pinchable amount of fat. Then I noticed that my arms looked less toned despite my shirts feeling loser so I concluded that I likely lost muscle. My question is, how much of a calorie deficit is too much and how does working out and the amount of protien impact whether you lose muscle or lose fat? 
 

5) Weight lifting > cardio - to reiterate, cardio is not going to be nearly as effective with what you’re going for as weight lifting. Lowkey this comforts me because I enjoy weight lifting and dread cardio lmao. But I will admit, I'm a little hesitent about weight lifting since I noticed that I tend to get big pretty quickly without losing fat. Then again, it probably has to do with me trying to heal my metabolism my eating more but I also noticed that when I do weight lifting in a calorie deficit, while I can still lift the same amount, I find myself needing to take more breaks between sets or lessen the amount of sets I do. How do I deal with this?  

 

[Clabber Girl]

I am not a health or fitness guru but I can tell you as a woman I have had the same insecurities with my stomach... A lot of females do. But I think that it is possible to get a flat tummy with diet and exercise. Personally I am not a fan of anyone getting any kind of plastic surgery unless it is for corrective reasons (deviated septum/major trauma to the body due to an accident). If you cant love your body as it is, lipo isn't going to change the way you feel about it. I suspect after the lipo it will be something else you are not happy with. 

Also - something I have noticed is that all people tend to store fat in specific areas, not every one stores it in the tummy region. For some its the butt/thighs... For me I have seen most of my weight is in my upper body - boobs, belly, arms... Legs and butt are more lean( I have less cellulite too than others I have noticed). It has helped me to come to grips that this is the reality of life and you will have physical appearance strengths and weaknesses. PLAY THE CARDS YOU ARE DEALT,  dont fight your body. If you have beautiful eyes, play to that with eye-shadows/liner that complements them. If you have amazing boobs then highlight them... If your legs are toned show those off... the quality of your body is NOT how perfect it is. It's how you are able to play those good aspects to the max. Hell, we are all going to be old and wrinkly one day... Will you then try to get rid of all the wrinkles? 

[soos_mite_ah]

59 minutes ago, Clabber Girl said:

I am not a health or fitness guru but I can tell you as a woman I have had the same insecurities with my stomach... A lot of females do. But I think that it is possible to get a flat tummy with diet and exercise. Personally I am not a fan of anyone getting any kind of plastic surgery unless it is for corrective reasons (deviated septum/major trauma to the body due to an accident). If you cant love your body as it is, lipo isn't going to change the way you feel about it. I suspect after the lipo it will be something else you are not happy with. 

I generally agree. I'm not a fan of using external circumstances to deal with internal problems and it isn't my first line of defense. Which is why I think this thread is beneficial in that it's helping me sort out my thoughts to see if it's coming from a reasonable place. I have considered the possibility of the trap of constantly trying to fix things and I am trying to be wary of that when it comes to my decision, whatever it may be. I'm not about to do this right away as there are costs and additional factors for me to consider and work through personally so even if I decide to do this, it would be at least a couple years before I actually do. 

1 hour ago, Clabber Girl said:

PLAY THE CARDS YOU ARE DEALT,  dont fight your body. If you have beautiful eyes, play to that with eye-shadows/liner that complements them. If you have amazing boobs then highlight them... If your legs are toned show those off... the quality of your body is NOT how perfect it is.

Personally I feel like I have a good hand over all lol. My arms and legs are toned and I like my chest and by butt lol however I think because I don't have the waist, it kind of makes me look like a box and it looks weird from the side profile (especially since I'm 5'2" with long legs and a short torso proportionally speaking)). Like I feel that if I just got rid of the stomach everything else would stand out more ya know? 

1 hour ago, Clabber Girl said:

Will you then try to get rid of all the wrinkles? 

Funny enough is that a part of me is looking forward to aging because I feel like wrinkles and gray/white hair look cool and add character to people's faces. Maybe it's just me being an only child and being surrounded by a lot of old people growing up to where I just acquired an additional appreciation of aging due to familiarity. I know that's not the point of you saying that but I just wanted to throw that out there since there is a lot of shame around aging especially for women. 

[Yarco]

Stop listening to these other crabs in the bucket trying to hold you back. If you've got the money to do it without it being a financial burden and it'll make you happier, just do it.

Even if you have to spend $10k a year on plastic surgery every single year, but it puts you in a position where being more attractive makes you more confident and helps you to get jobs, promotions, and raises where you earn more than an extra $10k per year than you otherwise would, plus a better partner, etc then it seems worth the cost and pain. 

[Arcangelo]

Keep it simple:

Do cardio and core exercises, you will develop a six pack.

[flowboy]

@soos_mite_ah  If you are truly in a position where you have a healthy diet and exercise routine that you like, feels healthy and can stick to, then that's awesome.

Many people (most?) don't even have that, and go through cycles of doing something a bit too extreme and then dropping it.

If this is the way your body looks when you take the utmost care of it, then the ideal state is to love it just the way it is.

That's easier said than done, I know.

But put a pin in the difficulty in that for a second.

Look at all the women who have a belly like that and love their body as it is.

Do you know them?

If not, you're not following the right people on Instagram because they certainly exist.

Don't underestimate the influence of the people you surround yourself with, also digitally.

I personally know some very, very plus-sized women who have come to love their body just the way it is.

They do experiment with diet, they may try keto sometimes, but mostly they focus on quality ingredients and what feels healthy to them.

It's inspiring because they're not rejecting any part of themselves.

And their belly is much, much bigger than yours, I can tell you that much.

It doesn't cause anyone else to reject them or think negatively about them or be less attracted to them, because they don't have that dynamic going on inside them.

It all starts with how you relate to yourself, and then other people resonate with and start to mirror that.

Now for the unaddressed part: why is it difficult to practice self-love and self-acceptance for some, but not for others?

That goes back to how someone was raised.

Self-acceptance and self-love gets absorbed from primary caregivers.

If it was conditional, then someone will learn to accept themselves conditionally.

(parents may have shown you more love when you were 'good', whatever that meant, or when you got good grades in school for example)

The body image aspect of it is just how it gets projected.

Conditional love just gets projected onto the most sensitive, visceral aspects.

For women, it might easily go to body image.

For men, it might rather go to insecurity about status and achievements (but they may have body image issues as well).

So that's an important point I want to make: conditional self-love is a pattern that can manifest in different ways, such as body image, but the way it manifests is less important and should be seen peripheral.

You can not heal conditional self-love through addressing how it manifests.

A man can not become self-loving by finally becoming that hotshot lawyer or business man.

You can not become self-loving by finally losing your belly fat.

You can choose to get liposuction, but then the conditional self-love will just manifest in other aspects of yourself.

And if you introspect on this, you will find that it already does.

How do we address this then?

I would suggest first going through a course of inner child work, to get familiar with what needs have gone unmet in childhood.

You may believe there are none, or you had a pretty good childhood, almost everyone does. And yet they have problems.

Patrick Teahan has good videos on it on youtube.

I have a guided exercise that seems to help many people and would be a great introduction.

John Bradshaw's Homecoming is a must-read book on the topic, which also contains a practical course.

Notice how none of these things directly relate to body image and eating disorders.

Because that's just one way that conditional love can be projected.

After you've gotten familiar with your inner child's unmet needs and have developed a good relationship with her, you can look at approaches to feel and heal her unfelt pain. This would shift you from conditional self-love into unconditional self-love, without having to practice it every day anymore.

It's more of a long term process, but very worthwhile.

The most effective path I know of is Primal Therapy, which has fallen out of favor of the mainstream, but me and everyone I know who experienced it have gotten great lasting results with it. Other recommendable paths are body work approaches such as ERT, Reichian therapy, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, for example with MDMA or ketamine. There are other therapies that work well for releasing trauma, but always choose something that involves feeling and releasing emotions, not just talking about them.

At this point we're in the realm of trauma healing, and you may not think of yourself as someone who has been traumatized, and neither did I, but I consider any significantly unmet childhood need, such as the need for unconditional love, to be childhood trauma in the broad sense.

Which is why I recommend childhood trauma healing practices for healthy people who want to develop themselves or improve some aspect of their lives.

I value practices and methods of healing that create permanent results, over things that you have to keep doing every day for the benefits to stay, such as self-love affirmations and the like.

That's why I only recommend things that I believe have the potential to change someone for the better in a permanent way, without burdening them with a regimen of practices that has to be followed for the rest of their life.

 

[ZenAlex]

The much better option would be to just stop giving a fuck. Go outside with your stomach showing, stop hiding it, convince your brain there's nothing wrong. That feeling is priceless.

[soos_mite_ah]

2 hours ago, flowboy said:

If not, you're not following the right people on Instagram because they certainly exist.

Don't underestimate the influence of the people you surround yourself with, also digitally.

I agree. I will admit, I'm not in the healthiest environment right now. My mom has had issues with food an her body for as long as I can remember and I currently go to a school where everyone is thin. Even though I'm not that big, most of the time I'm the biggest person in the room. I don't really follow many people i don't know on instagram other than meme pages, some people I think are pretty, news accounts,  and self help pages.  

I think I will have a clearer idea where I stand once I'm on my own and am away from my school and home environment. 

2 hours ago, flowboy said:

Self-acceptance and self-love gets absorbed from primary caregivers.

If it was conditional, then someone will learn to accept themselves conditionally.

(parents may have shown you more love when you were 'good', whatever that meant, or when you got good grades in school for example)

The body image aspect of it is just how it gets projected.

Conditional love just gets projected onto the most sensitive, visceral aspects.

For women, it might easily go to body image.

There is a whole thing on how if the mom has body image issues and speaks badly about herself that the daughter is likely to follow. I've had a lot of weight related insecuries projected on to me growing up and I've had to deal with that and find a healthier relationship with food. It's still a work in progress. 

2 hours ago, flowboy said:

You can choose to get liposuction, but then the conditional self-love will just manifest in other aspects of yourself.

If I'm going to be completely honest, I don't have unconditional self-love. Sure I'm not actively hating myself but I know that for example, if I were to get low grades, gain weight, lose all friends etc. that I am not going to feel good about myself. I've improved a lot in this regard but also fixing various areas of my life externally instead of relying on self love and reflection to fix everything has been incredibly important for me. I think in the past I relied on finding internal solutions too much and currently I'm in a phase where I'm trying to do more tangible things to improve my internal and external circumstances. And I'm trying to find a healthy medium for myself in the process. 

And as for the inner child healing stuff, I'm on board with that. But I will say that in certain areas in my life that I am hitting a wall of sorts regarding how far I can take that kind of unconditional love. There are parts of myself that I genuinely hate and no amount of knowing better really helps with it. And right now I'm trying to just sit with that without forcing myself to change that kind of self hatred.  

[flowboy]

2 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

There are parts of myself that I genuinely hate and no amount of knowing better really helps with it.

That's true, no amount of knowing better helps.

2 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

And right now I'm trying to just sit with that without forcing myself to change that kind of self hatred.  

That's exactly what the work I recommended is for, though. To change by not trying to change.

It sounds like you are dead set on having surgeons cut into your body, rather than doing the inner work that would also solve your problem in a less bloody way. Which is fine.

I just have one question, and humour me here.

Imagine your (future) daughter was about to sign up for surgery because there were parts of herself that she couldn't love.

What would you say to her?

[soos_mite_ah]

37 minutes ago, flowboy said:

That's exactly what the work I recommended is for, though. To change by not trying to change.

Gonna be honest, it hasn't been a walk in the park and for me at least, I come to realize that I'm never going to 100% like myself and that is perfectly normal and acceptable. It's normal to have parts of yourself that you might not like and just continuing living your life. But sometimes, even if you can accept that you don't like something about yourself, that doesn't mean that you stop wanting to change. And I think that's where I'm at with this particular issue. 

40 minutes ago, flowboy said:

I just have one question, and humour me here.

Imagine your (future) daughter was about to sign up for surgery because there were parts of herself that she couldn't love.

What would you say to her?

I mean I think it would depend on a variety of factors including but not limited to

• how old she is and if her body is still developing
• where this insecurity is coming from
• how constant her distress is (whether this is her nitpicking, if this is really bothering her, or if it's bothering her but she isn't desperate for it)
• cost of the surgery
• risks involved with the surgery
• whether she's doing any inner work to address this issue or any underlying issues that might influence this
• how healthy her mindset is otherwise
• if it's rooted in things like racism
• her over all understanding of herself and her situation
• external factors that might have led her to think about this such as the media, peer groups, the internet etc.

I would ultimately want it to be her choice if she is old enough and has the money but I would facilitate a discussion to ensure she's making a wise, well thought out choice without pushing my agenda onto her. 

These are also factors I'm taking into consideration and contemplating for myself because I'm aware of how invasive and extreme something like this is. I don't think that there is anything wrong with plastic surgery but I do think that there is a right and wrong way of going about it. 

[Gili Trawangan]

Have you tried intermittent fasting?

It's like a miracle, I went from 21% body fat to 14% in two months. Lost a ton of fat around the stomach, I have never looked like this before. Didn't lose muscle at all, just fat.

Besides regular physical exercise, all I did was skip dinner 3/4 times a week and drastically reduce the amount of carbs consumed. It didn't feel restrictive at all, there was just a bit of hunger the first few times I fasted. Do 16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of eating and you'll start to lose weight very quickly. Plus, it's healthy, unlike what common sense tells us.

Last meal at 5pm, then first meal at 9am the next day, that's 16 hours. The results are incredible, really.

[Ulax]

Have you considered HIIT? (High-intensity Interval Training)

I understand it to be a high-calorie burning activity. Something like an intense boxing keep fit class would be an example of this. I doubt how many calories will be getting burnt during your weight lifting sessions.