Guide to Maintaining Your Body After a Tummy Tuck

There are many reasons you may choose to undergo a tummy tuck procedure. Gaining and losing weight, pregnancy, or even your natural body type may mean that a tummy tuck is your best option for achieving a flat, sculpted midsection.

However, while tummy tuck surgery may give you a chiseled stomach, you must maintain a healthy weight to enjoy your results.

Dr. George Sanders, in Los Angeles, CA, can help you obtain the contoured figure you cannot achieve through diet and exercise alone. Protecting your investment and ensuring your results continue to last is up to you.

What Is a Tummy Tuck?

Considered one of the most popular plastic surgery procedures, a tummy tuck, or abdominoplasty, improves the appearance and shape of the abdomen, flanks, and pubic region. In addition, a tummy tuck removes excess skin and fat that diet and exercise cannot eliminate.

If you have a weak abdominal wall or your stomach muscles became separated due to pregnancy or significant weight fluctuations, you can also restore those muscles through an abdominoplasty.

The procedure repairs and tightens the stomach muscles while removing excess tissue and serves as an ideal option to achieve a fitter, flatter abdomen.

Are Tummy Tuck Results Permanent?

While a tummy tuck procedure offers permanent results, those results may become diminished when you have significant weight changes.

Therefore, should you plan to get pregnant or lose a substantial amount of weight, you should postpone the procedure until you have completed your family or met your weight loss goals.

Although it may seem challenging to maintain the sculpted figure your tummy tuck provides, a few lifestyle changes can ensure your new look lasts.

Pre-Tummy Tuck Preparation

Your overall health before your tummy tuck procedure can significantly impact your results and your ability to maintain your new figure. Taking measures to optimize your health facilitates faster, easier surgery recovery and puts you in a better position to sustain your results.

Start at a Stable Weight

If you are at or near your goal weight before your abdominoplasty, you are more likely to achieve the best outcomes. It is also easier to continue a healthy lifestyle rather than newly establishing one after your surgery.

Ideally, you will be at your goal weight and have a routine where you follow a healthy diet and exercise regularly.

Follow a Healthy Diet

Your body needs the right fuel to function correctly, including recovering from surgery. Good meals to eat before your surgery include lean protein, vegetables, healthy, plant-based fats, and unprocessed carbohydrates.

Exercise

Exercise is essential to ensuring your tummy tuck procedure delivers optimal results. Strong, toned muscles will allow you to see early results after your surgery and make transitioning back to your routine after recovery easier.

Stop Smoking

Smoking can negatively impact your surgery and recovery because it can hinder the healthy function of your heart and lungs. As a result, you may experience breathing problems during or after surgery and be at a greater risk of developing pneumonia or requiring a ventilator.

Additionally, smoking can reduce your blood flow and slow healing, making you more likely to experience unattractive scarring or an infection in your incision and slow your recovery.

Maintaining the Results of Your Tummy Tuck

You may be eager to jump back into your exercise routine in the weeks after your surgery. However, it is critical to follow your doctor’s guidance and not begin exercising until your body fully recovers.

Instead, focus on eating a healthy diet that gives your body the fuel necessary to repair tissue and restore your health, and then add exercise when your surgeon approves of your recovery progress.

Eating to Maintain Your Tummy Tuck Results

Eating a healthy diet after your tummy tuck helps keep your weight stable so you can enjoy successful surgery results. We recommend a diet that primarily includes fresh vegetables, fruits, lean proteins, and whole grains.

Foods high in salt, refined sugar, saturated fats, and refined grains can lead to weight gain that puts undue pressure and stress on your newly sculpted midsection.

In addition to prioritizing healthy, nourishing foods, you must carefully monitor your portions to avoid feeling overly full and stretching the muscles and skin around your abdomen.

Exercising After Your Tummy Tuck

Your abdominoplasty will tighten and repair your abdominal muscles. However, a sedentary lifestyle can negatively affect your newly firm, tight muscles. In addition, it typically takes about six weeks to return to exercise after your procedure.

Finding an exercise routine you can stick to is one of the best ways to maintain your results. Initially, you should start slowly and incorporate low-intensity exercises into your routine. For example, walking, moderate cycling, yoga, water aerobics, and swimming are all effective exercises that avoid extra stress on your recovering body.

You can slowly increase the intensity to match your comfort level and add more exercises that help you to maintain your new figure.

Your surgeon will offer you more comprehensive guidance in regaining your exercise routine after surgery so you can safely maintain your post-abdominoplasty body.

Achieve and Maintain Amazing Results from Your Tummy Tuck

The first step in achieving optimal results from your tummy tuck surgery is choosing a skilled, board-certified plastic surgeon like Dr. George Sanders in Los Angeles, CA. Dr. Sanders can guide you through your procedure to ensure you achieve the desired goals you will be excited to maintain.

Are you ready to learn more about achieving a flat, sculpted abdomen with Dr. Sanders? You can explore our pages outlining the tummy tuck procedure and a drainless tummy tuck to learn which option is best for you.