Your Complete Guide to Look Slim & Refreshed by Spring

Warmer weather is fast approaching, and with springtime comes the season of spring dresses, shorts and swimwear. New Year’s might one of the most popular times for people to set their weight loss goals, but all that January motivation can quickly subside, leaving men and women alike suddenly worrying about how to slim down fast when the spring sunshine sets in.

We’ve put together a handy guide to getting fit and trim by springtime so you can enjoy all the season has to offer.

Map Out a Plan

[pullquote]A good approach to getting in shape quickly includes a healthy diet, an active lifestyle and, for some, a cosmetic finishing touch.[/pullquote]

Getting into shape over any period of time requires planning. When you’re giving yourself only a couple of months to slip into that dream bikini or feel confident showing your torso, you’ll need to be diligent.

1. Supplement Your Diet

The holidays are a notorious time of excess. Seasonal food and drinks, parties, family get-togethers and cold weather all create a perfect storm for weight gain and overindulgence. If you didn’t use the right supplements over the holidays to keep your health in order, it’s not too late to start. You can take an over-the-counter multi-vitamin or visit a medical spa that offers pharmaceutical-grade supplements, like vitamin B injections, to help jumpstart your fitness regimen by keeping you energized and glowing.

2. Stay Accountable with a Buddy, Trainer or App

The main obstacle between you and your goals is motivation. Enlisting a friend, family member or coworker to join you on your fitness journey can be one of the best ways to stay accountable to your commitments. You and your friend can discuss dieting strategies, work out together or even just send each other reminders to stay on track. A good personal trainer or dietician can also act as a motivator while providing guidance on the best course of action for your individual needs and goals. If you’re more inclined to pursue fitness on your own, try using a mobile app that tracks your activity and allows you to set daily personal goals.

3. Be Active Every Day

An effective exercise routine is one that doesn’t only include your regular workouts, but also a focus on staying active in some capacity every day. This can mean going for short walks between scheduled workouts, cycling to work once a week or picking up a new extracurricular activity that gets your blood pumping. Join a kickboxing class, a local hiking group or a rock climbing gym to keep your activity fun and interesting. If you’re tight on time or money, something as simple as taking the dog for longer walks or doing lunges while you watch evening TV can help you stay within your daily activity goals.

4. Plan Your Diet

Your weight loss diet should include limiting your caloric intake as well as getting a healthy balance of nutrients. Limit your carbohydrates, fill up on lean proteins and supplement with lots of vegetables and fruits. You should also stay hydrated and limit or eliminate sugary drinks. Keeping a food journal can be a helpful method for tracking your diet and noticing how it affects your progress.

5. Think about Your Cosmetic Options

The benefits in how you look and feel when maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle are worth all the commitment in themselves. When you’ve reached your weight loss goals, you’ll likely be thrilled with the changes you can see in the mirror, but if your expectations aren’t met, hope is not lost. Plastic surgeons today offer a wide range of surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures to put the finishing touches on your springtime physique. Many people also find that investing in their appearance motivates them to take better care of themselves long-term.

Decide on Your Target Areas

You most likely have some idea of the main areas of your body you’d like to tighten and tone. To determine yours, take a look at your physique in the mirror and decide on a couple of places that you’d like to change before the warmer weather hits.

Thighs

Women tend to store more fat around their thighs than men, though members of both sexes can have unwanted fat or loose skin in this area. The inner thighs can be particularly problematic, as chafing may cause discomfort during exercises, making it difficult to enjoy your workouts.

To target this area, pick up running or cycling a few times a week, and supplement with lunges and squats to strengthen your quadriceps, hamstrings and calves.

If you’re ready for plastic surgery for the thighs, these procedures may help:

• Liposuction can slim down the inner or outer thighs by sculpting away excess fat, leaving you with thinner legs. Lipo can also be applied to the cankles for shapely calves and ankles.
• A thigh lift may be a better option for men or women who have achieved significant weight loss and struggle with excess skin or sagging tissue on the thighs. A thigh lift tightens and tones the thighs by lifting the muscle and tissue, tightening the skin and providing smoother, more youthful contours.

Buttocks

The bottom is a common source of body woes for people of all shapes and sizes. Toning the buttocks requires strengthening the gluteal muscles. Target these muscles by practicing lunges, deadlifts or leg curls. Walking uphill can also help tone your rear.

In some, the bottom stores a disproportionate amount of fat, making clothing uncomfortable or simply making you feel self-conscious. Many men and women today, however, are in search of a more prominent posterior. 

• If you’re looking for a smaller butt, liposuction can permanently remove fat cells from the buttocks and hips to help you fit better into your favorite clothes.
• Those bemoaning the flat or deflated look to their butt can achieve a curvier figure with buttock enhancement. This procedure uses fat transfer to fill out your lower half using fat cells from another part of your body, resulting in a rounder and curvier derrière.

Abdomen

[pullquote]The abdomen is the most common place to store fat and can be one of the hardest places to lose it.[/pullquote]

The midsection is one of the most common areas to cause both men and women to feel dissatisfied with their figures. To slim down your stomach, practice a range of cardiovascular as well as muscle strengthening activities. Only focusing on working out your abs won’t help you shed the pounds stored around your stomach. A good mix of running or cycling, strength training and dieting can help you shed the extra weight in this area.

For many people, however, diet and exercise aren’t enough to achieve their perfect midsection. When you’ve hit your wall, plastic surgery procedures can help:

• A tummy tuck can tighten a post-pregnancy belly and resolve diastasis recti, common among mothers and post-weight loss patients. This popular body contouring procedure removes excess fatty tissue from the abdominal cavity before tightening the skin, and is one of the staples of a mommy makeover.
• Liposuction is also one of the most common procedures for a slimmer abdomen. This procedure removes fat cells from the stomach and can be performed on its own or in combination with a tummy tuck.

Love Handles

A common cosmetic concern among men and women, love handles can make your clothing or swimwear uncomfortable, and prevent you from flaunting your spring body. These pesky bulges are made up of subcutaneous fat, which is famously stubborn even in the face of the most diligent lifestyle efforts.

Burning more calories than you eat each day is the best approach to losing the love handles. Keep a strict eye on your diet and make sure you stay active. If diet and exercise aren’t enough, you can finish the job with a trip to your plastic surgeon.

• If love handles alone are the problem, lipo may be enough to address your needs. This reliable technique can be applied directly to the love handles to streamline your lower half.
• Those also struggling with excess stomach skin or a protruding belly may wish to combine lipo with abdominoplasty, or a tummy tuck. These combined procedures can provide a dramatic change to the midsection by tightening and slimming your entire stomach.

Breasts

If you’re dissatisfied with your breasts, bikini season can be a nightmare. The breasts change with your lifestyle, age, and life events like pregnancy or menopause, and not all of these changes are welcome.

Exercising your pectoral muscles won’t change the shape or size of your breasts, but it may help you develop a more youthful profile by lifting and toning the chest. When it comes to altering your breasts themselves, however, breast enhancement procedures can be the best way to feel better about your feminine curves.

• Breast augmentation is one of the most popular elective surgeries for women. This procedure uses breast implants to fill out breast volume, helping you feel young and sexy in all your favorite outfits.
• Breast reduction surgery can create lighter and more proportionate breasts for women with overly large breasts. From resolving back pains to helping clothing fit more comfortably, breast reduction can have a range of advantages for women interested in feeling more confident and comfortable.
• A breast lift, or mastopexy, restores the breasts to a more youthful position by lifting, reshaping and tightening the breasts. A breast lift can be combined with breast augmentation for an added boost to your figure, and all breast reduction procedures include a breast lift to create the most natural-looking results.

The Dos and Don’ts of Plastic Surgery

If you’re thinking about planning a cosmetic procedure in time for bikini season, you have an exciting journey ahead of you. Be sure to follow these guidelines for the best results:

Do:

Find a board-certified plastic surgeon. Surgical expertise is the single most defining factor in your final results. Ask about your surgeon’s credentials and experience to make sure you’ve found the right plastic surgeon for the job.

Don’t:

Don’t risk the medical tourism industry. Getting plastic surgery abroad may seem like a fun way to combine spring break with your procedure, but there are a number of risks involved, including not knowing your surgeon’s true credentials or experience. Vacation also isn’t the best time to get plastic surgery because you’ll need to limit your activity, avoid alcohol and smoking, and even refrain from flying for at least 2 weeks.

Do:

[pullquote]Many people view plastic surgery as a chance to turn over a new leaf with a healthier lifestyle and better self-image. [/pullquote]Reach your health and fitness goals before getting surgery. Maintaining good overall health reduces your recovery time after surgery, promotes optimal healing and encourages long-lasting results. In addition to achieving your weight loss goals, you should also quit smoking before scheduling your procedure.

Don’t:

Don’t crash diet before your procedure. Crash dieting can leave your body lacking in proper nutrients or energy, making you ill-equipped to undergo major surgery and a smooth recovery. But if you’re scrambling to drop a couple extra pounds right before your appointment, it’s a sign that you might not be ready for surgery. Be upfront with your surgeon and let him or her help you decide whether to go through with your procedure or wait until you’ve maintained a stable weight for a few months.

Do:

Schedule your procedure well ahead of big events. If you have a vacation, party, wedding or other event planned in the next several months, you’ll need to carefully plan around it. Keep in mind that plastic surgery results take at least a few weeks for bruising and swelling to fade and your final outcome to show.

Don’t:

Don’t have unrealistic expectations for your results. Elective surgery procedures are about enhancing your natural beauty, not making you into a different person. The best results are natural looking, and while many people experience psychological benefits to plastic surgery, your procedure won’t solve all your problems.

Nonsurgical Options

Plastic surgery isn’t your only option when it comes to fine-tuning your figure. Whether your schedule is too busy for a post-surgical recovery or you’re interested in a more subtle procedure, plastic surgery medical spas can be a handy resource for the best nonsurgical treatments that provide the most beautiful cosmetic results. Here are some of the most popular nonsurgical options for achieving a beach-ready body:

• Nonsurgical body contouring with CoolSculpting® can be an excellent alternative to liposuction for people interested in subtle results without downtime. This procedure uses a process called cryolipolysis to freeze away fat cells without surgery.
• Unsightly spider veins or varicose veins can affect women’s self-confidence in shorts, skirts and bathing suits. Vein therapy can minimize or eliminate these visible veins using a injections that cause the veins to safely clot and become reabsorbed by the body, fading from view.

Springing Back from Your Recovery

[pullquote] Your recovery is actually a critical stage in achieving the best results from your procedure.[/pullquote]If you’ve accomplished your fitness goals, followed through with your ideal plastic surgery procedure and are in the recovery stage, the journey to your perfect spring body isn’t over yet.

Here’s how to spring back from your recovery without missing a beat.

Follow Your Surgeon’s Post-Procedural Instructions

Post-surgical instructions should be followed closely to minimize your risk of complication and help your body heal quickly. Your plastic surgeon may ask you to wear a compression garment that minimizes post-surgical swelling, avoid certain medications or limit your activity. Notify your surgeon if you experience any sudden sharp pains or a sudden increase in swelling.

Enjoy Your Recovery Time

Remember that your body needs to rest after surgery, so take some time away from your normal routine and focus on relaxing. Stock your kitchen with lots of healthy snacks and pre-made meals before your procedure so you won’t have to bother with cooking or going out. You may want to ask a friend or family member to help out with chores during the first few days or week of your recovery.

Stay Active without Overdoing It

Even though it’s important to rest after having surgery, don’t let your fitness goals fall by the wayside. By your second week of recovery, you should be ready for some light walking. This is important to encourage blood circulation, which will reduce any lingering swelling or bruising you may have. By 6-weeks post-op, you should be ready to resume exercising. Return to your exercise regimen gradually, avoiding anything too strenuous for a couple of more months. Exercising after plastic surgery not only helps you maintain your results, but also can be a great way for you to feel comfortable and satisfied with your new shape.