It’s always important to remember that cosmetic surgery is a luxury — not just in any financial or material sense, but that it exists on the top of a pyramid of things you should be doing to take care of yourself. If the base of that pyramid isn’t maintained, any results that might occur from cosmetic surgery will slowly sift through the cracks. We asked our expert, Dr. Navin Singh, how cosmetic surgery patients he sees in McLean, Northern Virginia and Chevy Chase continue to see him in order to maintain their results!
There are at least three ways to stay looking fit, trim, and, as the kids like to say, “aesthetic.”
Remember to eat well and exercise regularly
This might sound like the ultimate “okay, mom” piece of advice, but it can never really be overstated. It’s up to you whether you want to believe that beauty is skin deep — but you should always remember that, well, skin, is only skin deep.
Beneath your skin and beneath even your muscles is a fine-tuned machine that is always operating, always trying to maintain homeostasis. The system renews itself with what you put into it, and, like a car, the machine was meant to be used instead of accumulating dust.
An obvious example is liposuction. If you want to maintain a trim figure, you’re going to have to maintain your diet and exercise — because liposuction is not a weight loss treatment. It’s a fat reduction treatment, and the fat in other parts of your body will expand if you continue to gain weight.
Of course, cosmetic surgery helps you maintain your look by providing a permanent contouring benefit: the fat cells that are killed are killed permanently. So, if you suffered from unflattering fat distributions, an extra pound or two isn’t going to magically bring back those love handles.
And remember, diet and exercise have implications for your body from your organs to your skin. Make sure you’re getting proper nutrition: you are what you eat, and if you provide your body with junk it’s going to respond in kind.
Take care of your skin
Let’s not make the mistake of treating the skin as a superficial organism, though. Skin is its own complex ecosystem, and we are constantly contending with the environment to take care of it.
In the aftermath of cosmetic surgery, try to limit your activities that might lead incisions to becoming scars. While your incisions are healing, your tissue is in a particularly vulnerable state, where collagen synthesis can be disrupted — leading to scars.
Taking care of your skin from a topical perspective can lead you down endless paths, but a good place to begin is to protect yourself from UV Rays. Sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen — if you can just slather on sunscreen, you’re ahead of 90% of the population.
Maintain healthy habits post cosmetic surgery
Eat well, exercise, sleep well, and don’t smoke. This doesn’t cover every single great thing for your body, but it’s a good place to start. Most people fail to do all of these things — in fact, 35% of Americans don’t even get 7 hours of sleep every night.
Beauty’s important — no one in the cosmetic field would ever deny that. But no one can deny that health is paramount, and, thankfully, beauty tends to be a function of health. If you can stay healthy, you can stay beautiful — and that’s good news for all of us.
Of course, any cosmetic surgeon worth their salt is always screening for candidates who they believe maintain this pyramid. No one, neither patient nor doctor, wants to perform the huge investment of a surgery if the results aren’t going to be sustainable for the foreseeable future.
Want to know more? Call us today to schedule a consultation on cosmetic surgery in McLean, Northern Virginia.
We are a plastic surgery practice devoted to rejuvenating and enhancing your natural beauty using state-of-the-art procedures that will result in beautiful, natural results that make you look better and feel more confident about your appearance! Dr. Navin Singh is a board-certified plastic surgeon that serves patients out of two office locations. McLean, Northern Virginia for patients in Great Falls, Arlington, McLean, as well as Fairfax County and Loudoun County. Our Chevy Chase, Marlyand office serves Bethesda, Potomac, Washington DC as well as Montgomery County.