Germain Dermatology’s Body Sculpting Experts for Charleston, SC, Explain

While the term “fat reduction” has long been used to refer to the goal of body sculpting efforts, it has only recently entered the everyday, mainstream vocabulary in its true meaning. Even today, many people equate fat reduction with weight reduction — but the truth is, they mean very different things. Read on to learn about what exactly fat reduction is from the Charleston, SC-based specialists at Germain Dermatology.

We would be happy to offer you a free, no-commitment, personalized consultation about how you can achieve your goals for fat reduction.

What’s the Difference Between Fat Reduction & Weight Reduction?

It can be a bit puzzling to learn that fat reduction is not necessarily the same as losing weight. The total mass or weight of our body is a combination of fat, muscle, bone, organs, and water. If the amount of muscle reduces, for example, you will see a reduction in weight — but the amount of fat in your body may still be the same.

You may have heard the phrase, “muscle weighs more than fat.” This is not actually true, but it is an understandable myth. A pound of muscle does weigh the same as a pound of fat. But because fat is fluffier or less dense, it takes up more space than the equivalent weight of muscle (which is denser and more compact). This is why even if you might see a reduction in your overall weight, your size or shape might not change — the fat that takes up a lot of room might not have actually gone anywhere.

To further explain what we mean, let’s consider a case of two individuals — Patricia and Gayle. Patricia and Gayle each weigh 150 lbs and have the same daily calorie intake, yet Pat is three sizes smaller than Kyle. As Patricia is a lot more active and has a high-protein diet, she has significantly more muscle than Gayle, who is not particularly active and has a diet rich in carbohydrates. Gayle’s body has more body fat (which takes up more room than muscle), which makes it possible for her to weigh the same as Patricia yet still be larger.

If you would like to be slimmer and more toned, weight reduction should not be your focus — fat reduction should.

How Do I Achieve Fat Reduction?

While scientists continue to uncover more information about the nature of fat cells, the consensus is that the number of fat cells in a person’s body becomes fixed by your early 20s. There only two ways to reduce fat in the body — by either reducing the cells’ size or numbers.

The body requires adequate protein intake and energy sources to repair and build muscle tissue. If it gets enough protein from your diet, it can burn fat to obtain its energy. Therefore, muscle building can actually aid fat reduction efforts — and a muscular body with less fat covering it is a more toned one. When someone makes intelligent use of diet and exercise, the size of the fat cells reduces — but their numbers remain constant. Diet and exercise cannot reduce the number of fat cells (leaving them open to becoming larger again), and they certainly cannot target fat cells in specific areas of the body — where you are most likely to lose or gain fat is governed by your genetics.

The cooling process induced by CoolSculpting^® works by taking energy away from fat cells in specific, targeted areas of the body. Once the energy is taken away from them, they die naturally and are gradually flushed out through the body’s natural processes. CoolSculpting^® is not meant to be a substitute for healthy diet and exercise — in fact, they go hand in hand. CoolSculpting^® can bridge the gap by targeting localized areas of fat that are out of reach, and a healthy diet and exercise regimen can ensure that the remaining fat cells in the body do not become larger.

Incorporating CoolSculpting^® into your diet and exercise efforts can reduce not just the size of current fat cells but also the amount, helping you stay slim and healthy in the long run.