How long does it take to feel "normal" after BBL? [Maria LoTempio, MD, New York City]

Dr. LoTempio (00:00):
Hi, I am Dr. Maria LoTempio. I'm a board certified plastic surgeon living in New York City.

Eva Sheie (00:06):
And if you've had a BBL, how long is it before you're back to your new normal?

Dr. LoTempio (00:11):
I mean, what does that mean?

Eva Sheie (00:12):
Like when it fades away and you're used to it and you're not being delicate with your behind anymore, you're just sitting normally and functioning normally.

Dr. LoTempio (00:21):
Right. So you really can at any time sit on your behind right after surgery if you really want. I mean, it'd be functionally fine. There's no adversity to the actual individual. It's just adversity to the cosmetic result. I like to tell people that not to really work out, other than walking for that first four to six weeks, almost eight weeks, no weight loss during that period of time. You can still lose fat as we know, up to six months. And that number, once you hit the six month mark, then that fat becomes permanently yours, which means you gain weight, you gain the fat in the buttocks, you lose weight, you lose the fat in the buttocks. But before that, if you lose weight, then you can actually kill the fat cells, and that's a permanent loss. So we try to tell people that maybe it's not a good idea to run a marathon in the first six months after a BBL. You could start doing things that are general exercise because we all need to exercise, but we have to be conscious that we are always at a either neutral calorie intake level or on a plus side. You never want to be negative during that timeframe. So when you can run your marathon and do what you want, which again, probably you're not getting a BBL if you're running a marathon, but hey, you can, six months is really that kind of golden period where that fat's yours and that's your final result.

Eva Sheie (01:42):
When you're in that early stage and the fat is going away, that is not going to stick. Where does it actually go?

Dr. LoTempio (01:50):
You pee it out, it dissolves.

Eva Sheie (01:52):
Okay.

Dr. LoTempio (01:54):
Yeah, body's great, knows what to do. Takes it away.

Eva Sheie (02:00):
Fascinating.

Dr. LoTempio (02:02):
Yeah, it is. It's great. And again, I've been fat grafting for years, and it's one of those things too in surgery where my background, I'm double board certified, and I was head of neck surgeon before that, and I still am. But I dealt with a lot of cancer surgeries, and there's very distinct rules and regulations and things that we do in cancer surgery. Fat grafting, there's a lot of, I want to say it's not kind of, but it is, it's kind of a little bit voodoo. It's a little esoteric. It's a little abstract. All of us have a very kind of distinct way of doing it, but it's very different from each other, and the nuances. I think if we did a tonsillectomy, there's only so many ways to do a tonsillectomy, and we know how to do those three or four, and we do it the same way each time. But the BBLs, there's all this little prep work and cleaning the buttocks and positioning the fat, and there's just stuff that I do, a lot of other people do, and vice versa. So again, everybody kind of goes into their own little regimen on how they feel is the best for their patients to get the best cosmetic outcome and a survival of the fat.

Eva Sheie (03:23):
Where can we see these results of yours?

Dr. LoTempio (03:26):
Ah, RealSelf, online, more importantly, come to my office, fifth Avenue, next to Sephora.

Eva Sheie (03:32):
Is there anything we can see on Instagram?

Dr. LoTempio (03:35):
Some of them are, except Instagram has an issue now that they constantly take.

Eva Sheie (03:41):
A butt policy.

Dr. LoTempio (03:41):
Yeah, they're constantly taking it down. Now I tell people, go meet your surgeon. Go talk to them. Go see their before and afters. I have 200, 300 slides of BBLs.

Eva Sheie (03:53):
If there are some photos online, there are many more to see when we come to the office.

Dr. LoTempio (03:59):
And those we just can't put online, a lot of them, those are just, we can't, for various privacy reasons, confidentiality.

Eva Sheie (04:07):
Too beautiful to see. You just got to come in.

Dr. LoTempio (04:10):
It's all about the beauty of the booty.

Eva Sheie (04:14):
On this podcast, we bring you directly to the doctors who are where before meets after. Links to our guest's website and contact info are in your show notes. Follow us on Instagram @wherebeforemeetsafter. Where Before Meets After is a production of The Axis, the podcast agency for aesthetics, theaxis.io.