Recovery after Liposuction is dependent on how aggressive the treatment is. Recovery is a gradual process that will continue to change and evolve over several months. For the type of work, you’re considering I usually tell people three days off is an absolute minimum and five days would be nice. Most people should be able to get engaged in low impact daily activities in about a week or two but high impact activities like running or sports may take six weeks or longer. Some movements or activities may include some soreness even a month or two after the procedure. Low impact activities are usually easy and the recovery is a bit like being injured. When you sit still, it doesn’t hurt, but when you move or put pressure on the area you’ll be sore. It’s usually not That difficult. It’s helpful to see this as a gradual transitioning process rather than black or white with a definitive timeframe. You don’t have a lot of subcutaneous fat on your body. Delivering consistent quality, Liposuction results is more difficult than most people realize. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of provider selection when it comes to having permanent irreversible body contouring procedures. If done poorly The results will be final. Even patients who think they’ve done their due diligence, sometimes make mistakes when it comes to assuming plastic surgeons know what they’re doing with this procedure. The number of plastic surgeons have truly mastered. Liposuction is much smaller than most people realize. Most plastic surgeons think they’re better at Liposuction than they actually are. My absolute best advice is to be more selective than you may think necessary in regards to provider selection. To find the right provider I generally recommend people have multiple in person consultations preferably with providers in your community. I generally recommend people avoid virtual consultations whenever possible. During each consultation, ask each provider to open up their portfolio and show you their entire collection of before, and after pictures of previous patients, who had similar body characteristics to your own. It’s helpful if you come prepared to bring pictures of your body the same way plastic surgeons take before and after pictures and use those pictures as reference during the consultation. This is much better than relying on memory, or looking in the mirror during the consultation. Being shown a handful of pre-selected images, representing the best results of a providers career may be insufficient to get a clear understanding of what average results look like in the hands of each provider. It’s also important that your comparing results to previous patients who had similar Candidates for the procedure. This means patience who had similar body characteristics, similar amounts of subcutaneous, fat, similar skin characteristics, etc. etc. In my opinion an experienced provider should have no difficulty showing you the before and after pictures of at least 50 previous patients. Highly experienced surgeons should in fact have access to hundreds or preferably thousands of before, and after pictures. There’s no correct number of consultations needed to find the right provider. The more consultations you scheduled the more likely you are to find the best provider for your needs. I do not believe patients can adequately vet providers or select the appropriate surgeon without having in person consultations. in the end provider selection is the only variable patients really have control over and it is by far the most important variable. When in doubt, slow down and schedule more consultations. You’ll be reminded of the outcome every day for the rest of your life. Best, Mats Hagstrom, MD