Hello! Thanks for your question.So, this can be difficult to asses from just a picture without an exam. The reason is because a picture alone won't tell you how much of the protrusion of the abdomen is from fat and how much is from laxity of the abdominal wall. If you haven't had kids, then most likely your abdominal wall is not contributing much at all to your abdomen protrusion if any. If you have had kids, then it is definitely contributing some amount, from very little to almost all of the protrusion depending on just how lax the abdomen fascia is now. That being said, from the picture I can get some idea of how much is fat, but it's just an educated guess.Let's just say for argument's sake that your abdominal wall is quite tight and has very little laxity, and therefore your protrusion is almost entirely due to fat. If that was the case, I still think there is no way possible to suck out 500ml of fat from your abdomen alone. The worst thing in the world you can do with liposuction is take away too much fat, because if the fat layer left behind is too thin, you can get scarring down of the deeper skin layers to the underlying abdominal wall in a manner that can leave some really unsightly divots in the skin. If this happens, it is a really tough problem because it is hard or sometimes impossible to fix. You want to have a nice healthy fat layer under your skin. It gives you a nice contour and prevents any scarring issues. If you want an idea of how thick this fat layer should be, pinch the skin and fat directly underneath your breast. For whatever reason, this area does not gain fat tissue like other areas do, and even in people that are obese, this area will have a relatively modest fat layer.If you were my patient, I would say that realistically I could get maybe 200ml's of fat out of your abdomen. Also, you have to know if he means 500ml of total fluid, or actually 500ml's of fat. Because we inject a solution into the tissues prior to liposuction, the actual amount of fat and fluid that would be sucked out of you might be 500ml's or even a bit more, but the actual fat content of that would be much less. I can promise you though that if someone really did suck out 500ml of true fat from your abdomen, you would not like the result.I would disagree with you when you say "in no way (do I) think I have a small quantity of fat that needs to be removed". As far as liposuction candidates go, you are probably one of the fittest people that I would still consider to be a candidate for liposuction. A simple way to prove this is by the fact that you have thigh gap which is something very few people have even who are thinner than average. I do think that you could benefit from liposuction though, even if it was a small amount, in the abdomen, most noticeably in the lower abdomen between your belly button and your pubic area.As far as your thighs go, I would highly recommend you skip liposuction there. You have a VERY fit form outside of your lower abdomen, and as I said, over-liposuctioning or doing liposuction where it's not needed can easily give you a bad result that can be very difficult to fix.Hope this helps.B Hermann MD
