How or why do some people lose fat after having fat transfer to their buttocks ?

Many patients welcome the idea that their own tissue can be used to enhance their shape. The amount of fat transferred from love handles or flanks depends on the quantity available and the extent of buttock augmentation each patient desires.

With Brazilian butt lift, patients can look forward to a double benefit: reducing areas of unwanted fat while gaining a perkier, rounded posterior. Each procedure must be planned according to the individual needs of patients, harvesting fat from target areas of the torso, thighs or knees and transferring it to create smooth, attractive contours optimized for each person.

The most important thing is to choose your surgeon correctly and make sure that he/she has the training and experience to meet your goals with absolute safety. Don’t settle for less than a Board Certified Plastic Surgeon with specialized expertise in this procedure.

Given the current state of the art technology in plastic surgery, on average 70% of the fat that is transferred during a Brazilian Butt Lift will take.  The other 30% will slowly dissolve.  This is the reason for the volume loss that you are seeing in some of the pictures.  That being said, this 70% is just an average.  Some women will have more, but unfortunately some will have less.  Best of luck in your journey!

Losing some fat after a BBL is actually normal. This is because the buttocks absorb some of the fat that is transferred, and the rest settles to give you the projection and size increase, now, this vary among patients; in some cases there can be a lot of absorbing in the buttocks, which can cause you to lose most of the fat transferred and a not desired result, this cannot be controlled, since it is a natural reaction of the body. Besides the absorption probabilities, it can also happen that there's not enough muscle in the buttocks to retain the fat, therefore, not much of it can be injected or would satay. The reason why you see some patients whose buttocks get bigger after the healing process is because the body area in which you get the fat transferred tends to gain more volume than the areas where you got Lipo. I hope this answer was helpful.

Fat is a graft. When place over the buttock we expect some of it not to take. Also the fat grafted can increase in size if you gain weight or decrease if you loose weigth

 Fat transfer or fat grafting follows the same basic principles as grafting other tissues such as skin grafting, cartilage grafting bone grafting etc. In order for fat to survive it has to reestablish a new blood supply in the area it was grafted into. This is a delicate process and not all fat well reestablish a blood supply in time for it to survive. The grafted tissue will stay alive from nutrients in the surrounding tissues for a few days.After that it must have a blood supply to deliver oxygen and nutrients. During the first phase of tissue grafting the fat survived by a process known as plasmatic inhibition.After this phase the grafted tissue goes through neo vascularization.   This happens between the fourth and seventh day after the procedure. The smallest blood vessels called capillaries slowly grow into the grafted tissue reestablishing a blood supply.During this stage the tissue is susceptible to damage from pressure or movement. The percentage of fat that survives is variable.There are many factors that determine how successful a fat grafting procedure is.The total percentage of fat that survives is estimated between 10 to 70%. Factors that influence fat survival include the size of particles grafted, avoiding post operative movement and pressure, how much tissue is grafted during a single session, the lack of trauma to the grafted tissue, the vascularity of tissue grafted into.There are other variables as well.Surgeons work hard at maximizing fat survival. Most of us follow The basic principles that maximize fat survival.Do overall health of the patient also makes a substantial difference.Cigarette smoking for example will decrease fat survival. The only thing the patient can do to maximize fat survival is avoid excess movement and pressure after the procedure.This includes avoid sitting on the Area treated.  Each surgeon will have their own protocol in regards to aftercare.In my opinion at three weeks activities will have little to no impact on the long-term survival of grafted fat. The fact that does not survive becomes necrotic and has to be absorbed by the body. This process goes on for many months.During this process there will be some inflammation in the tissues which leads to some swelling.As the swelling decreases and non-viable fat is absorbed most patients will experience some decrease in volume. Most plastic surgeons will generally over treat to compensate for loss of fat overtime. If too much fat is grafted during any one single session to percentage of fat that survives decreases.Some patients will do better having multiple procedures if the goal is a drastic enhancement in volume. I hope that helps.Best,Mats Hagstrom M.D.