Hi! I’m Keke! Chris’s wife and partner in healthy living, web designer, and in-house book editor. Sometimes I hijack the blog and I’m here today to talk about the popular Brazilian butt lift.
What is the Brazilian Butt Lift?
According to the American Board of Cosmetic Surgery, the Brazilian butt lift (also known as a BBL), “is a specialized fat transfer procedure that augments the size and shape of the buttocks without implants. Excess fat is removed from the hips, abdomen, lower back, or thighs with liposuction, and a portion of this fat is then strategically injected into the buttocks. A skilled cosmetic surgeon can improve the proportions of the entire lower body with Brazilian butt lift surgery, helping a patient lose fat in common “problem areas” and enhance the buttocks, with results lasting many years.”
Let me translate that.
When you ask for a BBL, you want to pay a trained surgeon to take fat from one part of your lower body and inject it into your butt with the goal of reshaping your posterior into an…ahem…more pleasing shape.
No implants? Better booty? Sounds good! Sign me up!
Hold up there, Ms. Curvalicious! Even if you have jiggly pads of fat making the insides of your thighs quiver, slow your roll on this procedure. Despite the rising popularity of the procedure, it is not for everyone. Some doctors actually say there are too many risks involved and wise people should stay away.
“An overall conclusion, the insertion of intramuscular fat, was basically up to this point been considered practical to achieve in the superficial muscle and has studies proving the theory, but nowadays is believed to be inaccurate technique, not to mention an extremely dangerous surgery. The authors believe with their technique, due to the travelling nature of the fat injected and must be avoided as additional use with the fat transplantation into the gluteal area (Del Vecchio, et al. 2018).”
Why is the mortality rate high? “It is because of the placement of the fat,” says Saul Lahijani, MD, lead plastic surgeon at Beverly Hills Institute of Plastic Surgery. “Liposuction has been going on for 35 to 40 years, but the addition of the placement of the fat in the buttock is what makes it high-risk.”
You don’t say? What are the risks?
All of the following can happen if you plunk down your money for that BBL:
- Hard cysts in your buttocks
- The potential for fat getting into your system and entering your bloodstream, leading to a pulmonary embolism, blood clots, or even death.
- Trouble sitting on your butt, leading to a deformed shape
By the way, those risks are still present if you choose a top notch, board certified, well-established cosmetic or plastic surgeon.
What about medical tourism?
May God help you if you make the outlandishly foolish decision to fly to another country for a cheap “BBL vacation” in Turkey, Mexico, or Thailand. Figure you’ll see the sights, enjoy nightlife with friends, then check yourself in and change your body overnight? Sorry to tell you, but you just might open yourself up to the potential for nightmarish consequences while pursuing a bigger, badder, booty:
- Being given a BBL when you needed an actual butt lift or butt implants (the doctor gave you what you paid for without providing a professional consultation or considering how you would look afterward)
- Being injected with a foreign substance instead of fat
- Fat injected within and beneath the glute muscle
- Gangrene
- Sepsis
Ewhh! Gross!
Yep. Kind of nasty.
What if I still need a bodacious booty?
Scroll back up to the quote I provided from the American Board of Cosmetic Surgery. Read it and ingest where that quote came from so you don’t shoot the messenger.
The Brazilian butt lift is a fat transfer procedure. Fat. Transfer. A BBL does nothing with the main body parts involved in giving your posterior lift and shape: your muscles.
Your posterior muscle group, along with your thigh muscles, are actually what give your booty shape and lift.
Actually, you don’t want fat injected into your behind. What you really want is for your hips, butt, and thighs to be developed, rounded, and toned to where they give you a healthy, smooth shape appropriate for your frame.
Fat can fill out a flat behind, but fat can never provide permanent booty pop. If you want to reshape your booty, you don’t need to save $9500.00, call a board certified plastic surgeon, then cross your fingers and hope all goes well.
All right. I get it. Now what CAN I do?
Follow the basic building blocks of developing a better body, with an emphasis on sculpting your lower extremities.
- Focus on eating a healthy diet with plenty of water, vegetables, lean protein, nuts, seeds, and a little fat. Avoid sugar like the plague.
- If you are currently doing steady cardio 5 days per week, and strength only 2 days per week, switch it up. Complete strength training 5 days per week, with steady state cardio 2 days per week.
- On strength days, regularly incorporate multiple sets of squats, lunges, dead lifts, kick backs, and core training.
- Track your activity for 8 weeks and then look in the mirror. You should notice that your posterior area has reshaped itself.
The extent of change you receive is based upon your genetics. Extremely lean people will see a smooth, lean tone, while muscular folks may experience additional lift and volume.
The Choice Is Yours
Obviously, we would like you to make the healthy choice and avoid the Brazilian butt lift in favor of natural muscle training. Why should you spend money on a procedure that may not give you the correct shape best suited for you and could, frankly, wind up being a colossal pain in the butt?
Del Vecchio, D. A., Villanueva, N. L., Mohan, R., Johnson, B., Wan, D., Venkataram, A., & Rohrich, R. J. (2018). Clinical Implications of Gluteal Fat Graft Migration: A Dynamic Anatomical Study. Plastic and reconstructive surgery, 142(5), 1180–1192. https://doi.org/10.1097/PRS.0000000000005020
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