Why To Exercise Today: Don't Blow Your Lipo

There are too many reasons why I would never get liposuction to go into, but here's just one: The widespread tales of fat that creeps right back on to where it used to be — or worse, creeps back onto people's mid-sections, which is even unhealthier.

Today, Gretchen Reynolds writes in The New York Times about a study that found that exercise could help prevent the return of post-lipo fat, and about researchers' concern that liposuction patients don't tend to exercise afterward.  For those of us in the un-suctioned masses, there's a subtler side-lesson: A reminder that exercise helps keep away fat lost by other means as well, such as eating less.

The lesson is clear. “I believe that if one should choose to undergo liposuction, it is very important, if not essential, that this person exercises after the surgery,” Dr. Benatti says.

Dr. Eckel of the University of Colorado emphatically agrees. Animal studies at his lab, he says, have shown that exercise after fat loss, whether the loss is achieved by liposuction or diet, enables the brain to reset its sense of how much the body should weigh — of what weight, in other words, should be defended.

Exercise also encourages the body to rely more on fat as a fuel. “Fat that is burned,” he points out, “is not stored. It’s that simple.”