Does Weight Matter for a BBL?

September 03, 2021

A very common question that we get at The Plastic Surgery Clinic is whether weight matters when you’re thinking about getting a Brazilian butt lift (BBL). Is there an ideal weight to be at? Can you be too thin to get a BBL? Will losing weight following your procedure affect your BBL results?

These are all super important questions that we plan to break down here. But for starters, there’s really no right or ideal weight to be at before considering a Brazilian butt lift. The most important factor with the BBL is of course, fat. So you can’t have too little, but contrary to what many people think, you also shouldn’t have too much.

Do I need to gain weight to have a BBL?

A BBL works by removing fat via liposuction from one area of your body, like from around the abdomen, thighs, arms or back, and then strategically placing it into the bum for a more curvaceous and contoured look. If you have too little fat on your body then we won’t be able to give you enough of a result to justify performing this kind of surgery.

So for patients that are very thin, you would need to have those extra fat deposits from which we can harvest the fat to use for your bum. In this case we may ask you to gain weight for a period of weeks or months and then come see us again.

That being said, if we’re asking you to gain some weight for the BBL, it usually means that you are most likely underweight, and have a lower BMI than the average recommended BMI of anywhere between 18.5-25.

If you’re at a regular weight and have a BMI within this range (learn more about plastic surgery and BMI here), you’ll typically have enough fat on other parts of your body to harvest for the BBL. There’s a general misconception that you should be at a heavier weight if you’re seeking out a BBL, but this is actually not the case.

Is it possible to have too much fat for a BBL?

What we ask for each and every one of our surgeries, is that you be at a healthy and stable weight. If you are in the middle of a weight loss journey we ask that you are within 10 lbs of your goal weight prior to undergoing this procedure, and that your BMI is under 30.

We ask this for a lot of reasons, in part to help us give you the best possible result. But the primary reason we ask for weight stability is because it minimizes the risks associated with surgery. Basically, the healthier you are, the safer the procedure.

For the BBL there is one other reason being at a healthy and stable weight is important. The BBL is a fat harvesting procedure, and when we do any fat grafting, we need good donor fatty tissue. If you’re overweight, your fat cells can become quite large, and with a procedure like the BBL, you actually want those fat cells to be small for them to be healthy enough to harvest.

Will weight fluctuations affect my BBL result?

That depends on how much your weight fluctuates. Any significant weight loss pre and post your procedure will of course affect your results!

It’s important to keep in mind how fatty cells behave. If you gain weight then they will increase in size and if you lose weight they will decrease in size. Meaning that if you gain weight, your bum’s volume will increase along with the rest of your body, and if you lose a significant amount of weight that volume will certainly decrease.

This is why we always ask our BBL patients to maintain a stable and steady weight in order to ensure that their results are upheld. We can’t control the way our fat is distributed. We can’t try to lose weight in a targeted way where we lose it in the abdomen only and not in the bum. When we gain weight we gain it everywhere and when we lose it, we lose it everywhere.

In short, weight stability is key following a BBL, because you want to maintain that volume in the bum while keeping those areas where fat was harvested from proportional, sculpted and contoured.