Your pre- and post-operative lifestyle choices impact your recovery and the long-term results of your plastic surgery procedure. Diet, exercise, and habits, such as smoking, influence how your body heals and the final aesthetic outcome. Talk to a plastic surgeon to understand how lifestyle choices can affect your plastic surgery results:
Healthy Diet
A healthy diet consists mainly of consuming fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and whole grains. Eating a nutritious diet provides your body with the proteins, vitamins, and minerals needed to rebuild tissue and support complete healing after surgery. Good nutrition helps wounds close faster and lowers the risk of infection.
Vitamins C and A help the skin repair itself, while zinc and iron let your blood carry more oxygen, so your skin, muscles, and tissue recover better. Avoiding junk food, processed foods, and added sugar makes the healing process go smoother. Drinking enough water and avoiding salty foods helps prevent your body from retaining excess fluids, which can reduce swelling after the procedure. Less swelling promotes more natural-looking results, allowing your wound to heal evenly.
Stable Weight
Maintaining a stable weight before and after plastic surgery helps the skin adapt to your new shape and supports proper healing during the recovery process. Weight gain may stretch the skin and alter the appearance of your body after the procedure. Fat gets deposited underneath scars or incisions, causing stretch marks. The large weight changes may pull at the tissue reshaped by the plastic surgeon, affecting the final look. Losing a significant amount of weight quickly can cause the skin to become loose, resulting in unevenness.
Steady weight allows the surgeon to accurately assess your body contours and plan the procedure more specifically to your body type. Maintaining a stable weight reduces stress on the heart and lungs, enhances immune function, and improves blood circulation. This leads to a more efficient healing process, with reduced pain and a faster recovery time.
Smoking Avoidance
Smoking should be avoided before and after plastic surgery. It decreases the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. When your body gets less oxygen, wounds and incisions take longer to heal. Oxygen allows the repair of new skin, tissue, and blood vessels after surgery. The chemicals in cigarettes make blood vessels narrow, which cuts down blood flow to the area where you had surgery. This increases your body’s susceptibility to infections and can lead to thick scarring, skin loss, or tissue death around the incision site.
Body Hydration
Staying hydrated helps your skin remain healthy and flexible. Proper hydration provides your body with the fluids it needs to transport nutrients and oxygen to areas of healing. This helps reduce inflammation and swelling. Water flushes out waste and excess salt, preventing your tissues from retaining fluids that can cause swelling. Good hydration further supports the immune system, enabling your body to fight off infections more effectively and repair wounds and incisions more smoothly.
Sleep Patterns
When you sleep, your body repairs tissues, reduces swelling, and builds new cells. Inadequate sleep slows down the healing process, increases swelling, and leaves you feeling tired during recovery. Healthy sleep patterns involve going to bed at an early hour and waking up at a regular time every day. Sticking to a routine results in better energy that improves recovery. Your wounds heal faster with limited swelling and bruising, lowering the risk of infection.
Learn More About a Plastic Surgeon
After plastic surgery, gentle movement, such as taking short walks, can help lower the risk of blood clots and improve recovery. Depending on the procedure, your doctor may recommend compression garments to control swelling and improve your final shape. Contact a reputable plastic surgeon to learn more about their services.
