How Much Fat You Can Lose With CoolSculpting

Oftentimes, there’s a misconception that CoolSculpting is a weight loss procedure. It’s not. Instead, it’s a body contouring treatment that works to target and eliminate stubborn fat cells that aren’t responding to otherwise healthy lifestyle choices.

Depending on your goal, CoolSculpting can be a great treatment option – but how much fat can you lose with CoolSculpting? It depends! On the treatment area, the body fat percentage, on how much fat you have and how much fat you want gone. The entire treatment process is customized based on your goals – whether that’s fat reduction, building muscle mass, or targeting the places where no matter how hard you work, you always store fat.

What happens during a CoolSculpting treatment?

During a CoolSculpting treatment, a clinician will mark the targeted region using applicator templates that mimic the size and shape of handpieces used during the treatment. During the treatment session, cold energy is used to extract heat from the body and get the treatment area to an ideal temperature to trigger fat elimination.

The fat changes texture during the treatment using temperatures cold enough to target fat but not cold enough to damage surrounding skin or other tissue.

How does CoolSculpting impact fat but not other organs?

Fat is hyper-sensitive to cold and changes texture at a different rate than things that are water composition. CoolSculpting uses a temperature cold enough to trigger fat elimination but not cold enough to harm or damage surrounding tissue.

Much like butter will change in texture in your refrigerator before water will, fat on the body will do the same!

Where do the dead fat cells go after CoolSculpting?

When your body notices there are dead fat cells, it triggers a natural response to flush them out. The destroyed fat cells are eliminated using the lymphatic system over the course of weeks to months. Depending on the treatment plan, the number of sessions and targeted area results can vary. Most clients, regardless of the targeted area notice little to no weight change. Instead, they notice a visible reduction of the fat layer in the treated area.

Targeted fat loss means a significant change in silhouette, but not necessarily weight loss. Body sculpting treatments of all kinds achieve the same effect. If you’re looking to lose body fat and the goal is weight loss, CoolSculpting can be a catalyst for that change, or a reward to spot-treat the areas not responding at the end of your weight loss journey.

What’s the difference between CoolSculpting and weight loss?

With CoolSculpting, we’re targeting specific areas to sculpt a new shape. With weight loss, you’re experiencing the fat cells across the entire body shrinking in size but not changing in number.

The most effective way to impact the number on the scale is to change the balance of intake and output of excess calories. It’s simple, in theory but difficult in reality. You need more calories out than in to lose weight effectively.

Unlike weight loss, CoolSculpting permanently kills 20-25% of treated fat cells, on a bell curve, with each session. It’s targeted fat loss, not overall weight loss.

How much weight will I lose after CoolSculpting?

Probably none. Most of our clients notice little to no change in weight, despite having impressive results. Fat cells are fluffy – they occupy a lot of space, but they’re not dense. Subcutaneous fat is the most stubborn of all – it’s the fluffy layer of fat that lies above the muscle wall that we’re able to target with CoolSculpting.

It’s also less responsive to diet and exercise, less dense in nature, and the perfect fat to target with CoolSculpting.

What happens when you gain weight or lose weight

Fat cells exist throughout your entire body, spread evenly across many areas. Everyone has a different distribution of fat cells, which is why some people have an hourglass shape, others are slim and athletic, and others are pear-shaped.

When a client is experiencing weight loss or weight gain, the fat cells across the entire body are getting bigger and smaller, like balloons expanding or shrinking (not creating new fat cells). Most people have about all of the fat cells they’ll ever have by the time they turn 18 – what happens with weight fluctuations is a change in the size of fat cells, but not the number.

There are caveats here, especially during puberty, pregnancy, menopause, or if cells hit critical mass size, at which point your body has to create new fat cells.

When a client wants to lose weight, they’re looking to shrink the size of fat cells across the entire body. How much weight they lose still won’t change their overall shape – or the stubborn areas that aren’t responding.

What happens during CoolSculpting

During CoolSculpting, we use a natural, programmed cell death called apoptosis to permanently remove the dead fat cells after the treatment.

Once the fat is gone in that area, it’s gone for good. Results are permanent and last long term. You’ll maintain your results by maintaining your weight.

Does CoolSculpting work for weight loss?

Most of our clients aren’t worried about how much weight they’ll lose, but instead – what they’ll look or feel like in their clothes.

Unlike weight loss treatment, CoolSculpting targets excess fat in specific areas of the body. So maybe you’ve always been pear-shaped and you’re looking to get rid of unwanted fat through your hips. With CoolSculpting, the localized fat cells in the hips are treated. We kill fat cells using cold energy, then your lymphatic system flushes the unwanted fat cells out slowly over the course of a few months.

CoolSculpting is a body contouring treatment that works using cold energy to target unwanted fat, not as a way to avoid gaining weight. There are nine different FDA-cleared areas for fat reduction with CoolSculpting. In an initial consultation, we’ll discuss the stubborn fat that’s not responding to healthy lifestyle and what treatment areas we could target to get a completely natural result.

When looking at CoolSculpting treatment or other body contouring treatment options, the goal is to identify targeted fat cells that could be eliminated to sculpt a natural, aesthetically pleasing result, regardless of whether you’re at your ideal weight.

What happens if I gain weight after CoolSculpting?

The remaining fat cells left behind after a CoolSculpting treatment can get bigger and smaller, which is a benefit – allowing you to gain and lose weight slowly and naturally after your fat reduction treatment.

If you choose a provider who knows how to sculpt natural-looking results, those results can and will age gracefully with you amidst weight fluctuations and changes in lifestyle.

Who is a good candidate for CoolSculpting treatment?

Ideal candidates for CoolSculpting are at or near their ideal weight and looking to spot treated and eliminate unwanted fat in specific areas, like the upper arms or the abdomen.

There’s no such thing as too big or too small for CoolSculpting, but rather the most significant factor is having realistic expectations for your fat removal results.

CoolSculpting only works on subcutaneous fat, or the fat that lies above the muscle wall. If you’re looking to target visceral fat cells, the most effective method is diet and exercise. It’s not a way to increase muscle mass but can be paired with muscle toning procedures like CoolTone to change the definition through the abdomen or legs.

For example, this client had CoolSculpting in combination with CoolTone to achieve fat reduction AND improvement in muscle tone.

Most healthy adults with a regular exercise routine and balanced diet still have stubborn fat cells that don’t respond to otherwise healthy lifestyle efforts. Those areas, like the inner thighs, for example, are great areas to target with CoolSculpting treatment. We find clients who are metabolically active are happier with their outcomes and final results after CoolSculpting in any treatment area.

There have been over a decade of treatment sessions performed (more than 15 million treatments as of 2023), making CoolSculpting the safest and most proven body sculpting treatment available.

It’s not a free pass, though – you can still gain and lose weight, so you’ll want to protect your investment with a weight maintenance protocol. If you invest in a fat removal treatment of any kind, you’ll still want to take care of your body! You wouldn’t buy a sports car and not get insurance, right?

Body Contouring Treatment Options

Depending on your goals and the final results desired, you have many options for body contouring. Today, you can pursue more invasive procedure options, like liposuction, or avoid downtime and pursue other treatment options, like CoolSculpting.

Body sculpting has come a long way since liposuction became an option in the 1970s. Now, there are surgical and nonsurgical options

At a free consultation with our team, we can discuss your goals and expectations. We’ll want to determine if and how much weight you’re trying to lose, how many inches you want gone, and if you’re at your goal weight. We’ll discuss how we freeze fat cells for fat reduction and what to expect during the treatment session based on your medical history.

Our team of dedicated CoolSculpting providers can recommend appropriate treatment sessions, and how many sessions are needed, and give you advice on whether you’re a good candidate to remove fat with CoolSculpting.

useful links to continue reading

• Book a consultation here with our team in Dallas, Texas
• Learn more about How CoolSculpting Works.
• Read the CoolSculpting Patient Safety Data Sheet (risks and side effects).