For most people, having a flabby belly is not a pleasant thing to do. It severely limits your swimwear options and, in some cases, the types of clothing you can wear. Saggy bellies can occur if your abdomen is too stretched beyond its ability to recover. Being pregnant with a large baby could cause you to have a flabby belly after delivery. Similarly, losing a lot of weight in a very short time could also cause you a flabby belly. When diet or exercise fails to address a flabby tummy, people turn to the tummy tuck plastic surgery procedure.

Abdominoplasty is a surgical procedure in which the abdominal area is ‘bent’ to regain its shape. This includes tightening the stomach muscles by joining them together and removing excess skin after removing unwanted belly fat. Abdominoplasty is a major surgical procedure that is normally performed under general anesthesia. Recovery time can last between 6 months and a year. The abdomen will be sore for the first few weeks after surgery, but then it will go away. There will be scars that should fade over time, but the scar is usually below the bikini line.

A saggy belly is usually caused by the inability of the abdomen to ‘get back’ in shape once it has been overstretched. Proper diet and exercise can still tighten the muscles in the abdomen, but the skin on the surface could pose a problem. Unlike abdominal muscles, skin cannot easily shrink to comfortably fit a well-toned stomach muscle if the skin has been stretched too far. Overstretched skin loses its elasticity and will continue to hang loose unless treated.

Having a tummy tuck is one way to address sagging belly. Since tummy tuck is a major surgical procedure, you can reduce the amount of trauma to your body by trying proper diet and exercise before undergoing a tummy tuck. You may be doing enough to tighten your stomach muscles and maybe even lose some fat. Then your tummy tuck surgeon only needs to trim the sagging skin and remove the minimum amount of fat. This could improve your recovery time.