Slimming down calves, how to regain a slim and slender leg shape

Over the years, the build-up of fat excess is almost systematic, involving hormonal changes (especially the menopause), heredity, diet, and the slowing down of the basal metabolism. When the fat bulges are installed, slimming is very difficult because our body is not designed for this. Why is this?

Why is it difficult to naturally lose fat from the calves?

Naturally slimming down calves is usually an impossible mission, for at least two reasons:

• Our organism is not programmed to lose weight, because fat is a form of precautionary reserve that must be kept, unless there is a sense of emergency, on account of a large caloric deficit. The body would rather burn calories by depleting carbohydrate reserves (stock of glycogen that can be quickly used) than our lipid reserves (fat stock that is difficult to use). Glycogenolysis is preferred to lipolysis, which is always more uncertain, even with sport.
• Slimming down in a given place is never guaranteed, because an overall caloric deficit must be created, but there is no guarantee that the fatty tissue will be burned where the muscle performs its effort.

Why is it easy to lose calf fat through aesthetic medicine?

Lipid reserves are made in specialized cells called adipocytes, which increase their volume (up to x50!) without increasing their number (which is fixed from the age of 15 to 20).
This has two consequences:

• The cell has trouble repairing itself in case of injury, because it is loaded with fat. It prefers to trigger its own death by apoptosis.
• A destroyed cell is permanently destroyed, because an adipocyte is not able to regenerate itself.

In women, the distribution of fat cells is on the lower part of the body: this is the gynoid model, which affects in particular the buttocks, saddlebags, thighs, knees and finally the calves.
In men, the android model affects the upper part of the body, especially the abdomen (abdominal belly) and the thorax (fatty adipomastia).

Calves have a major aesthetic function, since they end the leg before the often hidden foot.
In our sentimental life, we know how erotic or sensual a slim and shaped lower leg can be.

Having thinner calves is therefore of interest to both women and men, as long as the calf fat is due to excess weight, with or without calf cellulite, and provided that the skin quality is still good.
Slimming down the calf, on the other hand, is useless:

• On large skin and fat excess, with possible sagging of the skin.
• On a large edematous calf, with venous insufficiency for instance.

Your doctor at the Clinique des Champs-Elysées will first examine your leg to determine the cause of the thick calf.
This precise diagnosis will determine the suitable therapeutic solution.

• If your esthetic doctor detects a discreet excess of fat, with or without edematous cellulite, he or she can propose soft solutions such as IPL intense pulsed light or anti-cellulite mesotherapy treatments.
• If your practitioner detects excess calf fat, with sufficiently toned skin, he will propose cryolipolysis: a single session of Coolsculpting ® (destruction by cold) destroys 25 to 30% of calf fat.
• If your cosmetic doctor also identifies an alteration of the skin, such as skin slackening, he will propose a heat source to reshape the calf (thermo-lipolysis) and the dermis (thermage). He then has several possibilities, such as focused ultrasounds, microwaves, pulsed electromagnetic fields, radiofrequency...
• On fatty cellulite, it is an effortless solution to lose calf fat, while lifting the orange peel skin: in a few weeks you will regain a slender and toned leg, with a thin and more sensual calf.