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

Over the years, the build-up of excess fat is almost systematic, involving hormonal changes (especially menopause), heredity, diet, and the slowing down of basal metabolism.

When the fat bulges are installed, slimming is very tricky, because our body is not designed for this purpose. Why is this?

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

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

• Our body is not programmed to lose weight, because fat is a form of precautionary reserve that must be maintained, unless there is a sense of emergency due to a large caloric deficit. The body would rather burn calories by depleting the reserves of carbohydrates (a stock of glycogen that can be used quickly) than our lipid reserves (fat stock that is complex to use). Glycogenolysis is preferred to lipolysis, which is always more uncertain, even in sport.
• Slimming down in a given area of the body is never guaranteed, because an overall caloric deficit must be generated, 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 with aesthetic medicine?

Lipid reserves are created 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 implications:

• The cell has trouble repairing itself in the event of injury, because it is loaded with fat. It chooses to trigger its own death by apoptosis.
• The destroyed cell is permanently destroyed since the adipocyte cannot regenerate itself.

In women, the distribution of fat cells is on the lower part of the body: this is the gynoid model that impacts, in particular, the buttocks, the saddlebags, the thighs, the knees and finally the calves.

In males, the android model impacts the upper part of the body, particularly the abdomen (abdominal belly) and the thorax (fatty adipomastia).

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

It is therefore of interest to both women and men to have thinner calves, as long as the calf fat is due to excess weight, with or without calf cellulite, and as long as the quality of the skin is still good.

Slimming down the calf, on the other hand, is pointless:

• On large skin and fat excess, with potential sagging of the skin.
• On a large oedematous calf, with venous insufficiency, for example.
• On a generalized overweight or obesity, for which aesthetic medicine provides the Elipse ® balloon.

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

• If your esthetic doctor detects a discreet excess of fat, with or without oedematous cellulite, he or she may offer soft solutions such as IPL intense pulsed light or anti-cellulite mesotherapy.
• If your practitioner detects excess calf fat with sufficiently toned skin, cryolipolysis is recommended: a single session of Coolsculpting ® (cold destruction) destroys 25 to 30 per cent of calf fat.
• If your cosmetic doctor also identifies an alteration of the skin, such as skin slackening, he will suggest a heat source to reshape the calf (thermo-lipolysis) and the dermis (thermage). He then has a number of possibilities, such as focused ultrasound, microwaves, pulsed electromagnetic fields, radiofrequency...
• On fatty cellulite, it is an effortless remedy 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.