LEXINGTON, KY / ACCESS Newswire / November 10, 2026 / Dr. Theodore Gerstle has practiced at Lexington Plastic Surgery since 2014 where body contouring is one of the services he performs regularly alongside facial rejuvenation, breast surgery and reconstructive work. Among all of these, he says body contouring is the one patients most often misunderstand before they sit down for a consultation.
"People come in thinking a tummy tuck or liposuction is going to do what diet and exercise could not," Dr. Gerstle says. "That is not what these procedures are built for and setting that straight early saves everyone a lot of disappointment later."
What Body Contouring Actually Does
Body contouring procedures remove or reshape skin and fat in specific areas. They are built to refine a shape that is already close to stable, not to produce the kind of large-scale weight loss someone might be hoping for.
Dr. Gerstle says the patients who end up satisfied are usually the ones who understand that distinction from the start. They are not looking for a scale number to change. They are looking for proportions, contour, or skin laxity that diet and exercise alone did not fix."If someone's weight is still moving up or down significantly, I usually recommend we wait," he says. "Operating on a body that has not settled yet makes it harder to predict the result and it is not fair to the patient."
Who Tends to Be a Good Candidate
Dr. Gerstle looks for patients who are at or near a stable weight and who have a specific area of concern rather than a general goal of losing size. That might be loose abdominal skin after pregnancy, stubborn fat deposits that resist exercise, or contour changes after significant prior weight loss.
He says the conversation in consultation is less about convincing someone to pursue surgery and more about helping them understand what the procedure can and cannot change. Every consultation is treated as an individual case rather than a standard script since the right option for one patient's anatomy and goals is rarely the right option for another.
Why He Thinks the Myth Persists
Dr. Gerstle points to how body contouring is often marketed or discussed casually as a fix for weight loss rather than a refinement of shape. He says that framing sets patients up to measure success the wrong way.
"If someone expects the number on the scale to move and instead their waistline looks different, they can walk away unhappy even though the surgery did exactly what it was supposed to do," he says. "My job is to make sure that gap does not happen before we ever get to the operating room."
He adds that this is part of why he spends time on the front end of a consultation rather than rushing toward a surgical plan. Understanding what a patient actually wants and whether a given procedure can deliver it matters more to him than moving quickly to a yes.
A Pattern Across His Practice
Dr. Gerstle says this same principle shows up across the other procedures he performs as facial rejuvenation to reconstructive surgery. Patients tend to do best when expectations are set accurately before surgery, not adjusted afterward.
For body contouring specifically, he says the clearest advice he can give is simple: treat it as a tool for shape, not a tool for weight. Patients who already understand that distinction tend to have an easier, more satisfying experience from consultation through recovery.
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About Dr. Theodore Gerstle
Dr. Theodore L. Gerstle is a plastic surgeon at Lexington Plastic Surgery in Lexington, Kentucky, where he has practiced since 2014. He trained in the Harvard Combined Plastic Surgery Residency program after completing medical school at the University of Louisville. His practice includes facial rejuvenation, breast surgery, body contouring, reconstructive surgery, and treatment for migraine headaches.
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SOURCE: Dr. Theo Gerstle
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