Stubborn Saddlebags? How to Contour a Pear-Shaped Figure

A slim upper body, but fat that always stubbornly collects in the lower body: this pear-shaped figure troubles many women... The saddlebags on the outer thighs in particular look especially bulky, and dieting rarely slims these areas. This article introduces two main body contouring options for saddlebags, using popular aesthetic medicine treatments to refine a pear-shaped figure and give you perfect curves!

Do You Have a Pear-Shaped Figure?

Women's body shapes come in many types, such as rectangle, hourglass, and apple, as well as the pear shape that troubles so many women. According to statistics, the pear shape is the most common body type among Asian women. Women with a pear-shaped figure usually share the following traits:

There are many causes of a pear-shaped figure:

Apart from genes and bone structure, which you can't change, you can check whether fat buildup is what makes your lower body look noticeably wider and thicker than your upper body.

Which Areas of the Lower Body Gain Fat Easily? How Deep Is the Fat?

Fat accumulates when the calories you take in each day exceed what your body needs. With no spare room left to store glycogen, the extra calories are converted into fat and stored in the body. Because of hormones, men and women also store fat in different places: in women, estrogen causes fat to be stored mostly in the lower body, namely the abdomen, hips, and thighs, and these areas are often the hardest to slim down.

In addition, the thighs are the part of the body, other than the abdomen, where fat accumulates most easily, and thigh fat usually builds up in these areas:

1. Outer thigh (saddlebags)

2. Inner thigh

3. Front of the thigh

Some people ask: is this deep fat or superficial fat?

In fact, body fat differs from facial fat. Facial fat can be divided into three layers: the superficial skin and subcutaneous fat, the middle layer of fascia, and the deep fat pads. But the parts of the body you can generally feel are all superficial subcutaneous fat. Under a microscope you can still roughly tell deep from superficial subcutaneous fat, but the separation is not as distinct as in the face, which has a fascia layer.

Self-Check: Do You Have “Pseudo-Wide Hips” or Saddlebags?

“Pseudo-wide hips,” also called “saddlebags,” refers to excess fat that builds up on the outer side of the upper thighs. The widest part of the body should be the hip bones and pelvis, but when a lot of fat builds up on the outer thighs, the width on both sides increases. From the front, the hips look as if they have dropped lower; from the side, the buttocks look saggy and the legs look shorter in proportion.

Saddlebags are so hard to slim because improving them through exercise and diet control takes a long time, and it is still difficult to achieve spot fat reduction. So in addition to adjusting your daily habits, aesthetic medicine treatments can help you sculpt your ideal thigh curves and refine a pear-shaped figure.

Learn more:

Summer Is Here! A Complete Guide to Getting Rid of Saddlebags

Refining a Pear-Shaped Figure: VASER Liposuction

VASER liposuction is currently the newest liposuction device. It uses ultrasound energy to break apart fat cells, then suctions out the separated fat without damaging the nerves, blood vessels, and connective tissue around the surgical site, which achieves:

The fat survival rate with VASER liposuction can reach 80%, so the fat that is removed can be grafted back into other parts of the body, such as the breasts and face, to sculpt the figure even more beautifully.

Learn more:

Small Wounds After Surgery! What Other Advantages Does VASER Liposuction Have? Will the Fat Come Back?

Which Liposuction Method Should You Choose? Common Options Compared, Plus Complications and How to Prevent Them

How Does Liposuction Work? A 7-Minute Guide to the Difference Between Liposuction and Weight Loss!

Refining a Pear-Shaped Figure: Cryolipolysis

If you don't want surgery to remove fat, cryolipolysis is another option for spot fat reduction. It works by applying low temperatures to make fat cells die off, which the body then metabolizes and eliminates on its own. As a non-invasive treatment, it eliminates stubborn fat with ease and sculpts targeted areas, and:

Also note that with cryolipolysis, the same treatment area needs 6 to 8 weeks between sessions, and the number of sessions depends on your condition and expectations and is planned after careful evaluation by your doctor.

Learn more:

Spot Fat Reduction Tools Compared! VASER Liposuction vs. CoolTech Cryolipolysis

How to Lose Weight from a Low Starting Weight? Adjusting Diet and Exercise, and How Cryolipolysis Sculpts Targeted Areas