Hello, this is Yoongeun Kim of TheLINE Plastic Surgery.
In clinical practice, figures such as 160cm and 53kg are usually classed as a 'standard' or even 'lean' body type. But a board-certified plastic surgeon's eye is drawn not to the numbers but to the 'order of the contour.' The patient I saw today looks slim on the outside, yet slight fullness at the front of the abdomen and residual fat at the love handles were interrupting the natural flow running from the waist to the pelvis. We often become so fixated on the number on the scale that we forget the curve our own skeleton holds. My goal in this operation was not simply an act of 'taking away.' It was to give three-dimensional shading to the flat space of the abdomen and rewrite the story of the most beautiful S-curve the patient always had.
These are the patient's pre-operative photos. 1. An anatomical view: the technique of taking away and the philosophy of filling in Many people think of liposuction as a one-dimensional act of expelling fat cells. To me, however, liposuction is precise sculpting that redraws the three-dimensional map of the abdomen. If the front of the abdomen is made too flat, it actually looks artificial and bleak. I focused on keeping the muscle lines at the front of the abdomen subtly visible to maintain firmness, while boldly reducing the love handles at the sides to create depth in the waist. Throughout this process I used a 'hidden incision' technique to minimize scarring as a by-product. I secured only three very small incisions of about 5mm each, at both hip areas and near the tailbone. These three points are the optimal 'three-dimensional coordinates' from which the cannula can cross and move freely across the front and sides of the abdomen. Minimizing the number of incision sites while completing the maximum amount of sculpting through them is the aesthetic of restraint I aim for. My philosophy as a surgeon is to leave the scars to the flow of the body so they fade on their own, and to leave behind only the change in contour that the patient alone can feel. 2. Stem cells, the core of the firmness the skin remembers on its own The leaner the body type, the more patients fear that the skin will thin and lose firmness right after liposuction. To address that concern, I applied stem cell-rich SVF liposuction throughout the entire procedure. This goes beyond simply removing fat cells; it is a process of remodeling the skin's ecosystem. When the viable regenerative factors and microvascular fractions extracted during surgery are preserved densely back within the tissue rather than destroyed, the skin gains a strong capacity to adhere to the muscle layer on its own. The stem cell-rich SVF component encourages 'self-adhesion lifting,' in which the skin contracts tightly on its own rather than sagging after surgery, as if it had always been lean and firm. I am not simply an engineer who removes fat. As a guide helping the patient's skin remember and recover its most beautiful tension, I finely coordinate the process by which the skin remodels itself over the six months following surgery.
These are the patient's post-operative photos. 3. A story of six months: the 'contour that is truly yours' finally revealed Six months after surgery is the most rewarding time of all for a plastic surgeon. Now that all the swelling has subsided and the tissue has settled softly, the patient's abdomen shows a 'silhouette' that is natural and healthy rather than an artificial construct. The three-dimensional curve created by the firmness of the abdomen and the hollow at the love handles gives an entirely new impression with nothing more than a change of clothes. Where she once rushed to cover up with loose clothing, I now see her wearing waist-revealing styles with confidence. When she looks in the mirror and says, "I never knew my waistline could be this pretty," I feel a sense of accomplishment as her surgeon that nothing else can match. Liposuction is not a tool for losing weight; it is a precise excavation that brings the beautiful skeleton you always had out into the world. The sculpting I, Yoongeun Kim, perform at TheLINE is not simply about changing a body but about restoring the confidence you feel every time you look in the mirror. I invite you to have your own natural beauty brought back into the light at TheLINE. Your contour is simply not finished yet; it is already there, beautiful enough, waiting inside.
