What Causes Hip Dips?
The presence or lack of hip dips is largely centered around the bones in your hip. The size of these bones and the way they come together determines the width of your pelvis. The wider your pelvis, the more likely you are to have hip dips.
The shape of your muscles can also create hip dips, as can the amount of fat you have in the area and how it’s distributed. Ultimately, it is the shape and placement of your skeleton, muscles, and fat that determine whether or not you have hip dips.
Is It Possible to Get Rid of Hip Dips?
It is possible to get rid of your hip dips, but doing so will probably require a trip to the plastic surgeon. Completely eliminating hip dips is challenging because they are primarily determined by the structure of your skeleton and the way your pelvis and femur are shaped, as well as how your body distributes fat and muscle. These factors are largely genetic and not something that can be changed through exercise or diet alone.
Why Won’t Exercising Fill in Hip Dips?
Exercise can’t fill in hip dips because it can’t change your skeletal structure. It can help you build out the muscles around your hips to minimize the appearance of hip dips, but it can’t correct the problem. One reason, as mentioned, is that exercise can’t change your skeletal structure. Another is that it can’t add fat.
Some people have hip dips but don’t know it because Mother Nature has seen fit to deposit some fat on their hips in such a way that the dips are filled in. But there are no exercises that add fat to the body and there is nothing you can eat or drink that will send fat specifically to your hips. Diet and exercise are the solutions to many health problems, but they can’t fix hip dips. To be fair, this may be because hip dips aren’t really a problem or medical condition. They are a perfectly natural anatomical variation and not a cause for concern.
Why Won’t Diet and Nutrition Help Fill Hip Dips?
Diet and nutrition can’t fix hip dips because they’re not a nutritional problem. While diet and nutrition play crucial roles in overall health and body composition, they cannot fundamentally change the underlying skeletal structure that contributes to the presence of hip dips. No amount of dietary changes can alter this bone structure.
Genetics are another reason diet won’t alter hip dips. Genetics play a significant role in determining where your body stores fat. Some people may naturally store more fat around their hips, thighs, and buttocks, which can potentially make hip dips less noticeable. Others may have a genetic predisposition to store less fat in these areas. Diet can influence overall body fat percentage but not specific fat distribution patterns predetermined by genetics.
Diet and nutrition can help you lose fat and build muscle, affecting overall body composition. However, since you cannot target weight loss or muscle gain to specific areas of the body through diet alone, these changes will be generalized rather than focused on the hip dip area specifically. Unfortunately, there are no foods you can eat that will add fat to or remove fat from specific areas of your body.
How to Get Rid of Hip Dips
There are ways to deal with hip dips and you do have choices. While plastic surgery may be the only permanent solution, there are several things you can try before opting to go that route. Here we present the options for dealing with hip dips in order from the least invasive to the most.
Hide Hip Dips with Clothing
Hiding or minimizing the appearance of hip dips with clothing involves choosing outfits that flatter your body shape and enhance your natural silhouette. You have lots of options when it comes to hiding hip dips with clothing. High-waisted pants, skirts, and shorts can help smooth out the transition between the hips and the thighs, making hip dips less noticeable. A-line skirts and dresses flare out from the waist, skimming over the hips without clinging to them, which can conceal hip dips effectively as well.
Peplum tops are another option. Their flared or ruffled hem adds volume around the hips, balancing the silhouette and camouflaging hip dips. Layering your clothing works as well by creating a more streamlined silhouette. For example, a long cardigan or open blazer can draw the eye vertically, away from the hips.
Whatever clothing you choose, remember that bold patterns, textures, and strategic color blocking can divert attention from hip dips and add visual interest to other areas. Tight, clingy fabrics can accentuate hip dips, so opting for materials that drape more loosely around the hips can be more flattering. Shapewear can smooth out the lines of the body, including hip dips, for a seamless look under your clothes.
Exercise
Exercise can’t resolve troublesome hip dips, but it can help make them appear less pronounced. If you want to avoid surgery and are willing to stay on an exercise regimen you may be able to make your hips dips appear a bit more subtle by building up the muscle around them. This doesn’t work for everyone, and your hip dips will become more pronounced again if you stop exercising or lose muscle mass for another reason.
When you do exercise, focus on strengthening your gluteus medius and minimus muscles and building your gluteus maximus. Strengthening the muscles of the thighs, including the quadriceps and hamstrings, supports balanced muscle development around the hips and can contribute to a more uniform leg contour.
Dermal Fillers
Dermal fillers are substances designed to be injected beneath the surface of the skin to add volume and fullness. While commonly used for facial rejuvenation, fillers have also been adapted for body contouring purposes, including the correction of hip dips. This nonsurgical option involves the careful injection of filler material into and around the area of the hip dips.
Fillers provide immediate results with no downtime or recovery period. Unfortunately, dermal fillers are not a permanent solution, with most fillers lasting only about six months. The cost can get excessive since the fillers need to be administered over and over again to maintain the results.
Fat Transfer to Hips
Fat transfer, also known as fat grafting or lipofilling, is a cosmetic procedure used to correct hip dips by transferring fat from another part of the body to the hips. The harvested fat is artfully injected into the hips to create a smoother, more contoured appearance. This procedure can offer a more permanent solution compared to dermal fillers.
Hip dip correction with fat transfer looks and feels natural because it is—it uses your own body fat, so the results are all you. Fat transfer also offers the dual benefit of reducing unwanted fat in one area while enhancing another, potentially improving overall body contour. So long as you maintain a fairly steady weight, the fat transfer process is permanent.
Common Cosmetic Procedures to Combine with Fat Transfer to Hips
Technically, almost any plastic surgery procedures can be combined into one surgery so long as your surgeon feels it is safe to do so. When it comes to fat transfer to correct hip dips, however, the most commonly added procedures include lipo 360, BBLs, and tummy tucks.
What is Recovery Like After a Fat Graft to Hips?
Immediately after surgery you will be given a prescription for pain medication and sent home to rest and recover. You will feel a little better every day and should be free of any pain within a few days. You may have surgical drains at your liposuction sites. If so, your doctor or nurse will show you how to clean and empty them. Your surgeon will remove them at your post-op visit.
For the first two to three weeks after hip dip surgery you’ll need to avoid putting pressure on the newly transferred fat cells. This means you should avoid sitting whenever possible and use a cushion or special pillow when you do sit. You won’t be able to sleep on your sides, either. You’ll also need to wear a compression garment for several weeks. This reduces swelling and helps your body conform to and settle into its new shape.
Most people can return to work about five to seven days after surgery. Heavy lifting and more rigorous exercise, however, will have to wait four to six weeks.