What is “Ozempic Butt”?
Weight loss is an amazing accomplishment with the potential to enhance your life, confidence, relationships, and entire outlook. With the rise in patients finding weight loss success through injectable medications like GLP-1s, these treatment regimens can often have the unintended effect of muscle loss and increased skin laxity — particularly in the buttocks. “Ozempic butt” is an informal term used to describe the flattened, deflated, or sagging appearance of the buttocks that can follow rapid weight loss, often associated with GLP-1 medications. While there’s no medical necessity to treat “Ozempic butt,” our board-certified Salt Lake City plastic surgeon understands why patients seek out body contouring options to restore a firm, youthful buttock.
As a Total Definer-trained plastic surgeon in Utah, Dr. Jared Garlick is among the only providers in the country who has learned world-renowned body sculpting procedures under Dr. Alfredo Hoyos. Having completed a prestigious ASAPS-Endorsed Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Fellowship and earning board certification in aesthetic surgery, Dr. Garlick is uniquely qualified to improve the appearance of sagging after weight loss with modern, natural-looking techniques.
How Do Weight Loss Medications Cause “Ozempic Butt”?
Many GLP-1 medications work by suppressing appetite and managing hunger, leading to a calorie deficit that causes the body to draw from natural fat stores like the buttocks. Unlike targeted fat loss through dieting and exercise, this kind of rapid, widespread fat reduction can strip volume from areas where fat provides shape and support.
Since the buttocks rely heavily on subcutaneous fat for their fullness and contour, the skin often doesn’t have enough time to retract and tighten accordingly when fat disappears quickly. The result can be a buttocks that appears flatter, less round, and looser than before, sometimes with visible sagging or excess skin folds.
Solutions for a Flat, Sagging Buttocks After Weight Loss
At our Salt Lake City aesthetic practice, there are several surgical and non-surgical body contouring procedures that can help restore shape and firmness.
Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL)
A BBL, or Brazilian Butt Lift, uses fat grafting to rebuild volume in the buttocks. Fat is harvested via liposuction from areas like the abdomen or thighs, purified, and then strategically injected into the buttocks to restore a fuller, more lifted contour using a patient’s own fat cells. This approach works especially well for patients who still have some donor fat available elsewhere on the body, and offers the dual benefit of contouring the donor site while enhancing the buttocks.
Lower Body Lift
For patients with significant loose or sagging skin on additional areas, a buttock lift can be performed as part of a lower body lift. This personalized series of procedures removes excess skin around the abdomen, hips, thighs, and buttocks, tightening the entire lower body.
QuantumRF® Skin Tightening
For patients with more mild skin laxity and who aren’t ready for surgery, QuantumRF® is an advanced non-invasive body sculpting treatment that uses radiofrequency energy to stimulate collagen production and tighten skin over time. While it won’t add volume the way a BBL does, it can improve skin firmness and texture, making it a good complement to other treatments or a standalone option for those with less severe sagging.
Ultimately, the right solution for you depends on how much volume has been lost, how much skin laxity is present, and each patient’s individual goals. A consultation with Dr. Garlick can help determine whether fat grafting, surgical skin removal, non-invasive tightening, or a combination approach will deliver the best results.
Whether through dieting and exercise, bariatric surgery, or GLP-1s, weight loss can have unintended effects on your body contours. If your goals include firming and better defining the buttocks or addressing skin sagging after weight loss in general, don’t hesitate to contact Dr. Garlick at our Salt Lake City, Utah practice today.
