Bid adieu to those baggy arms

Mumbai: Tired of loose flesh on your arms that makes them look flabby and unattractive? Here's a rundown on how to get rid of those 'bye-bye' arms.

Wearing off-shoulders and sleeveless tops becomes quite a task if your arms are not well-shaped, but doctors and fitness experts have ways to make you get rid of this problem.

You could either go for exercises or medical procedures to leave behind flabby and unshapely arms.

"Generally, arms are a problem area mainly with women. Those aged 25-40 often come to me to solve this problem through yoga," yoga expert Aditi Deshpande told IANS.

Aditi suggested two asanas to shape the arms - Gomukhasana and Parvatasana while sitting in Padmasana.

A person can also go in for fitness training to tone the arms.

"With the help of equipments like exercise tube and doing exercises like tube extension and tube flexion, the problem of fat on the arms can be solved," said fitness expert Althea Shah of Gold's Gym in Andheri West area here.

"One has to do these exercises thrice a week in sets of three with 18-20 repeats," she added.

But along with proper training, dietary control is also important to tackle the problem.

The nutrition plan that one needs to follow is similar to any other weight-loss routine. Consumption of fat content has to be lowered. Eating sensibly, avoiding fat, sugars and too much carbohydrates is important.

If one doesn't want to go in for natural methods, medical treatments are also available for flabby arms. By paying Rs.30,000-35,000, you can get your arms back to proper shape.

"One can go for both surgical and non-surgical procedures for removing the flab from the arms. Under surgery, we have liposuction, laser lipolysis and brachioplasty or arm lift," Vasundhara Oberoi, department head of plastic and cosmetic surgery, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi, told IANS over phone.

"In laser lipolysis, suction is not used like in traditional liposuction. Instead, the cannula housing the laser is inserted into the area and used to liquefy the fat," she said.

"The liquefied fat is then drained from the body through very tiny incisions (1-2 mm). Brachioplasty is done to remove loose skin and excess fat deposits in the upper arm," Oberoi said.

"Under non-surgical options we have laser machines that dissolve fat in the arms. We have radio frequency and ultrasound machines as well to perform this procedure," she added.

Many women struggle to wear an outfit of their choice because of the fat on their arms.

"I'm not fat overall, but my arms were very flabby and looked ugly when I used to wear sleeveless tops. There was a time when I stopped wearing them," said Shruti Kedia, who works with an event management firm.

"I did proper yoga asanas for three months and now my arms are as shapely as they can get," she said smilingly.

While the procedures are many, one needs to just decide, which one to choose.