Zack and Ian tried everything to lose their stubborn dad bods but the fat just wouldn’t budge. Then a quick fix ‘miracle’ treatment brought back their six packs: ‘Best money I’ve ever spent’

He once had a six-pack that turned heads, but years later, Frank Hoyle barely recognized the man staring back at him in the mirror.

‘I had gained a little bit of weight,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘I had tried to lose it, but there was this stubborn pouch at the front that wouldn’t go, no matter what I did.’

With his 40th birthday looming, he made a drastic decision.

Hoyle, who worked in hospitality, paid $23,000 for a four-hour liposuction procedure, where doctors removed ten pounds of fat from his abdomen in what was described as a ‘quick fix.’

‘It was like a miracle,’ Hoyle said. ‘It’s the best money I ever spent.’

In fact, he said, ‘I actually got to look even better than I did in my 20s.’

Hoyle is one of a growing number of men turning to liposuction as a shortcut to a leaner physique, opting to have stubborn fat removed in hours rather than spending weeks or months dieting, exercising or using weight loss jabs like Ozempic.

‘It used to be that men wouldn’t be caught dead in a plastic surgeon’s office,’ said Dr Jeffrey Roth, a surgeon in Las Vegas. 

‘Now, more and more are coming in [for liposuction] because they are active… but they just can’t get rid of that final little piece.’

An estimated 20,000 men undergo the procedure every year, and experts say weight loss drugs may be fueling the trend as more men seek beach-ready physiques after seeing friends rapidly lose weight. Surgeons said these individuals often want quick results rather than waiting months for a GLP-1 to yield desired results, or don’t want to deal with the side effects of the drugs.

In March 2023, Hoyle saw Dr Michael J Stein in New York City to undergo 360-degree liposuction, a procedure where the entire mid-section, including the waist, flanks and back, is sculpted to give patients their desired body shape.

During the procedure, a tube called a cannula is inserted through an incision and injects a fluid to loosen fat cells, which are then suctioned out of the body. Patients also receive fat transfer, in which some of the removed fat is returned to the body to contour them into their desired shape. On average, the procedure costs approximately $15,000 nationwide.

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, no more than five liters of fat, equivalent to about ten pounds, should be removed during a liposuction procedure. Exceeding that amount raises the risk of complications such as blood loss and fluid imbalances.

While Hoyle was unconscious during the surgery, he experienced an immense amount of pain immediately after waking, which eased after a few days. Swelling under the skin, however, reduced gradually over several months.

It was, however, worth it for Hoyle who said he is thrilled with the final results – which are typically seen within three to six months post-op. 

Hoyle can now see the outline of his six-pack again, and these days has no trouble taking off his shirt. 

Similarly, Ian Michael Crumm, a New York City-based celebrity esthetician and founder of Boys in Beauty, got liposuction to ‘look his best.’

The 33-year-old’s health had taken a backseat – a result of the Covid pandemic and the death of his father – and a previous body contouring treatment had left him with a lumpy, concave spot beneath his belly button. So, he underwent liposuction for his chest, flank and abdomen in 2024. He did not, however, have any fat transferred to other areas of his body.

‘For me, this surgery was about correcting this defect as well as enhancing the body I’ve worked hard to take care of in adulthood,’ Crumm wrote on Instagram.

‘My decision to get liposuction was not about losing weight, but returning to a figure that I haven’t seen since before that first non-invasive treatment — and, in a way, returning to myself.’

But NYC-based plastic surgeon Dr Michael Bassiri-Tehrani warned that liposuction is not really a solution to weight loss. Rather, it is simply for body contouring, or removing stubborn pockets of fat.

‘Patients who come in with a very high BMI, 37, 40, 42, the procedure won’t help them,’ he explained. ‘They would need to get their weight below a certain threshold to use it.

‘In general, the ideal patient is someone who wants to shape up their tummy a bit but can’t get rid of that resistant fat.’ 

Dr Michael Stein, who performed Hoyle’s procedure, shared a similar sentiment, telling the Daily Mail that liposuction ‘strategically removes fat around muscle groups to enhance muscular definition.’ Many of his patients, he added, are gym regulars whose goal is to remove stubborn fat.

GLP-1 drugs, however, ‘will reduce overall fat proportionally, high-definition liposuction removes and contours fat disproportionately to enhance definition,’ he noted.

For Zack Michaelson, enhancing the look of his muscles is exactly why he underwent liposuction.

The NYU finance professor and father-of-two, who is also a model and bodybuilder, was indeed not in bad shape to start. He went to the gym for 30 to 50 minutes four to five times a week and was able to bench press up to 400lbs.

But he said he wanted to ‘clean up’ his body, as he felt his midsection showed off his love of eating hamburgers, pizza and pasta.

He came across advertisements for liposuction on social media and thought it looked like a good option to help him continue to improve in his 40s and 50s.

He contacted his surgeon, Dr Douglas Steinbrech, and eventually underwent the procedure in October 2020.

Approximately five hours and $20,000 later, Michaelson was a new man. His surgeon had removed fat from his lower torso and abdomen and reinserted it into his chest and shoulders to give him a more triangular physique.

While he was in pain for the first few days after surgery – and suffered an infection requiring antibiotics – he was on vacation in Belize just three weeks post-op with his brother and two children.

By six months, he said his body showed peak results and his new figure had improved his modeling photos. It also encouraged him to eat fewer high-fat and high-carb meals. 

To date, he has returned to Steinbrech only once for a touch-up.

‘I’ve been very happy with the results long-term, not just five or six months, but five or six years out,’ Michaelson told the Daily Mail. ‘My partner, she does think that this looks better too. That I’ve improved.’

The Daily Mail allowed Frank Hoyle to use a pseudonym to protect his privacy.