When you lose weight, there are many changes that can occur, including on the face. What about your lips? Do your lips get bigger when you lose weight?
Your lips do not increase in size when you lose weight as they are primarily made of muscle and skin, not fat. However, they may appear fuller because of the loss of fat in your face.
Let’s discuss this some more.
Do your Lips Get Bigger When You Lose Weight?
No, your lips do not get bigger when you lose weight because they are not composed of a high enough percentage of fat to be affected by weight gain or loss.
The amount of fat inside lip tissue is minuscule. There are tiny little fat pads inside the lip tissue in humans, which is contrary to what most people believe.
However, lips are primarily made up of skin, muscle, and blood vessels with a tiny amount of fat.
The shape and thickness of our lips is mostly based on genetic factors, and our lips are actually very unique to us. You can think of them as a unique fingerprint.
Changing the way our lips look through losing weight or gaining weight is not going to make much of a difference in the size of our lips.
When you lose weight, your body is going to tap into fat stores in areas including the face, but not primarily your lips.
However, weight loss can cause your lips to look fuller because of the loss of fat in your face.
When you lose weight, you may notice that your cheeks become thinner and less plump. This can create the illusion that your lips are bigger, but they did not actually increase in size.
Do Your Lips Get Smaller When You Lose Weight?
Your lips do not get noticeably smaller when you lose weight as there is not enough fat in this area to be utilized by the body as fuel.
When you lose weight, you will see body fat loss from many areas including the hips, thighs, stomach, back and many more, but not the lips.
Your lips are going to stay the same size because they do not have a high enough percentage of fat to be affected by weight loss. The tiny amount of fat located within the lip tissue is going to stay put.

As we discussed, the lips can look smaller when you lose weight because of the loss of fat in your face. Actually, losing weight can change the appearance of the face in a dramatic way.
When you lose weight, the cheeks may become less full and your face will actually look slimmer. This can give your lips a thinner appearance as well.
This is actually an illusion to the eye because of the decreased fat in the face overall.
Does Gaining Weight Make Your Lips Bigger?
Gaining weight will not make your appear bigger, because when we gain weight, we will store fat everywhere on our body.
If our body does decide to store some fat in the fat pads of our lips, it is likely to not be very noticeable.
Fat Storage in the Body
Our body stores two types of fat primarily, visceral fat and subcutaneous fat.
Visceral fat is the type of fat that surrounds our vital organs and is more dangerous to our health when this type of fat is increased.
Subcutaneous fat is the type of fat that we can see and feel just below the skin, and this is the fat that is mostly visible when we feel we want to lose weight.
This is the fat that accumulates in the thighs, hips, love handle area, etc.
The amount of visceral and subcutaneous fat we have is going to be determined by many factors such as age, gender, genetics, diet, and exercise habits.
When we gain weight, our body will store this new fat in both visceral and subcutaneous areas.
Our body does not use the lip area as a primary storage area of subcutaneous fat.
There are 5 major functions of subcutaneous fat and they include:
- Energy storage
- Padding to protect muscle and bone
- Passageway for nerve and blood vessels
- Insulation and temperature regulation
- Attaches dermis to muscle and bone
Our body does not primarily store fat in the lips, because storing fat here would not assist with any of the functions of subcutaneous fat.
Can I Change the Size of My Lips by Losing Weight?
Unfortunately, losing or gaining weight is not going to make much of a difference in the size of your lips.
The only way to really permanently change the size of your lips is through surgery or fillers.
If you are looking for fuller lips, there are many options available to you that do not require surgery.
Lip plumpers are a popular option as they can give you the appearance of fuller lips without any needles or surgery.
There are also lip glosses and balms that contour the lips and make them appear fuller. Contouring is very popular these days.
These are temporary solutions that will need to be reapplied often, but they are a great way to get fuller looking lips without any commitment.
If you want to permanently change the size of your lips, you can opt for the more invasive route of lip injections or fat grafting, but this is a decision that needs to be made by you and you only.
In Summary
Your lips do not get noticeably bigger or smaller when you lose weight, but losing weight can cause your lips to look fuller because of the loss of fat in your face.
Also, gaining weight will not make your lips appear bigger, because when we gain weight, we will store fat everywhere on our body.
The amount of fat that is located inside the lip tissue is very small and not enough to have a substantial impact from weight gain or loss.
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