MANILA - Nearly three decades and some 16,000 liposuction procedures later, beauty doctor to the stars Vicki Belo said she still gets excited drawing fat from clients to reveal a sexier and more confident frame, drawing from her own struggles with insecurity.

Liposuction is still one of the most popular treatments at Belo Medical Group, where 30 percent involve going under the knife and 70 percent are non-surgical. By her own account, Belo said she spent 45,000 hours doing liposuction.

"My tip is always find what you love to do, so you don’t feel you’re working. Like ako, I get excited pa rin to do a liposuction. If it makes you a happier person, then I’ve done my calling. It’s a vocation," Belo told ABS-CBN News.

Belo credits late 90s bombshell Rosanna Roces for destroying taboos over liposuction. The sex symbol turned liposuction into a status symbol, she said.

"Rosanna Roces was my turning point when you ask when did you become more popular," Belo said.

"She went on TV and she’s so maingay. 'Nagpa-lipo ako kay Dra Belo, sosyal 'yan at mayaman. Ako kasi nakapunta ako dyan,'" she said.

(She went on TV and she's so loud that 'I had lipo with Dr Belo, who is a rich socialite. I go to her.')

INSPIRATION

Bullied as a child for being fat and adopted, Belo said she channeled such insecurities into building her business, which now has 13 branches.

"Other kids would ask 'Why did they give you away, because you’re fat?'. Then other kids would say ‘No, she’s not fat, she’s just ugly'. They would do that to me and I would cry," Belo told ABS CBN News.

"So the message that came to me was 'Ah ganon pala ‘yon' (that's how it is), if you’re fat and you’re ugly they give you away,'" she said.

She said she struggled with acne from when she was 11 until she reached 26, even during medical school.

"Sabi ko, 'pretty girls don’t know what it feels like, eh ako I have suffered all my life,' so I have empathy and I really want to be the best anti-acne doctor in the world," she said.

Belo counts singer Regine Velasquez as one of her earlier clients, whose back acne problem she cured.

• How Belo beauty empire started with Regine Velasquez, pimple fight

"If somebody tells me not to do it, then the more I want to do it. So if somebody said 'You can’t be a derma because your skin is bad.' I’ll say 'No, I can!'," she said.

A constant figure in society pages, Belo got married late last year to fellow doctor Hayden Kho in opulent style in Paris.

• IN PHOTOS: Scenes from Hayden-Vicki wedding in Paris

The couple's 3-year-old daughter, Scarlet Snow, is an Instagram celebrity. Belo's eldest daughter, Cristalle Belo-Pitt, helps run the family enterprise.