DailyEdge.ie was approached by Therapie Clinic to trial its new CoolSculpting service with no promise of a positive or negative review.
AS A NEWSPAPER-obsessed kid growing up, some things caught my eye more than others as I pored over the pages.
In all my years of reading, one ad stuck off more than others. It was for some kind of health establishment/beauty salon advertising a service in which they would free your fat. The results seemed incredible for very little effort.
Fast forward however many years later, and I’m standing in a consultation room in my bra and a fetching pair of scrubs shorts waiting to see if I’m eligible for the treatment. Dream big, guys!
What is CoolSculpting?
CoolSculpting is described as a “contouring treatment” in which fat on the body is frozen in order to reduce and smooth it. It’s been around for an age, but Therapie have just started to do it out of their South William Street premises, which is where I’m getting mine.
Here’s the nitty gritty of it.
The CoolSculpting procedure safely delivers precisely controlled cooling to gently and effectively target the fat cells underneath the skin.
Treated fat cells are frozen, then die. Over time, your body naturally processes the fat and eliminates these dead cells through the lymphatic system, so you should see long term results.
It’s not promoted as a weight loss treatment, and is recommended to be done in conjunction with a “healthy” lifestyle (which I interpret to mean someone who is pretty active and eats to a maintenance calorie maintenance level.)
There’s been a lot of clinical studies on the procedure, which you can read up on here.
What happened in the consultation, then?
So, the above was explained to me, as well as what would go down in future sessions. It’s recommended that after each session, you take some downtime as you can sometimes feel nauseous after having it done. I was told not to book any sessions on my lunch or before work, and just to head straight home instead.
It’s recommended that you eat before you go in, as sessions can be 2+ hours long (though your consult will feed you throughout, if you’re hankering for a snack. Got to love that service!) Otherwise, you’ll be quite literally chilling for the length of time you’re in there.
Post-freezing, my consult will also be massaging the shite out of the area to make sure everything breaks down nice and evenly.
In the event that I have tan on going into an appointment (though I don’t plan on it), it’ll have to be washed off for the treatment.
The consult will also weigh me and take a ‘before-and-after’ picture to compare three months down the line, which is when I should really be noticing the results and when I’ll come back in for an assessment (if you’re freaked out this, don’t worry, they cut your heads off for them and it’s kept anonymous. I’ll be sharing mine here so ye can see though, obviously.)
And of course, it goes without saying that they go through loads of health disclaimers. You’ll be asked about recent medications, illnesses, among other things.
What areas can you get done?
You consult will be best able to tell you and measure this. I had initially gone in thinking I’d be getting my double chin zapped off. As it turns off, I didn’t have enough fat in that area.
My waist/stomach/hip area was measured, and it was decided that I would get a good result in that area, particularly on my left side as I had enough fat to work with. They don’t use calipers or any archaic torture tools – they’ll just get you to take your top off (as mentioned above) and they’ll have a feel around.
What’s next?
I’m booked in for my first session in two weeks, which I’m told will take two hours, and I’ll be heading home after to work from there. So keep your eyes peeled for an update then!
