Marie France: A guarantee you can't resist

MANILA, Philippines - There is one thing successful women and men who have lost weight and reshaped their bodies share in common: commitment. At Marie France, this commitment works both Ways. The leading slimming and body contouring center known for pioneering non-invasive treatments in the country is offering  clients their money back if you don’t lose at least 10 percent of your weight in the first three and a half months.

The only thing you have to give: your commitment.

Dr. Ariel Torres of Marie France explains, “We want to differentiate ourselves from other slimming centers so we have recently started to offer a money-back guarantee. Whatever your weight, as long as you are not in the type 3 obesity category or underweight, we guarantee that you will lose at least 10 percent of your weight.”

If, for instance, you weigh 140 pounds, the center guarantees 14 pounds. If you don’t achieve your target weight loss after you have followed the program, then Marie France gives you your money back. It’s as easy as that — no complicated terms, no fine print.

Dr. Torres says this is one of the reasons why the center follows a system where clients pay for the entire program of treatments at the outset and not per session. You have to be committed to see the entire program through.

Beauty queen Carlene Aguilar before (after she gave birth) and after her Marie France program. After the program, her waist was smaller than when she was a reigning beauty queen.

“First, we ask the client if he wants to lose weight. If he or she doesn’t, you can tell him whatever he needs to hear and nothing will  happen. Some clients ask, ‘How come I can’t pay per treatment, why is it a program?’ Because we know it’s not effective if it’s just one, two or three treatments. Based on the studies we have conducted over the years, we know it should be a minimum of 10 to 15 treatments. So when we follow up with clients, it’s for a program they have already paid for. We don’t want to be unethical and offer, say, only five treatments that we know are not going to be effective. We want our clients to be dedicated, that they would go for their treatments regularly as prescribed by the program because they want this to happen.”

For over 26 years, Marie France has been helping people lose weight and reshape their bodies with a dedicated support team that is composed of doctors, who give professional help and monitor the progress so clients lose weight safely; nutritionists, who personally guide clients on smart food and drink choices, re-educating them on balanced nutrition; and figure consultants, who counsel and coach the clients to instill newlife-long habits so they can successfully adopt this lifestyle change.

  Apart from the human support, there is the system that is backed by superior treatments that have been tested and proven to burn fat faster and re-engineer the body shape. From the Swiss system which helps the clients burn more calories naturally, to the Ultrashape technology that destroys fat cells and the very latest US FDA-approved Coolsculpting to freeze away fat, Marie France has the most comprehensive line of slimming machines and programs.

One of the founders of Marie France, Peter Prestidge, says, “Over the years, various methods of slimming quick fixes, fad diets and extreme slimming methods  have come and gone. Only Marie France has remained constant and unwavering in its promise and achievement to helping women get results and attain slimmer, healthier bodies. The secret to its success is a fool-proof system that, when adhered to by any client, is guaranteed to help her achieve the kind of figure she has always wanted and keep it.”

Prestidge for the first time talks about the criticism the center got over the Sharon Cuneta billboard last year. “We got a lot of flak over the Sharon billboard. But the reality is it worked very well for her. When she started having the treatments, she actually lost 19.5 pounds within three months. At that juncture, which was the first stage, we did a photo shoot for the billboard. Unfortunately, after that, her schedule got very busy and wasn’t able to continue properly the treatments, and so she stopped. But by then we had already put up the billboard and when people saw her again, particularly on TV, she looked bigger than she was when we shot the billboard. That’s why people said it was photoshopped. It really wasn’t.”

Prestidge continues, “The reality is, it did work initially for Sharon. Unfortunately, her career took over. You have to be committed. We can’t work miracles. First you have to make the commitment to yourself if you want to lose weight, first of all, simply, by coming here, and learning some discipline about nutrition.”

At a Marie France center, which has a working women-friendly schedule, opening as early as 7 a.m. to accommodate clients who have to be in the office at 8 or 9 a.m., and closes as late as 8 p.m.

Hence the Marie France promise: Give us your commitment or we will give  you your money back if the program doesn’t work for you.

How successful are the programs really? Marie France’s Fat Mobilization System Body Wraps, on which it built its successful reputation starting in Europe, is still the best non-invasive weight-loss system, according to Dr. Torres. He did a study in 1998 and came up with the conclusion that on a cumulative average, a person loses half a pound per treatment.

“The number of calories burned is not just for one treatment but is spread out,” says Dr. Torres. “It’s like exercise. You’re treated now and you’re increasing your enzymes a little bit for burning calories. Then you’re treated again and you increase it again. So with accumulated treatments you’re increasing your catabolic enzymes. In the same way you’re always exercising you develop catabolic enzymes. If you’re always eating and sleeping you develop more anabolic enzymes.”

How do the wraps work? By mobilizing the fat in the body. He explains, “We have to maintain a body temperature form 36.5 to 37.2 being warm-blooded animals. With the cold wrap, heat is attracted from the surface of the body. It’s different from staying in a cold room while you’re naked or being submerged in cold water which may cause hypothermia. That doesn’thappen with body wraps. The wraps are just attracting heat away from the surface, and then your central heat will donate to your peripheral heat. So you’re heated again and is taken away again, and then heat is donated again. There will come a point where it cannot donate anymore, so the body needs to create heat, increasing your metabolism and burning calories. Try to imagine a thousand of that action all over the body — removing heat and producing heat. By the way, the cold doesn’t enter the skin, it just attracts the heat away. You’re burning calories, about 1,000 in one session. If your lifestyle used to be active and then became inactive, what the body wrap does is simulate, say, your running, even without you running.”

A doctor consults with a client.

That’s why, Prestidge says, the body wraps “are the best alternative to exercising to lose weight.”

And, of course, there is that “secret ingredient” in the wraps that was invented in Switzerland when Marie France started in 1983, and which the center has developed over the decades.

  Marie France also offers programs for people who are already in their  ideal weight but have other issues such as bulges and cellulite.  And this is where the money-back guarantee gets really good. The program  includes not just weight loss, but inch loss and toning as well. “That’s part of the guarantee,” says Dr. Torres. “It’s three and a half months of  weight loss and two and a half months of Physique, then there’s the anti cellulite at the end. The reason for this is that when you’re starting to lose weight and inches, some of the bumps would already be produced on the body. Normally the excess fat on the skin is not noticeable if it’s very taut, but when your weight is going down you might see the cellulites.”

Marie France’s Physique Inch-Loss lets you tone and tighten flabs comfortably and effortlessly. One 15-minute session equals the effect of doing 225 sit-ups but with no strain and pain, while the TriPollar Tummy is a breakthrough tri-polar radio frequency treatment that penetrates trapped fat to reduce unwanted inches and bulges. It also promotes the production of collagen to help firm up and tighten droopy, wrinkly skin. VelaContour, which actress Carmi Martin does, is an FDA-approved treatment for body contouring and cellulite reduction. It trims down love handles, muffin tops or flabs. VelaContour uses the combination of infrared, radio frequency and skin firming.

Prestidge says that some of their clients have lost weight and inches on their own but come to Marie France for cellulite treatment, “especially with those who have lost weight quickly. We’re offering the complete package from weight loss to inch loss to toning to cellulite removal.”

While all committed clients are success stories, some stand out more than others.

Dr. Torres relates that actress Dawn Zulueta, an endorser and long-time client, had cellulite even when she was only 15 and underweight! “If you look at her photos then in swimsuit, she always had a towel because she was trying to hide her cellulite. When she got pregnant, her weight gain went twice than normal. We treated her in 2006 for three months and then we launched her, wearing a bikini, in billboards. Dawn was very committed, when she was here Manila, she would be at the center every other day to do the treatments, when she was back home in Davao she would be doing supplementary activities like walking.”

Sandy Santamaria, Sharon Cuneta’s business manager, also tried the weight-loss program. In less than two months, she went from 121 to 106 lbs.

Another client was beauty queen Carline Aguilar. “She was in top shape when she joined the pageant with a 26-inch waist, then she got pregnant in the US, and when she came back we treated her. Her waistline became 25 inches, even smaller than when she joined the pageant.”

Another success story is Sandy Santamaria, Sharon’s business manager, “whom we asked to try out just to see for herself that the treatments work. She was doing badminton twice a week and hardly ate rice but couldn’t lose the stubborn weight. In less than two months of treatments, she went from 121 to 106 lbs. She still does the treatments, and she looks very slim now,” says Dr. Torres.

“Carmi Martin today looks as good, has the same body as when she was a White Castle model.” 

Marie France makes it easy for its clients with busy schedules to stay with their programs, with centers opening at 7 a.m. and closing at 8 p.m. Some clients do their sessions during lunch break, like the FMS Body Wrap takes only about 35 minutes.

Marie France knows that the key for long term weight management is not just in reducing fat today. ‘The secret lies in a systematized, balanced approach with proper focus on weight control and in the creation of healthy eating habits for life so that results are sustained, with no rebound — something that is often lacking in other slimming methods and approaches.”

Dr. Torres says that the time for noninvasive treatments has really come. About 15 years ago, of the top 10 procedures for aesthetics, seven were surgical, and three were noninvasive. Today, nine are noninvasive and only one is surgical.” 

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For inquiries, call Marie France at 894-2639.