The weighting game

Fat. Pounds. Inches. I bet a shudder just ran through your entire body. So you get up, walk to the mirror and check to see if these three simple words bear meaning or pose a threat to your life. Like you, many will like what they see but many will also wish they did more to eliminate a bump here, a lump there.

The war on weight is on but right now, overshadowing it is the war on weight loss, specifically how to go about it and how far you would go for it. You go to the gym, you run, you give up sweets, run some more, give up rice, pump some iron or maybe just starve yourself. Those are the usual avenues.

But there are also those ways considered taboo, weight loss avenues that raise brows and are rarely proper dinner-table conversation: easy, quick-fix weight loss treatments that don't require a lift of a single finger. The most popular is liposuction, a treatment that has promulgated one too many urban legends. What scared people off it is also what has fascinated them: the thrill and chill of seeing blood and fat being sucked up a tube and into a place where they can propagate no more. You can become a babe from liposuction. Or you can die from it.

These days, however, clinically performed weight loss treatments have spiffed up a bit. Treatments now are more specific, offering non-surgical technologies that do away with downtime, bloodshed and the fear factor, making weight loss treatments nearly a drive-through industry.

Miracle treatments now rely on multi-million-peso laser and radio frequency machines instead of scalpels and tubed jars. At Skin Inc., a new skin clinic in Magallanes, three non-surgical treatments give different options for skimming inches off your body, two of them using laser and radio frequency (Body Master Endermologie and Smartwave Body Contouring) and one relying on the injected cocktails of mesotherapy (Lipo-dissolve).

Endermologie is basically an anti-cellulite treatment that also helps stave off inches. Two rollers and gentle suction action stretches out the connective tissue, leading to cellulite removal and a significant loss of inches. Think of a lumpy pancake being smoothened out. (It's FDA-approved, by the way.) 

Body contouring works with non-polar radio frequency, which heats up the skin all the way to the underlying fat and tissue. The deep-tissue heating brings about detoxification and lymphatic drainage. The skin is then smoothed out with a vacuum and massaging rollers. Essentially, skin is tightened and texture is improved: no more stretch marks and sagging skin.

More people are familiar with mesotherapy: injected mixes of vitamins, medication and supplements that dissolve fat right where you want it. With the barest pinprick of pain, you get slimmer legs and thighs and arms and a flatter abdomen. Combined with one or both of the other treatments, these quick-fix losses can give you the body of your dreams, minus the sweat, tears and locker room trauma.

For a lot of people, that’s about as good as it gets. Francine, 33 and president of an advertising and PR company, goes for a body-contouring session about two to three times a week. “I used to go to the gym but when I put up my own company, I found I didn’t have time to go anymore. The RF machine gives me what I want quickly." That would be nearly 1.5 inches disappearing into nowhere every session. "I don’t really care if it’s water weight or fat that I lose as long as I see instant results.” It’s a very Machiavellian approach to weight loss, one that is fast becoming popular.

Many traditionalists think that weight dropped and fat lost without the gym action, active sweating and teeth-gnashing muscle pain is not the real deal. Maybe it isn’t.

That’s why it’s called a quick fix, and the doctors at Skin Inc. are quick to point out that all treatments should be complemented with regular exercise and a balanced diet anyway. It’s like massaging on anti-cellulite cream onto your thighs or drinking cups and cups of green tea to bolster digestion, only a lot more effective.

Some people think it’s excessive vanity. But then so is full-on makeup and hair rebonding — you just don’t have as many critics for the latter. You work with what you have or around it; right now, the tools are just different. And if it really does make a gal feel better about herself, then why stand in the way of self-confidence. Says Francine, “It feels good when people notice that there’s something different about you. It feels great when you’re noticed and loved for how you look.” Isn’t that the same reason we spend thousands on the latest “it” bag anyway?

Some people also don’t agree with the hefty price tag for a lazy afternoon spent with a weight loss machine. Each endermologie or body-contouring session costs about P3,000 to P5,000; you’ll need about 20 to get desired, lasting results. It's a tough call, considering these sessions don’t exempt you from exercise or a sugar-free diet, and considering a monthly membership at the gym now averages a couple thousand pesos.

And some may wonder why I would bother writing about — or even present a defense of — quick-fix, weight loss treatments when I haven’t even undergone one myself. I’m not even sure I would want to. Maybe it’s just not my thing. Maybe I don’t feel I need it — yet. Maybe I’m traditional when it comes to weight loss. But that’s just me. And it’s probably there the final argument rests.

These treatments are personal. Your own body, your own preference, your own way of dealing with what you have or want to have. You go for half an hour and come out with part of you changed. It’s a come-and-go thing. Just like a haircut. Or a trip to the dentist for veneers. Or a trip to the drugstore for the perfect anti-aging moisturizer. And you don’t see anyone raising an eyebrow over that.

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Skin Inc. is located at 303-304 Triton Plaza, Magallanes Commercial Center, Paseo de Magallanes, Makati City. For more information, call 888-8888.