16 hours ago
Banishing my belly with £550 fat freeze was so painful I nearly collapsed but was worth it after losing 6cm from waist
AS a roll of frozen fat the colour and shape of an extra large hot dog is forcibly massaged back into my stomach area I think, just for a second, that I may actually pass out.
My legs kick in the air as aesthetician Sadaf Jaffari massages and tries to defrost the fat cells in my tummy that she has just frozen to an icy four degrees.
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The aim is that those dead cells will slowly but surely over the following few weeks pass into my bloodstream and be excreted from my body through my lymphatic system.
Hey presto, a flat stomach for the first time in over a decade.
I was having a slimming tweakment called CoolSculpting.
It was the same one that stunning, leggy supermodel Linda Evangelista had – but bits of her body actually ended up FATTER.
But after a lot of research, I decided this non-surgical, non-invasive fat reduction treatment really was the one for me.
I have always been an 'apple'.
My legs and arms are decent, but as I've got older the weight – and fat – has piled on around my middle.
Although I'm far too old for a bikini, I did fancy the idea of having a flatter and even slightly toned stomach again, so I could wear some figure-hugging outfits.
I've had Botox with celebrity favourite Sadaf for many years.
She's a woman I trust and is so experienced with this treatment that she has been dubbed the 'CoolSculpting Queen'.
Inside the horrifying High St beauty firm butchering patients in dirty rooms with dodgy liposuction, fillers and BBLs
At her clinic in London's Chelsea, she explained how the body-contouring and fat-reduction treatment has changed since supermodel Linda had it.
Three years ago, one of the most photographed women in the world revealed that she had been left 'permanently deformed' and 'brutally disfigured' from the fat freezing procedure.
She suffered paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH), a rare side effect where fat cells expand instead of shrinking.
Linda had 'full-body liposuction' procedures in 2016 and 2017 to try and remove the hardened fat.
So you would think I was nuts to even attempt to have this.
But Sadaf explained how there was a new newly designed machine which provides better skin contact and more effective cooling. There is still a risk of PAH, but it's minimal.
My hour-long session cost £550 and kicked off with a rather embarrassing photo shoot.
I had to strip to my undies and stand sideways as her assistant snapped pics of my bulging tummy.
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Instinctively, I wanted to suck it all in, but that would have defeated the whole point.
Sadaf then soothingly agreed that I was a great candidate.
Which meant, in polite terms, I had plenty of pinchable fat.
I lay back on a bed in her clinic and she drew around an area of my muffin top before spreading over a heavy gauze with a thick jelly texture.
Then she grabbed the CoolSculpting 'head', which was a 30cm long and 10cm wide contraption attached to a large machine by a tube.
She laid the head on top of the gauze pad.
And that's when the fun really started. The machine began to make sucking and gulping noises as it suctioned my fat up and away into the gadget – and started to freeze it.
I sensed an intense cooling sensation for around two minutes, which might not sound very long, but it felt strange. And for the first time I started to wonder what on earth I was actually doing there.
'Just give it a couple of minutes,' Sadaf assured me. 'And then you won't feel a thing.'
She was right of course, all of a sudden everything went completely numb. If I am honest, it was all quite pleasant.
I just lay there, scrolling on my phone. I FaceTimed a friend, did a bit of work and happily daydreamed of my new toned and honed physique.
But the relaxed vibes were short-lived. Half an hour later, she was back to start the hideously intense massage.
Sadaf is petite – tiny in fact – but she is stronger than she looks and defrosting the crystals is agony.
The relaxed vibes were short-lived. Half an hour later, she was back to start the hideously intense massage
'This is the most important bit,' she said. 'This is how you get the best results.'
But I was warned to be patient. I had to wait several weeks before I started to notice those eagerly anticipated results.
And in the meantime I had to be brave and learn to deal with the strangest of sensations.
First off, the area felt entirely numb.
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Because the device freezes fat, the nerves under the skin also get a chilling blast and it takes a while for them to come back to life. It looked bloated and swollen, but if I touched it, flicked it or squeezed it as hard as I could, I felt nothing. Absolutely no sensation at all. Zilch.
And I was fine with that.
But then, after about ten days, the itching started to creep in. And boy did it itch.
Imagine an army of angry ants crawling slowly but surely all over your torso.
After speaking to Sadaf, she suggested taking antihistamines. The itching is often a result of the body's inflammatory response to the fat cell damage.
As I am prone to an allergy or two, I had plenty of tablets at my disposal. After taking them for a couple of days, the itching subsided.
On the upside, at least I knew that the weirdness meant it was working.
Unlike the surgical procedure liposuction, that removes fat through a suction technique, the results aren't immediate or dramatic.
CoolSculpting is a non-surgical, non-invasive treatment and it can take months for results to show.
SMOOTHER STOMACH
But now, ten weeks later, I can definitely see some.
The whole area around my stomach is smoother and less flabby. You can visibly see that there is less fat there.
I recently went on holiday and could wear a tight dress without having a bulging gut.
I even asked The Geordie – my husband, who is a man of few compliments – if it looked any flatter and he agreed it did. Result!
And the tape measure even shows results too.
At a recent health check up I discovered that I've lost 6cm off my waist in the past year. And I know there's zero chance of that being down to sit ups or knocking Sauvignon Blanc on the head!
I am planning to have another round of CoolSculpting – when I have saved up for it, because it does cost £550 a go – as there is no limit to the number of treatments you can have. You just need to wait for a couple of months in between them.
Obviously the quicker route to achieve fat melting is the surgical one, but the risks and costs are so much higher and CoolSculpting really is something you can have during your lunchtime.
So – unless you want to tell the world about it, as I have just done – it can be your own little secret.
