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Body

Fat Freeze in action

How does Fat Freeze work?

So what exactly is Fat Freeze?

This is one of the most popular questions I get asked in my clinic.  Fat Freeze is what most of us call it,  but its’ real name is Cryolipolysis.  The treatment involves ‘freezing’ the fat on your body to cause the fat cells to die off.  It’s a fairly quick and easy way to get rid of a pocket of fat without having to do exercise.

How does Fat Freeze work?

A suction cup is used to ‘suck’ up the area of fat and this area is cooled during a treatment for around 1 hour. The fatty tissue is cooled below body temperature to around -6 degrees Celsius (but not too low to cause you to freeze!) which causes fat cell death (apoptosis). Gradually over the course of approximately 2-4 months it results in a reduction of the fatty tissue layer.

Results have been shown and published in medical journals including ‘Aesthetic Plastic Surgery’ in 2009.  I’ll paraphrase the results for you to make it easier to understand:

‘Treatment reduced fat in the area by 20% at 2 months and 25.5% when measured 6 months later. Six out of Nine people felt reduced sensation immediately after, but the feeling returned around 3 weeks later. There were no lasting sensation problems or skin damage in any of those who had the treatment.’

Their Conclusion…

“Noninvasive cryolipolysis (fat freezing) results in substantial fat reduction within 2 months of treatment without damage to skin.”    Read the full study for yourself here

What areas can you freeze?

The stomach is probably one of the easiest and most obvious places to freeze.  Basically if you can grab it with your hand, and get a decent handful, then you can more than likely freeze it!  Other areas include thighs, love handles, under shoulder blades, knees if enough fat, and the chin!

3D Lipo Fat Freeze Wigan

We use the 3D Lipo brand for Fat Freeze treatment, and the reason for this is that the machine offers more than 1 option.  Not all fat pockets are the same!  So it’s handy to be able to use different sized heads and also to be able to offer alternative methods if Fat Freezing isn’t the right one.

For example if the fatty tissue is harder and you can’t easily grab it, then Cavitation might be a better alternative.  Or if the skin is very loose after childbirth or weight loss then it’s a good idea to tighten the skin at the same time, (which won’t happen with Fat freezing – in fact that may make it worse).  For example it’s possible to tighten the skin with Radiofrequency and Cavitation together.

Will the fat come back?

Not if you maintain your weight!  This treatment absolutely kills of fat cells so you’ll have less fat cells than you did before.  However when you put weight on, the fat cells engorge – so they inflate like balloons… and you get bigger.

Also new fat cells are created quickly, but dieting can’t eliminate them. Once fat cells form, they might shrink during weight loss, but they do not disappear, which is why once you’ve created new fat cells, it’s really hard to stay slim.  Fat freezing is therefore an excellent procedure to reduce the overall number of fat cells.

Does Fat freeze have any side effects?

The skin is protected by a specially designed cloth / pad which has anti-freeze properties so that the surface of the skin is safely protected.  However you will look quite pink straight afterwards.

There aren’t many Fat Freeze side effects.  Your skin can feel numb for several days (a bit like if you’ve got a dead arm when you’ve been lying on it for too long) but the feeling will return.

You can get a blister or a bruise or sometimes changes in skin colour, although all these are uncommon and usually just rectify in a matter of days or weeks (if pigmentation changes occur then it can take a few months)

My opinion

Is that 3D Lipo Fat Freeze is a very successful treatment – and will reduce the fat pocket by 20-40%.  I would tell everyone not to expect unrealistic results – it’s not going to get rid of every single fat cell in the area, like liposuction can, but that’s just the thing… with this you don’t have to have expensive, potentially risky surgery.  If the pocket of fat is quite large, you may want to expect to have the treatment done again in the same area after 3-4 months.

This treatment is great for stubborn pockets of fat, and will reduce them.  It’s not the right treatment if you want to loose weight all over your body. I would recommend that you start your weight loss first, and think of this as the treatment to give you extra help on stubborn areas, or to have in conjunction with weight loss.

If you have any questions regarding Fat Freezing, then feel free to email me at: rach@radiantliving.co.uk

Thanks for reading!

Rachael