You are naturally slim your whole life. You got pregnant. You gave birth. You lost most of your baby weight. But your tummy stays. You have stubborn fat above the hip bone. You know, those lumps people call ‘love handles’? It just won’t budge no matter what you do. You are left with loose skin around the belly and you don’t have the confidence to wear your bikini again.

Oh, wait. That person was me. While I’m grateful (on days when I have enough sleep!) for my three children, I can’t help but moan what multiple pregnancies had done to my body.

And that is why I was more than happy when The Urban Clinic invited me to try the much-raved fat elimination treatment, Sculpsure. More than happy is an understatement, it was more like hell yeah!

Sculpsure

I admit I knew nothing when I walked into The Urban Clinic on that sunny Monday afternoon, back in late October last year. I thought Sculpsure was similar to CoolSculpting. I had heard of CoolSculpting before and hadn’t gone ahead with the treatment because I was put off by the potential downtime and damage to the skin. There’s also the downside of having a frozen block of fat appearing on the stomach. Yikes!

While I was filling in my particulars at the waiting area, a pretty, young doctor came and introduced herself as Dr Yanni. I was stuck by how good her skin looked – fair, smooth and glowing! She ushered me into her consultation room herself. Dr Yanni Xu was very friendly and she put me at ease immediately. I’ve never felt so relaxed whilst consulting a doctor. We talked about eeeeverything. Our conversation was a combination of consultation about my body and skin concerns, interesting lessons on the latest fat removal technologies, our lives, our kids and everything in between. I felt like we could totally be BFF, I was tempted to ask for her number and ask her out for a girl-date, but that would be weird right?

I digress. I soon found out that Sculpsure is an FDA-approved, laser light technology with the wavelength of 1060nm that only recognises fat cells. It passes through our skin without effecting it. When the light hits the fat cells, they get heated up and are destroyed permanently. The body then naturally eliminates the fats. It has no downtime at all. No medication and special diet required either.

It’s been clinically proven to destroy 24% of fat cells in one 25 minute treatment. The average loss from the waist is approx. 5cm. It sounds pretty amazing, eh? However, it only works best on smallish areas of fat and therefore, it’s best for those who are generally slim but have pockets of stubborn fat they want to shift, like yours truly.

Sounds too good to be true right? So enough about how it works, let’s get to business!

We moved on to the treatment room where I changed into a set of black disposable underwear. A nurse came into the room to take the ‘before’ photos of my midsection. Yes, it felt a little weird standing there while someone zoomed in on my flabby tummy but it’s necessary to track our progress.

Next, Dr Yanni marked the areas to be treated. After seated comfortably on a reclining seat, the nurse placed a belt with three rectangular frames on the left side of my waist. Then the applicators from the Sculpsure machine were clicked into these frames.

The machine took a few minutes warming up and went into 25 seconds intense warming and 10 seconds cooling cycles. At every cycle, I felt a cold tingling sensation that gradually heats up to a slight discomfort.

Dr Yanni and a nurse were there the whole time to make sure that I was comfortable. It’s funny because at the start of the treatment when they asked me how I felt, I actually thought I couldn’t take the heat, even though it was half-strength. But afterwards, when I was preoccupied with Instagram, they slowly turned the machine up to full strength and I didn’t even notice.

So I guess it was just my wussy mind playing tricks on me. All in all, I would say discomfort level was 2/10 for me. 25 minutes went by quickly and treatment resumed for another 25 minutes to treat the stubborn fat on the right side of my waist.

Lastly, the nurse gave me a quick massage and it’s done. There isn’t any aftercare instruction. There’s no medication or diet I’m supposed to follow and all I had to do is wait 6-12 weeks for the results to become evident. Contrary to other body contouring treatments which patients are told to go on extreme diets (soups only for a week, are you kidding me?) or take appetite suppressants, Dr Yanni believes in sensible, healthy, sustainable lifestyle. Sure, I can still have my chocolate indulgent every now and then, but she looked at why we have food cravings in the first place and advised me on how to counter them. She said my reason for nightly chocolate cravings is because of lack of calcium and sugar. A glass of milk should do the trick!

Contrary to other body contouring treatments which patients are told to go on extreme diets (soups only for a week, are you kidding me?) or take appetite suppressants, Dr Yanni believes in sensible, healthy, sustainable lifestyle. Sure, I can still have my chocolate indulgent every now and then, but she looked at why we have food cravings in the first place and advised me on how to counter them. She said my reason for nightly chocolate cravings is because of lack of calcium and sugar. So a glass of milk should do the trick!

So what happened to the fats? Basically, it dissolves within the first week but the body needs time to metabolise and expel it from our body. As we know, not all metabolisms are created equal, so some patients saw a change in as little as 3 weeks but most saw it within twelve.

My waist was 90.5cm when I had the treatment(Self-measured. They don’t do that at the clinic). By week four, my waistline dropped to 86.5cm and now it’s 85cm at 10th week. Pretty good, considering my increased calorie intake during the holiday season and a whole month of feasting in Sydney.

BTL Elixis Elite for my loose skin and front belly

Sculpsure isn’t the only body shaping technology The Urban Clinic offers. Seeing that I needed more help than losing love handles, Dr Yanni offered to tighten the loose skin on my belly. Having said that, she was also very realistic about my body fat composition. She told me the increase of fat around my bum and thigh areas is needed for breastfeeding and wouldn’t zap those away when I complained, which I really appreciate.

About 2 weeks after my Sculpsure treatment, I was put on the BTL Elixis Elite for 40 minutes. Here is what happened:

Video taken from my Instagram story 🙂

Elixis uses radio frequency waves to penetrate the skin and heat up some of the different layers. By delivering the radio frequency deeper into the tissues, the Exilis can “melt away” the fat. The actual process works by using energy to destroy the fat cells, which are then broken down and removed from the treatment area by the body’s natural processes. It is commonly used to remove belly fat after pregnancy, excess fat on the thighs and other parts of the body, as well as jowls, chin fat, and fat on other parts of the face.

It also helps to tighten skin by stimulating collagen production within the skin. The specific radio frequencies unravel the collagen fibres, causing fibroblasts to start producing more of this protein. This can have a skin tightening effect in the long term, by building up the fibre network in the skin.

The nurse began by placing an electro pad on my back. This was to dissipate any potential energy generated by the treatment so I wouldn’t get shocked. Yes, I think I had the same expression on your face right now when I heard that but it is a very safe treatment. I lied down comfortable on a bed and some oil was applied on my tummy.

As soon as the machine was turned on, I immediately felt the pad heated and cooled as she massaged the applicator in a circular motion. The Elixis applicator can get quite hot at times. But if it ever gets uncomfortable, you can always tell the nurse. Don’t be shy, I yelped a couple of times at the start. The nurse could turn the applicator to cool to make sure you are comfortable. The goal was to get my skin temperature up to between 39 and 40 degrees Celsius.

Every now and then, the nurse removed the handpiece to apply more oil. It’s a weird sensation. Even after the handpiece left the skin, the heat stayed – not on the skin, the warmth was below the skin. I also sweated quite a bit during the treatment.

Have I seen any significant difference after a treatment? To be honest, I can’t. It’s because I can’t remember how it looked like before. I mean who likes to stare at a postnatal belly marred with stretch marks and loose skin?

However, the something interesting happened after my second Elixis treatment, 3 weeks later. My abs feel tauter and my belly doesn’t jiggle as much, if you know what I mean. While it’s not like I gained a washboard abs after two sessions, but this is rather crazy considering I still had a pregnancy pouch 6 months after giving birth to Lauren. Will just turn 4 months recently and on most days, my tummy is rather flat!

I found myself in the bikini aisle the other day. Maybe, just maybe you will see me in a bikini real soon.

We are all different. The Urban Clinic has customised solutions for everyone according to their needs and budget. Read my next post on how Dr Yanni erased most of the pigmentation on my skin.

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The Urban Clinic
252, North Bridge Road, #01-15, Raffles City, S179103 | Phone: 62540407, 62540419
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