Body Wrap

Body Wrap

I have to say that getting a body wrap is THE silliest, most futile effort that I've made to shed a few pounds. Normally, in preparation for something such as my wedding or a vacation, I'll watch what I eat and work out more regularly to achieve a frame that is about five pounds lighter. That usually starts a few weeks before an occasion. But when my dear husband surprised me with a trip to Costa Rica, I was very excited and also very unprepared. Almost instinctively, one hand slipped down to a love handle while the other fell to a saddlebag, and I felt around trying to gauge how much work I had cut out for me in less than a week. I immediately began scouring the Internet for the solution to losing five pounds or more in about five days.

Diet pills? Nah. I needed to do this without somehow poisoning my body. Lipo? Oh, nooo... I've seen that done on TV and I will NOT subject myself to such battery. Besides, with how much the procedure costs it's either that or the vacation, not both! I don't do liquid diets. That would just make me bitchy... So, I kept coming back to this body wrap idea. I knew it sounded too good to be true, but I was desperate. It took only an hour, cost $100, and boasted claims about losing 6-21 inches with one wrap. It claimed to rid the body of toxins, which are supposedly responsible for excess inches and cellulite. Plus smoother and tighter skin to boot. Since I didn't have to ingest anything, I gave it a try.

When I got there, the room smelled. It smelled like old sweat. I had a real problem with that. The woman had me take off everything except for my panties, and when I am disrobing for any type of procedure, I want to feel like the room is pristine. She came back in and proceeded to wrap me up tightly with ace bandages that were soaked in some cocktail of herbs and juices and berries meant to extract toxins and fat from my cells and into my lymphatic system. She wrapped me so tightly that it was uncomfortable. My whole body was wrapped, so I literally looked like a mummy. Then- gasp!- she asked me to get on the elliptical! What?! The whole reason I was there was because I had been avoiding exercise. She explained to me that I had to keep my body moving to let all the toxins flow right on out. She said I only needed to move a little bit; the goal was not to break a sweat and burn calories but to just keep moving. I guess.

She left me in the room with the elliptical and a movie and told me to keep moving for 45 minutes. Now, while I understood that the goal was not to get a workout here, it was impossible not to. I was barely moving, but when you are bound tightly with unyielding ace bandages, this is quite a feat. I was short of breath, but I kept it moving. And I felt very silly. I kept looking down at the tub underneath the machine that was there to catch all of the liquid straining off of me as I moved, which supposedly contained all my evil, unwanted toxins. All of the sense inside of me told me that pure physics just wouldn't allow this to actually work. So this magic formula is seeping through my skin, into my cells, rounding up all the toxins and fat it that could inside of each cell, then whisking it away, out of the cell, out through my skin, and down into this tub? Riiight... but I kept moving.

Forty-five minutes couldn't come fast enough, and when it finally did I was so grateful to have the constricting bandages removed. And I honestly believe that once they were, everything fell right back into place. See, all wrapped up tightly I looked great. Everything was sucked up and flat and smooth. It was like one big body Spanx. But just like when you remove those Spanx at the end of the day, everything gets let out, cellulite and all. It was a letdown. Sure, she measured me, before and after, and afterwards there was the reported inch or half inch here and there, but nothing to write home about.

I really enjoyed my vacation anyway, with my extra five pounds of upholstery and visible cellulite. Really, at an all-inclusive resort, by day three or four I usually gain back at least some of anything I'd lost anyway.

xoxo nkechi