Can You Zap Away Fat With a Laser? Self’s Beauty Director Gives Her Results

Friday, July 22, 2011 at 9:41 AM   |  posted by selfeditor

SELF’s Beauty Director, Elaine D’Farley tested out three revolutionary anti-aging beauty treatments and bravely documents every detail. First up, the Zerona laser!

I love learning and when it comes to fat reduction I’m fascinated. There are lots of exciting things going on in the world of lasers, lights, and radio frequency treatments. For example, I was interested in Zeltiq when I heard about it. Cleared by the FDA in 2010 as a body contouring treatment, it uses a gel patch attached to a machine that freezes fat cells, making them self-destruct and get re-absorbed into the body over several months. I quickly set up an appointment and suddenly found myself strapped to a chair getting ready to freeze my pooch off, i.e. destroy my fat, when I realized I didn’t want to. Personally, the idea of killing part of my body to be slimmer seems counter intuitive to being healthy. When the nurse offered me ‘my last chance’ to disengage from the machine and call off the procedure, I did. I ran back to the office a bit traumatized but relieved. Then I heard about Zerona and WENT FOR IT..read on to see and hear about the results!

Zerona is a cold laser that helps fat cells develop pores allowing the stuff inside to empty out, flattening the fat cells, and then your body excretes it, just like when you detox, no self destruction required. I was intrigued. I liked the idea that my fat cells would remain intact, merely getting opened and drained, it made me feel more secure to know that the Zerona laser was encouraging and helping the body to do what it does naturally when you lose weight. I signed up for a consultation. I showed up at Dr. Jame Heskitt‘s office a bit wary. She was concise, quick and completely thorough in her description of the procedure along with being really knowledgeable about everything else out there, I trusted her. I decided to sign up for the six treatments.

On the designated day I showed up at 8:30am after dropping off my daughter at school and we did the “before” photos. Knowing how detailed SELF’s research team can get regarding these types of photos I was pleased to see little foot marks where you place your feet so that when you take the after photos you stand in exactly the same spot in the same way. Then I got measured. Next, I lay down on the bed with the lasers above me. It is completely painless; in fact it’s relaxing. I read and relaxed and 20 minutes later Dr. Jame popped in and turned me over. I marveled at the lights lingering over me like a benign octopus, noiselessly targeting my fat. It felt a little too good to be true. I returned five more times.

In between sessions I felt great, it was fun this idea of melting my fat while doing – ahem – nothing. You can’t drink alcohol while doing the treatments, so perhaps my diminished wine intake over 2 weeks helped melt a little fat too but however it works, I’ll take it. After the last session Dr. Jame told me to come back a week or so later because more fat would melt. I returned, we measured, and I lost! It worked: 9.5 inches overall. Here is the data to prove it: