A magic laser genie!

August 17, 2010 2:59 PM

I have about 10-15 pounds to lose and am already on a slow but steady diet/exercise regime. However I was just sent an online deal where I'd have the option of buying 12 sessions of RF laser body contouring (similar to Velashape) for only $200 (as opposed to over 2 grand.) Is it worth it to try?

I know there is no magic weight loss procedure other than diet/exercise or surgery, but I haven't been having much success googling whether the testimonials and claims of Velashape and other radio-frequency fat-melting tools are actually valid. It is FDA approved to lessen thigh circumference, which is something I guess.

I know that this service claims to "burn" 500 cals each treatment and reduce waist circumference after multiple sessions, with monthly maintenance sessions. So 12 sessions x 500 calories would equal 1.7 pounds of fat burned from around my waist. The procedure claims to "deflate" the fat cells. Since I'm already operating at a small caloric deficit due to my diet/exercise regime, I wouldn't immediately re-inflate my fat cells, right? Or am I just buying snake oil?

I'm a usually skeptical person, but this deal seems like a good chance to try it out. However if someone can direct me to proof that this kind of thing is a scam, I'll save my money and just resign myself to my very slow weight loss. (FWIW, I've been working out and dieting low-carb for about five months, and have only lost ten pounds. If this can jump-start my losing my final ten pounds, it will definitely be worth the money for me, even just for morale's sake.)

Any anecdotes of personal experience would be as appreciated as any scientific opinions of this being bullshine.

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (17 answers total)

I can't vouch for the snake oil. But I would observe that 10-15lb is really pretty easy to lose through diet and exercise. So from that point of view, I'd say cut out a few carbs, sweat a bit more and save the $200.
posted by rhymer at 3:03 PM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Stay on course.
In the long run, by staying on your sensible diet/exercise routine, you are training yourself to be able to keep the weight off in the future. Snake-oil quick fixes cannot make such a claim.
Well...of course they can claim it. They just can't prove it.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:09 PM on August 17, 2010

$200 for a 1.7-pound loss? You can probably lose that in a week if you try (at least the beginning; when I started eating healthier, weight started melting off of me at upwards of 2 lbs/week and then leveled off to a more steady, healthy pace).
posted by Gordafarin at 3:17 PM on August 17, 2010

Your rate of weight loss is excellent. I would skip the questionable body contouring treatment and stick with your current regimen. Aside from saving you money, improved diet and exercise have all kinds of secondary benefits that the body contouring doesn't. RF laser treatments won't give you muscle tone, cardiovascular health, or ward off depression the way more exercise will. It also, as Thorzdad says, won't help you develop the habits that will keep the weight off in the long term.

As for needing a morale boost... I'd spend $200 at a day spa instead to reward myself for sticking to my plan. I hit my weight loss goal of 15 pounds last year, and it took me about 14 months. In the middle, there were a couple of months where I gained weight, even though I was sticking to my plan. It was depressing. But aside from being temporary, it reset my instincts about realistic time frames for weight loss and the relationship between my weight and my health, or my looks. I wouldn't want to give that up, and I feel like getting treatments such as you describe could short-circuit that sort of brain rewiring.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 3:26 PM on August 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

You can't lose weight except by losing weight. There is no system that can zap 10-15 pounds off you.

By asking for proof that this is a scam, you're asking to prove a negative. If I could find proof that any system of this kind could do anything useful, I'd show you that.
posted by tel3path at 3:26 PM on August 17, 2010

Never tried it. This website lists pros and cons about it. Can't vouch for the website, but I find it slightly sketchy that 'maintenance therapy' is suggested every 1-2 months - if 12 sessions are usually 2000$, you're gonna be really shelling out after the initial 200$ trial.

I have tried, in my younger years, going to a 'diet spa' wherein an extremely terrifying suction machine was applied to my stomach and ass, sat in a sauna while wearing a garbage bag, got rolled up with plastic wrap with a heated blanket around me and ate a 800-calorie-a-day diet. All this crap did was suck the hard-earned money out of my wallet instead of sucking the fat out of my gut. I lost weight - I got down to about 110 pounds, but it didn't last: I'm talking the week after I stopped and actually put real food in my mouth, I gained back seven pounds. It was also incredibly demoralising - if I wasn't lighter every time I went, the owners would make a sad face and tell me I'd have to eat less. So, you know, it was an epic body-image-shattering vortex of suck that didn't help AT ALL with me feeling fat and hideous.

I'm hesitant to say 'go for it' - from my experience at that hellhole of plastic wrap, the people running the Velashape thing are going to continually push their product on you and tell you if you don't keep it up, you'll 'gain weight', and that's how they pay for their new BMW.

Stick with exercise and a good diet. It sucks but it's the only thing that really works long term. Save your 200 bucks and buy some really awesome Kobe beef or fresh salmon or something - it'll taste fantastic and you won't have a buzzing plastic tube trying to inhale your rear.
posted by zennish at 3:31 PM on August 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

...by which I mean DON'T GO FOR IT
posted by zennish at 3:31 PM on August 17, 2010

More calories burned than consumed = weight loss. There's no way around it. Up your cardio and strength training intensity, eat sensible small meals every 3 hours, drink a lot of water, and stay away from lasers! (and remember, your body also burns calories at rest... add that into your caloric burn count for a day)

I second lefty lucky cat... if you really want to blow $200, spend it on a reward for yourself for the great progress you've made so far!

I tried some quick research on Velashape, and FWIW most hits on it are either promotional in nature or from postings on a Consumer Complaint forum/board.

CONSISTENCY with your diet and exercise is the key.
posted by matty at 3:33 PM on August 17, 2010

70% diet, 30% exercise. If you are serious about loosing weight and you've never had good success you may need to re-learn how to eat. It isn't strictly a question of fewer calories, but more a question of the types of calories to make sure your body is running efficiently. Lean pockets may have fewer calories than hot pockets, but you wouldn't necessarily be building a dietary foundation on anything that will help you loose weight in the long term. Go to the bookstore, look for "The Eat Clean Diet" and/or "The Eat Clean Diet for Men" by Tosca Reno. In the worst case, you're out $20. If you read it, and try to digest what their saying (and make accompanying changes) you'll probably start to see a nice weight loss.

Nice, by the way, does not mean 10 pounds in two weeks. Nice means, 1-2 pounds a week as your body learns to process new foods and your body starts to get fuel instead of gunk for food.

Now, I'll tell you -that's just part of it... Parallel to diet is exercise, which means conditioning your body for exercise over a few weeks (adapting), then training harder. And training doesn't just mean cardio. Training means learning what your baseline is and then slowly adjusting your baseline. Realistically, you want to do it with a trainer if you have no experience with personal fitness - that way you learn good form and you have a cost motivator to keeping with the program. A good trainer will assess you and make you do things you never expected you could do: put your faith in a trainer. Training sessions will run you anywhere from $40-$110 bucks a session (generally multi-session discounts) depending on your local economy. Yes, that means that you could be spending MORE than the $200 that this magic laser genie costs.

Here's the thing. There is no magic weight loss pill. There is no magic thin button. There is no melting fat, there is no deflating fat cells, there is no quick 10 pound loss that will stay a 10 pound loss.

If you want to loose the weight, and you seriously want to fix things - then you have to prioritize it and learn to make the life decisions to do so. Anything less and you should just save your money. If you won't make the time and monetary expenditure for actual exercise, don't waste your money on snake oil - be it bowflex, the ab glider, power yoga, or fat burner 5000.

Disclosure: my wife is a trainer and she knows her stuff. Hopefully some of what I've picked up from her is useful to you - it has been useful to me.
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:07 PM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

this may just be me, but when it comes to being bombarded with lasers, I would prefer not to go cut-rate.
posted by Sara Anne at 4:33 PM on August 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
posted by reenum at 4:55 PM on August 17, 2010

I came on here to say what Gordafarin said. Even if this is far cheaper than normal, $200 to lose LESS THAN 2 pounds? You can lose that in 1-2 weeks just by basic dieting (not even worrying about exercise) in a much healthier, much more natural manner. You said the treatment is 12 sessions to lose that < 2 pounds - how long does that take? If it's a treatment per day or so, than it's going to take LONGER than if you had just dieted. I.e. you'd be paying $200 to lose weight slower than you could do on your own for free.
posted by Diplodocus at 7:15 PM on August 17, 2010

As an athlete, it's baffling that you'd consider spending $200 to lose weight.

What you need is hard work and a plan.

Have you been doing EVERYTHING you can to lose weight? I am 100% sure that you have not. People don't give 100%. It's just too hard. They're not used to it. But my point is, you can do more. You can do more research, eat a little better, work more efficiently.

Save your money.

Be patient.

Be happy when you realize you saved $200.
posted by jykmf at 9:22 PM on August 17, 2010

I've been working out and dieting low-carb for about five months, and have only lost ten pounds

I have nothing to add about Velashape. I just wanted to say congratulations, this is excellent progress. Good for you!

If you try the procedure, please let us know how it works out.
posted by I am the Walrus at 8:58 AM on August 18, 2010

Oh boy. Several things.

As someone who lost 50 pounds years ago and has kept it off ever since, I'm at least marginally qualified to comment:

1) Regarding the statement: "It isn't strictly a question of fewer calories, but more a question of the types of calories to make sure your body is running efficiently." -- Ignore that. That's simply not how the human body works. You'll find loads of incorrect info like that, but it invariably comes from a book that some "expert" wants you to buy. Here's how you know that info like that is bogus: it doesn't appear in any major medical textbook.

2) The method I used was pretty simple: I ate less than I burned. Figuring out how much you eat is easy if you're willing to be disciplined and stick to things that you know (or can determine) the calorie counts of, but figuring out the second part is a bit harder. First, you'll need to calculate your basal metabolic rate or BMR. (Your BMR is the amount of energy that your body will consume in a 24 hour period just keeping you alive.) There are a number of formulas for doing this, but most research points to the Mifflin-St. Jeor method as being the most accurate. Take that number, subtract a bit just to err on the side of caution (I dropped 150 from it, but I'm not you), and shoot for 150-300 calories less than that.

3) Exercise. Yes, eating less than your BMR will cause you to drop weight, but adding exercise to the mix will help you lose it faster. Exercise does two things: it raises your resting metabolic rate and it consumes energy while you're doing it. Don't factor this in to your daily tallies, otherwise you'll fall prey to saying "well I worked out really hard, so I can allow myself _____"

4) Don't bother with a low-carb or low-fat diet. Eat normal proportions of protein, fat, and carbohydrates (see the USDA/HHS guidelines for these ratios), but just reduce your total intake. "But -1!", I hear you say, "so-and-so lost a ton of weight doing a low-carb diet!". Yes. They likely did. They also put themselves in ketosis (assuming they did the diet "right"), which is something you want to avoid unless you know what you're doing. Ketosis is one way to achieve weight loss, but it's usually quite unpleasant for a lot of reasons and has some pretty nasty side effects (such as an increased risk of kidney stones due to the tendency to become dehydrated.) Save yourself the hassle and skip the Atkins approach.

5) Ignore anyone who stands to make a profit from giving you dietary advice with the sole exception of your physician (not just any physician -- your physician). Anyone who has a hot tip they found in a diet book, anyone who wrote a diet book, anyone who's offering a new treatment... ignore them. They're either fudging the truth, lying, or just plain wrong.

That's really all there is to it: make sure you eat fewer calories than you burn, don't worry too much about what you eat (provided it's a somewhat normal, relatively-balanced, diet), and keep on exercising!

Love,
-1
posted by -1 at 8:07 PM on August 18, 2010

One thing I forgot to add:

There is one method that will allow you to lose weight instantly and that is pretty much guaranteed to work: liposuction. Before you pick up the phone to your plastic surgeon, however, you should know that the long term success rate ain't great. In fact it's pretty poor. A large proportion of people who experience dramatic weight loss via plastic surgery tend to gain some or all of it back. You're far better off with diet and exercise -- but I figured in the interest of full disclosure I should explain that there is at least one surefire way to get rid of fat: to make a small cut into the offending area(s) and suck it out.

As far as 'magic' laser treatments go: I'll believe it when I see it in a peer-reviewed journal.
posted by -1 at 8:12 PM on August 18, 2010

-1: "Eat normal proportions of protein, fat, and carbohydrates (see the USDA/HHS guidelines for these ratios), but just reduce your total intake. "But -1!", I hear you say, "so-and-so lost a ton of weight doing a low-carb diet!". Yes. They likely did. They also put themselves in ketosis (assuming they did the diet "right"), which is something you want to avoid unless you know what you're doing. Ketosis is one way to achieve weight loss, but it's usually quite unpleasant for a lot of reasons and has some pretty nasty side effects (such as an increased risk of kidney stones due to the tendency to become dehydrated.) Save yourself the hassle and skip the Atkins approach."

I have to disagree with this. Eating "normal proportions of protein, fat, and carbohydrates" is what gets people fat in the first place. Permanently replacing some of the protein, fat, and grains in your diet with fruits and vegetables is a good strategy for permanent weight loss. Just eating less food temporarily is a strategy for temporary weight loss.
posted by I am the Walrus at 10:35 AM on August 19, 2010