A friend of mine said he’s thinking of buying a franchise to do ‘mineral body wraps’. Apparently, his wife went in for one of these things, and lost several inches off her waistline.
Being the skeptic that I am, I told him not to waste his money. These are the claims for this stuff:
[ul]
[li]It’s not dehydration. You actually get cold apparently, and you don’t lose weight. But you do lose inches off your body, as verified by before-and-after measurements.[/li][li]They make the standard quack claim - that the secret mineral/herb formula ‘leaches toxins from the body’. They claim this allows the cells to move closer together, essentially making you more dense.[/li][li]They claim the size reduction is permanent, as long as you don’t gain weight. But you have to eat special toxin-free diets or something for it to be permanent, or the inches come back in about a month.[/li][/ul]
My friend says his wife has gone three times for one of these, and each time they carefully measured her and verified that she lost inches. Also, she apparently attended a training session for potential franchisees, and they do practice wraps with straight water - which doesn’t cause the inch loss.
So, does anyone have the straight dope on this stuff? What is it, and what’s going on here? My first guess was that the people who are all wrapped up simply sweat away the inches, which come back soon thereafter. But that’s not what he claims.
I had one of these when I was young and naive. One thing that happens is that fat compresses fairly easily. Compress the fat and voila - you’re thinner! Doesn’t last long. Check a day or two later and you will be right back where you started.
Another thing they do is take a lot of measurements and add all the changes together. So if you take 16 measurements and you lose 1/8 inch at each measured area, you’ve lost 2 inches! :rolleyes:
I had these body wraps done - found a coupon for a series of three, special price, from a new spa down the street. Now, I am a big ol’ spa whore, so even though I never tried this before, I was game. Made the appointments and went off to be wrapped. Result? Nuthin’. Not a single damn discernable difference, and I was looking hard for any improvement, any improvement at all. Most of my friends I asked later had the same experience - I guess I should have asked around first.
I will get myself buffed, rubbed, polished, waxed, and plucked, but never again wrapped. So I’m not sure your friend could count on a lot of repeat business.
Well, the one thing that has me stumped is that my friend swears up and down that when they did the wrap with plain water, there was no measurable difference. When they used the magic formula, inches were taken off. That can’t be explained by straight compression of the body.
My first assumption was that the oily substance might inhibit the body’s ability to shed heat though evaporation, causing it to sweat more heavily or something. My second thought was perhaps there is something in the solution that causes the skin to temporarily tighten (much like the ‘anti-wrinkle’ creams you can buy), thus compressing the fat a little bit.
Anyone else have a clue out there? Anyone with a health background who might have the straight dope?