Kick Start – My Hypoxi Shape-Up

Posted: Tuesday 4 January 2011 12:59pm

Claiming she felt fat and frumpy after a gourmet’s delight holiday in France and Belgium last year following major surgeries, Younger You writer Kate Mahon needed a kick start to get back into her diet and exercise regimen. She chose Hypoxi, billed as “a revolution in body shaping therapy using specialised cellulite-zapping machines to increase blood circulation through the use of vacuum technology.”

When I came home from holidays I planned to join the gym and go on a diet, but to push things along faster in time for summer, I decided to have Hypoxi. It turned out to be a good motivational tool, so I’m glad I spent the advised 12 sessions there, going three times a week.

My legs were looking particularly bad. In the past year, not only had I been on a holiday to France and Belgium where I’d eaten and drunk to my heart’s content, I’d endured three major operations, which seemed to take its toll on the sponginess of my legs. I was taking lots of medications, which I think had just built up in my system.

When I had my first weigh-in, measurement and consultation with Patricia Rogers, National Marketing and Commercial Co-ordinator for Hypoxi, it was suggested I double up my sessions, to get maximum benefit from the workouts.

So instead of spending 30 minutes on the treatment, I booked in for a one hour session, in which you use a system called HypoxiDermology (HD) before hopping on the normal L20 trainer.

You need to be helped into the full plastic body suit, then you line down, unable to move, while the suit uses suction and compression to blow up and down. It feels hot, but quite good as it’s totally passive exercise – so you just chill out watching DVDs for 30 minutes.

Next you’re helped out of the suit, and into the bubble-like neoprene skirt, and onto another bicycle-like machine where you do work, pedalling away for 30 minutes.

It’s not hard, but you have to keep up the speeds and not fall into a lull by paying more attention to the DVDs and not your workout!

Afterwards, you feel great and exercise is completed until your next visit, usually two days later.

You’re advised to drink heaps of water, watch the carbs,  alcohol, sugar and fat consumption. Mostly I did this, but sometimes I must admit I went off the rails.

At the end of the month, I definitely felt much better, and could see a change in the shape of my legs. Yes, I had lost centimetres, weight and most of all; the fluid retention had gone down quite a lot. It’s a funny treatment but it worked for me, and I’d happily do it again.

by Jenni Gilbert

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