Body Contouring & Slimming

It is a group of treatments that change the shape of a specific area without surgery, anaesthetic or recovery time. Some reduce the fat in a defined pocket, some build the muscle beneath it, and some work on fluid and circulation. All of them are applied from the surface of the skin, and you walk out and carry on with your day.

No, and it is the single most important thing to understand before booking. The mass involved is small enough that the scale often does not move at all. It changes the outline of one area rather than reducing your body weight, and it does nothing for the deep visceral fat that carries the actual health risk.

Cryolipolysis has the strongest evidence of anything in this section, with a consistent reduction of roughly 20–25% of the pinchable fat layer per round in a treated area. The rest range from modest to supportive. We would rather be specific about which is which than describe the whole menu in the same confident terms.

Usually yes if you are close to your usual weight and there is a soft pocket you can pinch that has not shifted with diet or training. Usually no if you are looking for weight loss, or if the area is firm rather than pinchable, which generally means the fat sits too deep to reach. The consultation answers this properly.

For fat reduction, one to three rounds per area, decided by how much is there and how much you want changed. Muscle and massage programmes run longer, typically six to twelve sessions. Your own plan is set at the consultation once we have seen and assessed the area, not before.

The same area is not re-treated with cryolipolysis for eight to twelve weeks, because that is how long your body takes to clear the last round — treat it again sooner and you are guessing at a result you cannot yet see. Muscle and massage programmes run far closer together, usually once or twice a week.

Between about thirty and sixty minutes for most areas, depending on how many applicators or programmes are involved, plus the massage afterwards. Allow extra for the first appointment, which includes the assessment, photographs and measurements.

It depends on the area, how many applicators or programmes it takes and how many rounds your plan calls for. Your first consultation is complimentary, and you will have the full cost in writing before anything is booked, including whether a package or individual sessions works out better for you.

Cryolipolysis is intense for the first few minutes as the applicator draws the area in and the cold sets in, after which the area goes numb and most people read or work through the rest. The massage afterwards is the part people mention. Laser sessions are painless, and muscle stimulation is felt as strong contractions rather than pain.

After cryolipolysis: redness, swelling, firmness, tenderness, cramping and bruising in the area, settling over days, with numbness in the treated patch that can last one to three weeks. Muscle programmes can leave the same soreness as a hard session at the gym. None of it requires time off.

The uncommon one worth knowing about is paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, where the treated area grows firmer and larger instead of smaller over the months afterwards. It is rare, it is not dangerous, and it does not resolve on its own — it needs correcting surgically. Any clinic offering cryolipolysis should raise this with you before you consent, and we do.

Cryolipolysis is ruled out by cold-related conditions such as cryoglobulinaemia, cold agglutinin disease and paroxysmal cold haemoglobinuria, and by a hernia at the site. Muscle stimulation is ruled out over a pacemaker, defibrillator or metal implant. All of it is deferred in pregnancy and breastfeeding, and over active infection or broken skin.

The earliest change shows around three to four weeks, and the area is not finished settling until eight to twelve. Measurements usually move before your eye registers anything, which is exactly why the photographs and measurements at the first appointment matter more than they seem to at the time.

The fat cells cleared from a treated area are gone and do not come back. What is not permanent is the outcome: every cell you still have expands and shrinks with your weight as it always did, so gaining weight afterwards still shows, just distributed differently. A stable weight is what holds the result.

Often, yes. One round takes roughly a fifth to a quarter of the pinchable layer, which is a visible change and not the whole of it. We compare against your starting photographs at eight to twelve weeks and decide then, on what the area actually did rather than on a package sold in advance.

Frequently that is the better plan, because fat, muscle and fluid are separate reasons an outline looks the way it does. A common combination is fat reduction for a pocket, muscle work for the tone underneath and lymphatic massage through the course. What the combination should be depends entirely on the assessment.