Fat fighter

At last – a convincing tool to tackle cellulite

I MADE A PACT with my cellulite a few years ago. I wasn’t going to engage with it any more. I’d done the years of hatred, resentment, dieting (made a difference to my shape but had not the weeniest impact on the dimples – dimples, hah!).

I exercised, and have the muscle tone and endorphin boosts to make it worthwhile, but it didn’t purge the scourge. Nor did a painful, lengthy and pricey course of needling that I was commissioned to write about for another magazine, which entailed several trips to Paris. Honestly, you’d think Paris would know what it was doing on this front. Liposuction seemed an option, albeit a drastic, scary one, until I heard terrible reports back from people who’d tried it and said in some cases it made things worse. I’d religiously tested a few expensive creams, but I knew before I used them they wouldn’t be worth actually spending money on. How could they be?

Cellulite is a psychopathic pest that carries out its spiteful little activity far beneath the skin in places potions and lotions can’t really reach. Not enough is known about it. What we do know is that cellulite is pockets of fat that get trapped between bands of tissue. Men on the whole don’t get it – something to do with their tissue being sturdier and keeping the pockets of fat where they should be. It may be caused by oestrogen spikes. This isn’t proven, but many women who’ve taken the pill would agree.

So I tried not to look in the mirror under downlighting, and focused on the positives. Then I was introduced to a little metal implement by Katie Brindle, a Chinese-medicine practitioner. I’ve written about Katie and her jade Hayo’u Facial Restorer elsewhere in this esteemed publication – it’s a wonder tool that you press and stroke (Chinese medicine calls this method gua sha) along your face to stimulate circulation (by as much as 400 per cent, according to those who know how to measure these things) and lymph drainage. It will even help clear spots.

The Body Restorer is the same plectrum shape, but made of metal. Its primary task is to reduce inflammation, which according to traditional Chinese thinking is at the root of many ailments.

You can use it through clothes, or directly on the skin (lubricate it with oil). The technique couldn’t be simpler: you press and stroke a maximum of eight times on key areas – the back of the neck, the chest and the lower back, behind the adrenals, which are responsible for releasing a key stress hormone. You can feel it clearing these areas as you do, which makes breathing deeply easier. The whole process takes about one minute, and Katie recommends doing it before bedtime to aid sleep. It’s demonstrated on a video on the Hayo’u website, but what she doesn’t say there is that it can help disperse cellulite (and even works wonders on hard skin on feet and bunions). Katie insists it has cleared her cellulite almost completely over a year. I’ve been using it for a few weeks and there is discernible improvement and no longer any painful blocked patches. The cellulite and I are once more engaged in talks. I don’t know whether I’ll ever banish it completely, but the Body Restorer is addictive. It’s definitely doing something.