Can a weight loss massage work? Sarah Vine has been testing the Remodellage treatment at The Grace Clinic and to say she is impressed is an understatement
I’ve had a few body treatments in my time. Massage, reflexology, lymphatic drainage, hydrotherapy, that thing where they wrap you up in bandages like a mummy and leave you to baste in your own juices. Some have worked - and some have not. But none even comes close to this new thing I’m having: Remodellage.
The first thing to say is that it’s French. Really French. It was developed by a French woman, Martine de Richeville, and it is practised by a Frenchwoman, Pauline de Jessey, at the Grace clinic in London . And IT IS ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I’VE EVER DONE, EVER.
I don’t use those caps lightly. Honestly and genuinely, it is transforming the way my body feels. Currently, I’m on my fourth session, and I was going to wait until my sixth to write about it but the effects have been so miraculous I can’t hold back any longer.
In essence, it’s a fat massage. Instead of kneading muscle, Pauline works on the adipose tissue beneath - in my case, rather a lot.
The theory is that by ‘unsticking’ the fat, as Pauline likes to say in her impeccable Parisian accent, the body can release toxins that have built up over time, and thereby metabolise fat more efficiently as well as improving circulation and lymphatic drainage.
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I have no idea whether that makes any scientific sense whatsoever, but frankly I don’t care. It works. Slowly but surely, all the bits of my body that have been puffy and sore for several years now - my knees, my arms, my fingers - are deflating. That awful heavy feeling has lifted. I feel energised, alert, light. The skin on my thighs looks smooth and soft and even-toned. Even my face looks slimmer, which is weird, because she hasn't touched it.
The massage itself takes a bit of getting used to. At first it’s quite sore - like being pinched, hard, all over your fatty bits. Naturally I didn’t let on, but there were moments when I really winced. It was particularly bad on my stomach, my upper arms and my knees - all areas where I have a tendency to bloat.
But the feeling afterwards was exhilarating. Not only was I fully energised, I also felt half a stone lighter. I wasn’t, of course - but I felt it, which is just as good in my book.
Over the next few sessions, the pain lessened and Pauline was able to go deeper into the blocked tissue, releasing more toxins and getting more areas of stagnation moving. My semi-frozen shoulder feels more mobile and less painful, and my waistband is definitely looser. There have been other, ahem, unblockages too, which I shan’t go into in any detail. Suffice to say, it’s been one hell of a wake-up call.
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