October 4, 2007

Wraps are rather interesting

Since quitting smoking several years ago, this editor has gained 20 pounds, most of which is happily ensconced around my middle with no desire to leave. So, when Song Lee asked if I wanted to try a wrap, I said yes, not really understanding the process.

As Lee says, it does give women hope, especially when after less than an hour, the wrap had reduced my weight by half a pound and taken off a total of 9.3 inches from all over my body. Those kinds of results are very heartening, providing hope when diets have failed.

“Wraps give women hope,” says Lee. “It allows them to break out of where they are and see that things can change.

The process is different, and takes about two hours from start to finish, and as long as no one has a camera, it can be quite pleasant. The first thing Lee does is get your weight and then she measures your body in a number of places, neck and lower face, breasts, mid-chest, waist, abdomen, hips, gluts a couple of places on your thighs, shins and ankles and upper and mid arms as well as wrists.

Once the measuring is complete the wrapping starts. This consists of wet, but warm ace bandages wrapping the entire body below the neck. The warm bandages are wrapped tightly from foot to neck, leaving you looking like a mummy with a face or a character that Steven Spielberg developed for a special-effects movie.

After you are completely wrapped, typically you are put on a glider, which is a basically a motorless cross-country ski machine. Lee doesn’t expect you to work very hard, but it’s important to keep your muscles moving. In some cases, the wrappee gets to lay down with warm blankets, but I think I prefer the exercise; otherwise, I might not get up.

Three times over the next hour, Lee bastes the wrappings with a solution of warm water and mineral oil and again the warmth is quite pleasant. At the end of the hour, she takes off the wrappings, asks you to put on dry clothes and weighs and measures you again.

That’s when the good news comes.

After the wrap, while I interviewed Lee and the other hair stylists and staff members, she put my feet in tub of warm water with some salts and a little gizmo that sort of resembles part of a vaporizer. This is a treatment that also detoxifies your body. I thought it was just a way to relax.

However, at one point into the footbath, I looked down and the water was turning a strange shade of yellow and there were little black and silver specs. It looked gross. Turns out that the little gizmo and the salts were removing toxins and metals from my body—through my feet. At the end, the staff announced that I was lucky and probably didn’t use many chemicals because the water was much cleaner than when they did the treatment.

Unfortunately, I finished the interview and had to go back to work. But Lee was right, I left feeling lighter—and much cleaner.

—Carol Rosen