So I guess it’s about time I discussed the results of THE WRAP, the sole birthday present I asked for and, much to my excitement, received.

Actually, I ended up getting two wraps - one from my parents and one from J, so I had them both done on the same day. While part of me was skeptical of the dramatic inch loss and calorie burning effects touted on the store’s website, I had heard great things about it from Iris and local radio DJ’s who had tried it.

The Power Wrap

The first wrap I did was called the Power Wrap. It’s kind of a detox wrap and guarantees that you’ll lose 10 inches or you get a second wrap free to make up the difference. The inches are supposed to stay gone for 2-3 months, assuming you don’t gain any weight during that time.

Basically, they wrap you up tight like a mummy in these bandages soaked in mineral solution. Then they put you on a Gazelle for an hour.

The time actually passed pretty quickly, as I got to watch a movie I hadn’t seen before while gazelling. Since you’re wrapped so tightly, you can’t really exercise hard enough to keep your body temperature raised, so wearing a bunch of wet bandages can get a little cold.

The mineral solution (and supposedly the toxins released from your body) drain down through the bandages and into these plastic bags they wrap around your feet, so after a few minutes, you’re sloshing around with every stride. Then they come in every 20 minutes to squirt on more mineral solution and empty the bags.

In the end, after they take all the bandages off, they remeasure in the same areas they measured you before the wrap, to see what kind of inch loss you got.

I think their 10 inch guarantee (touted everywhere on the site and the front of the store) is pretty misleading. Here’s the fine print:

We guarantee for most women that they will lose a minimum of 10 inches on the first wrap (total inch loss from multiple measurements) or a second wrap is given free to make up the inch loss.**

**Exception is made for slender women, athletic types with low body fat, clients who wish to lose inches in only a few places or pregnant women.

Exception is made for slender women. I do not consider myself slender. I’m not fat, but I would have to lose about 20 pounds before I considered myself “slender.”

According to their charts (which don’t appear anywhere on the site), a “slender” woman at 5′1″ is anyone who weighs less than 165 lbs.

165 POUNDS?!? I’m currently at 128, and I know for certain that I shouldn’t weigh more than 120. 110-115 would be ideal.

So obviously I didn’t qualify for the guarantee. Basically, I lost a total of about 5 inches. That’s adding up the inches they measured in various parts of my body - ¼” here, ½” there, etc. The most I lost in any one place was 1 inch.

Iris is about my same height and weight and she said she lost 13″ from this thing, so I guess it works differently on different people. One of those things you have to try for yourself I suppose.

The Body Melt

The second wrap I did was called the Body Melt. Basically, you lie on this table and they wrap you in these heated pads for an hour and it’s supposed to burn calories by raising your body temperature.

Some things to be aware of if you’re going in for this kind of thing:

• Those pads are HOT. They put them on over your clothing and I had to call in the lady to wrap a towel between my legs and the pads because they were burning my skin.
• It’s really boring to lay there for an hour without anything to do except think about how hot it is.

According to the website, it’s supposed to burn 1250-2500 calories in that hour. I know how my body reacts to calorie intake and calorie burning, and I don’t think there’s any way I got those results. I was a pound lighter afterward but I think it was mostly water weight, as it came back within 2 days. If I had really burned all those calories, that pound would have stayed off.

So, overall it was an experience that I’m glad I had, if for nothing else than just to satisfy my curiosity, but I probably won’t do it again. I didn’t see enough results to really justify the $100-135 price tag per wrap. I hear it works wonders for some people, but apparently I’m just not one of those people.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 8th, 2007 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.