Weight has always been something that I’ve battled with over the years and with the inevitable march towards middle age, a demanding day job that creeps into the night and a penchant for fine food and wine, it’s becoming more of an issue with every passing day. So when the opportunity for me came up to trial Hypoxi, a new approach to shifting weight, I thought why not?
Admittedly, I approached Hypoxi with a high level of skepticism – after all, if losing weight was that easy, wouldn’t everyone be doing it? But after 12 sessions over 8 weeks (a longer period than would be prescribed) I finished my first round of Hypoxi with a cumulative measurement loss of 18.5cm across the thighs, waist, hips and bum, and a weight loss of 2.5kgs. A pleasing result from a method that combines vacuum compression technology with nutrition and movement.
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What is it?
Hypoxi is a low impact, low intensity exercise method that combines movement with compression technology to help reduce stubborn fat and cellulite from problem areas such as hips, bum, tummy and thighs. Hypoxi say that it’s a scientifically proven methodology that targets fat burning by using the vacuum compression technology to stimulate the metabolic process by encouraging blood circulation to stubborn fat stores and then enables your body to burn those fat stores as energy. It balances that technology with a healthy diet and exercise.
What was my experience?
At my first session at the Hypoxi studio in Armadale, my trainer Molly took my measurements – thighs, hips, waist, stomach and bum, and also took my weight as a baseline. We discussed my health, nutrition and goals for my Hypoxi sessions. For me, it was about losing some cms and weight from my stomach and hips, areas that have been difficult to reduce with my current fitness and health regime. It was recommended that I use two Hypoxi machines – the Dermology and L250 with each session taking about 50 minutes.
The Dermology machine is not so much a machine that you use but more that it’s used on you. It’s a passive treatment that involves lying on a bed wearing a scuba-like suit that has the air sucked out through attached tubes. Inside the suit are suction things (I’m sure there’s a technical term for them!) that create negative and positive pressure to stimulate the blood flow and lymphatic system.
Admittedly the first time I tried this, I felt like I was part of a sci fi film, with tubes coming out of my stomach, a tight compressed feeling all over my body and a strange feeling like octopus tentacles sucking in and out of my stomach. But after a few minutes, you start to enjoy it like a a tightly bound massage and by the time the 20 minutes is up, you get up feeling really good. The application of the machine aims to reduce fluid retention and puffy skin and I really felt it made a difference in those respects.
The second part of my sessions involved the use of the L250. This machine is a vacuum compression cycle unit where the lower half of your body is in the vacuum chamber and you cycle for 30 minutes. It aims to help target the fat in the lower stomach and hips through low impact exercise in a compression environment.
L250
I actually really enjoyed both the machines, the former being a relatively relaxing experience in spite of the constricted feeling and the latter being a good low impact exercise session. The total time I spent per session was about an hour and the perfect amount of time to fit in with my busy diary.
The nutrition was planned every week based on the amount of fat I was loosing. I also found the PhenQ weight loss benefits online on the recommendation of a friend, and it undoubtedly helped me reach the desired goals quite soon by burning my excessive fat.
The Hypoxi method not only includes the use of the specially patented compression machines but also involves the nutrition aspect as well. It encourages you to eat a healthy diet alongside the training to ensure you maximise the results, applying the ethos of working smarter not harder with Hypoxi.
For two hours after each session, it’s advised you abstain from food and caffeine so that you can use some of the fat cells that have been released from Hypoxi for energy. After that period, it’s recommended that for 4-6 hours, you can eat but your food should be low carb so that you continue to burn the fat cells in the blood stream.
The nutrition aspect to Hypoxi was really helpful to me. Whether it was after a session or any other time, it made me think about the type of food that I was consuming. I won’t lie, it was difficult at first because I would spend two hours thinking about food (funny how if someone tells you can’t have something, it makes you want it more!), even if I’d had food before Hypoxi. But it was great to build a different mindset and plan better my food consumption. Something that I’m continuing to do with my meals.
It’s all about results
Hypoxi recommends that you do 3 sessions a week for at least 4 weeks and that you could achieve up to 26cm cumulative loss but due to holidays and work commitments, I could only manage a few sessions a week over an 8 week period. So theoretically I could have lost more cms, but losing 18.5cms over this period was something that I was very happy with, especially given the amount of chocolate I ate across Easter!
My experience with Hypoxi does match the ethos they espouse of training smarter. Combining the Hypoxi machines with balanced nutrition is definitely a smarter way to improve your fitness, blood flow and wellbeing. Especially as we’re at the beginning of Winter, this is something that could help many to either lose or keep the cms off during the colder period. The studios have good opening hours which is especially useful when you work full time – either heading in before work or after.
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