Are you struggling with getting rid of unwanted fat and building a stronger body? More people today are struggling with obesity and/or sarcopenia, an accelerated loss of muscle mass that puts you at high risk for falls, losing your independence and mortality from years of inactivity. No matter how much you improve your diet or exercise, it can be hard to shift stubborn pockets of fat or build muscle. For many people, these life-altering issues can lower confidence, destroy motivation, and lead to depression.
Thankfully, a new treatment is available. Debuting in October of 2020, Emsculpt Neo is a non-surgical procedure that works by heating stubborn fat cells so they can be naturally expelled by your body while simultaneously stimulating and contracting muscle fibers. When incorporated alongside a healthy diet and an exercise regimen, Emsculpt Neo is the perfect treatment for removing fat permanently while gaining muscle.
It’s a Game Changer
Are you thinking, “This sounds too good to be true? How is this even possible?” The Emsculpt Neo is currently the only FDA-cleared treatment that simultaneously builds muscle and burns fat, combining a radio frequency (RF) energy with a high-intensity focused electromagnetic (HIFEM) energy that bypasses the brain. The HIFEM stimulates close to 95% of the muscle fibers, instigating powerful contractions, known as supramaximal contractions, that work the muscle far more intensely than what is achievable during voluntary exercise. Clinical studies have shown that Emsculpt Neo treatment results in dramatic changes to the physique—on average, individuals experienced a 25% increase in muscle, 30% decrease in fat, including up to 16% of visceral fat (the fat stored deep in the abdomen, around abdominal organs including the liver and intestines). These numbers are the equivalent to 12–16 weeks of intense workouts. Emsculpt Neo can be a game changer for many people because of its dual approach to body contouring, allowing you to work on several goals at once. Most people see full results within three months of their treatment, though as with any body-shaping treatment, individual experiences may vary.
One of the main health benefits of Emsculpt Neo is strengthening your core, improving sarcopenia and diastasis—abdominal wall muscle separation that commonly happens after pregnancy. Improving your core strength can help reduce lower back pain and provide better balance and stability, whether on the playing field or in daily activities. Most physical activities, whether it’s climbing stairs or going hiking, depends on stable core muscles. Weak core muscles can often lead to fatigue, reduced endurance, and increase in injury.
Protein Is Key
When you include high-quality proteins (such as grass fed, organic, or local meat and poultry and wild-caught fish) in your diet during and after treatment, you can maximize your results. Protein is the main nutrient to muscle building and development, muscle structure, and contracting abilities—and the more muscle you can build the higher your metabolism will be, resulting in an increase in fat breakdown. Ensuring your diet has adequate amounts of protein also helps reduce hunger, especially when eaten at breakfast. Traditional starch-and-sugar combo breakfast foods, such as muffins or sweetened cereal, can cause a rapid rise and fall in blood sugar, resulting in hard-to-resist sugar cravings throughout the day.
Protein also helps to repair tissues—a process at which our bodies are constantly working—and makes the antibodies to help us recover from a cold or illness. However, protein is not a storable energy like carbohydrates and fats. To ensure you are consuming enough protein, you must make sure you’re having it with every meal.
Reduce Visceral Fat, Once and for All
Another main health benefit that can be achieved with the Emsculpt Neo is the reduction in body fat, including visceral fat. The radio frequency (RF) delivers thermal energy to the tissue, warming up the muscles while heating fat cells to about 110 degrees. Within minutes, fat cells begin to die and melt down, undergoing lipolysis (fat cell death). The heating also causes the skin to tighten, which can be effective in treating loose skin from weight loss or pregnancy. After treatment, the melted fat cells are collected by the lymphatic system—part of the body’s natural detox process—and flushed out of the body over several weeks. Once fat cells are excreted from the body, they cannot grow back. This leads to a permanent reduction in fat.
Visceral fat surrounds the abdominal organs, putting you at high risk for chronic health problems such as heart disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and high cholesterol. High visceral fat levels contribute to creating proteins that inflame body tissues and organs and narrow blood vessels, which can result to high blood pressure.
Choose Foods That Help Prevent Fat
To help significantly decrease the risk of disease, combine the health benefits of Emsculpt Neo with a healthy diet that includes foods that can help prevent new fat cells from developing. According to studies, these foods can directly impact body composition and play a role in reducing visceral fat tissue:
- Omega-3 fatty acids in fatty fish has been shown to benefit body fat composition through various mechanisms such as improving insulin sensitivity and combating inflammation. Good sources of fatty fish include salmon, tuna, sardines, and mackerel.
- Research shows that the specific type of fat in coconut oil, medium-chain triglycerides, can significantly decrease the total amount of fat stored by the body. Unrefined, organic coconut oil is the preferred choice.
- Eating more beans may help decrease the total accumulation of visceral fat. Beans are a great source of prebiotic soluble fiber, which can be metabolized and turned into short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) by the healthy microbes in our gut. Studies have linked SCFAs to a decrease in visceral fat.
- Some studies have shown that consistent intake of yogurt decreased the amount of fat tissue stored in the abdomen. The probiotic effect of yogurt was enough to improve body fat in the midsection of the participants who ate yogurt frequently. Be sure to choose a yogurt that doesn’t have added sugars.
- Studies have found a high-protein, low-glycemic breakfast contributed to participants reducing their visceral fat when swapping a carb for a lower glycemic choice, such as a healthy protein/fat combination. The researchers also noted that body fat can be redistributed, even if the scale doesn’t budge.
Drink Water—and Plenty of It
The radio frequency (RF) energy during an Emsculpt Neo treatment feeds off water within the body, which helps to flush out toxins, which will be excreted through sweat and urine. To maximize the benefits of the natural detox process, drinking adequate amounts of water before and after is essential. But we want to make sure we are drinking pure water—most tap water is far from pure, containing a vast array of disinfection byproducts, chemicals, heavy metals, pharmaceutical drugs, and fluoride. Unfortunately, many bottle waters are simple tap water. In general, when drinking poor quality water, your mind and body can’t function properly.
Drinking adequate amounts of pure water has many health benefits, including creating saliva, which is needed to start the digestive process by breaking down food, keeping the mouth healthy, and preventing constipation. The entire digestive system is dependent on water; it also regulates body temperature through sweating and lubricates joints, tissues, and the spinal cord, which is important to maintain flexibility. Not only that, but water helps dissolve vitamins and minerals for better absorption as well. Staying well hydrated may also help with weight loss because it provides volume to the stomach. The stomach doesn’t recognize calories, only volume—a benefit that can help reduce your overall caloric intake. Additionally, because water carries nutrients and oxygen through the entire body, proper hydration helps increase blood oxygen circulation. Research has also shown not drinking enough water can impact our focus, alertness, short term memory, and may cause fatigue and confusion.
Clearly, consuming enough water daily is crucial. You may have to be mindful about drinking enough water in the beginning, but after a while it will become a new habit. Within a few weeks of drinking enough water, your body will let you know it wants more, as you will feel thirsty much more quickly than you did before. Your daily water intake should be half your body weight minus 20%, since we receive some water from the foods we eat.
Build More Muscle
Emsculpt Neo can also improve muscle tone. Our body loses 2–5% of our muscle mass every 10 years as part of the natural process of aging, with about 30% loss in one’s lifetime. According to clinical studies, new muscle fibers were being created to adapt to the stress of the powerful contractions in areas that were treated using Emsculpt Neo, which is beyond what is achieved in exercise alone. A typical workout at a gym only contracts about 35% of the muscle fibers, whereas Emsculpt Neo contracts 95% of muscle fibers. The HIFEM energy breaks down lactic acid, the cause of muscle soreness after exertion, which helps prevent any down time from exercising. Emsculpt Neo builds muscle and restores volume that has been naturally lost, which can be considered an anti-aging benefit. For some people, this can mean regaining their independence or prevent them from losing it.
To help preserve the muscle you gained, it is highly recommended to follow through with an exercise plan or to increase physical activity after your treatment. For some of us, the thought of exercising is absolutely dreadful. But why? If you think about it, many of us don’t like to exercise because it feels difficult for us. In the beginning, it may be uncomfortable because we’re out of breath and our body isn’t as flexible, so it feels like we are trying to move dead weight. Depending on the exercise it may also make our limbs hurt and we really don’t feel better after. This is because in the beginning our body is unconditioned, and unfortunately, most of us quit before we can condition ourselves to actually enjoy the activity. After the Emsculpt Neo treatment, however, we start to feel stronger and exercising can potentially be easier. Depending on our physical activity level prior to treatment we may still have some conditioning to do, but it gives us a huge advantage in overcoming the obstacles that prevent us from exercising in the first place. Physical activity promotes better sleep, builds self-esteem, and improves body image. It also stimulates various brain chemicals that result in feeling happier and more relaxed—and who doesn’t want that?
Make the Commitment
The typical treatment protocol of Emsculpt Neo consists of four sessions and they are 30 minutes each, with 7 to 10 days between each treatment. By the end of the treatment, you’re likely to look and feel notably stronger and more toned. Emsculpt Neo is ideal for most body types with BMIs up to 35. Anyone with a BMI over 35 would not be able to receive the full benefits.
It is important to note that Emsculpt Neo is not a miracle cure and on its own it is not intended as a weight reduction protocol. Although many people have had excellent results with this treatment on its own by improving their overall appearance with more muscle tone, more sculpted physique, and firmer skin, it is equally important to address our mindset and behaviors for life-long results. Breaking the cycle of some old, unhealthy eating habits, like going back to the donut shop and grabbing a 300-calorie bagel and a 250-calorie latte or ordering out lunch because it’s easier than preparing it, will be rewarding in many ways. These fast-food habits are the reasons we look for alternative solutions to reverse the unpleasant consequences of our health.
Grant’s Nutrition and Wellness offers personalized nutrition plans with our Emsculpt Neo packages to help lose weight, maximize fat loss, maximize muscle strength, boost results to transform overall health, and provide the tools needed for ongoing success. One of the biggest benefits of our Emsculpt Neo packages is that it boosts a person’s self-confidence because they feel stronger and healthier!
Jane Grant, RDN, CD-N, is a register dietitian since 2005 and has been trained in Integrative and Functional Nutrition to address the root cause of disease and help promote optimal health. Jane is the founder of Grant’s Nutrition and Wellness in Berlin, CT, and can be reached at 860.357.2282 or admin@grantsnutriton.com.
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