What to Expect in Your CoolSculpting Session

If you’ve already scheduled your CoolSculpting session — or you’re still in the research phase — it’s good to know what to expect. You’ve probably already figured out that the non-invasive fat reduction treatment will be cold. But there’s more to it. Managing your expectations of the procedure and the results will result in a better experience overall.

CoolSculpting: What to expect

What to expect in your CoolSculpting consultation

You maintain an active lifestyle and have a healthy diet, but you still have pesky fat in random, hard-to-target places on your body. That’s where CoolSculpting can help. CoolSculpting is an FDA-cleared, nonsurgical way to reduce fat by delivering controlled cooling to target fat cells under the surface of the skin. Your body then processes and eliminates the dead fat cells from the treated area.

CoolSculpting can treat stubborn fat in these key areas:

• Abdomen

• Flank (love handles or muffin top)

• Inner thighs

• Outer thighs

• Chin

• Upper arms

During your CoolSculpting consultation, you’ll work with your provider to discuss your specific goals, timeline and budget related to fat loss. If you do, in fact, have subcutaneous fat in those CoolSculpting target areas, you could be a candidate. After that brief assessment, a customized CoolSculpting treatment plan can be built.

Read More: Signs You’re a Good CoolSculpting Candidate

Once you’ve reviewed your treatment plan and discussed realistic expectations for the procedure, you’ll then be scheduled for treatment.

What the CoolSculpting procedure feels like

In short: cold. CoolSculpting technology has determined the perfect temperature at which fat cells are destroyed. That’s where CoolSculpting differs from traditional weight loss. Rather than just shrinking the size of fat cells, CoolSculpting eliminates them entirely.

Read More: Fat Reduction vs. Weight Loss in CoolSculpting

Once your treatment areas are properly marked, a protective gel is applied to the treatment area. Depending on your plan and budget, it may be possible to have multiple areas treated during the same visit.

During the procedure, you will definitely feel a cold sensation. You may also experience sensations of tugging, mild pinching, tingling or stinging at the treatment site. These sensations diminish as the treatment area becomes numb.

Treatment times vary depending on the area being treated (or if you’re having multiple areas treated at once), but sessions can last as little as 35 minutes. Typical side effects post-treatment include temporary swelling, redness, bruising, firmness, tingling, tenderness or skin sensitivity.

The results you can expect from CoolSculpting

Every body is different and as with any fat loss or fat reduction treatment or regimen, results vary. Your specific body contouring goals may require other services or efforts.

After a CoolSculpting treatment, patients can expect up to 20-25% reduction of fat in the treated area, though it’s important to remember though that CoolSculpting is not a weight-loss procedure.

Once the crystallized fat cells die and are then eliminated by your body’s natural processes, you will start to see results, as early as 1 to 3 months after treatment. To reach your specific goals, you and your provider may determine that multiple treatments are necessary.

How to know if CoolSculpting is right for you

There’s an easy CoolSculpting quiz you can take to determine if this nonsurgical fat-freezing procedure is right for you. You can also walk through these short scenarios:

• Are you looking to reshape (or contour) your body in some of those hard-to-train areas?

• Are you hoping to remove stubborn fat in problem areas like your chin, upper arms or muffin top?

• Are you generally within your ideal weight but struggle with excess fat? If you’re within roughly 30 lbs. of your ideal weight, then the answer is yes!

The key to success in CoolSculpting is having a firm understanding of what it is and what it isn’t. If you’re close to your ideal weight and are looking to nonsurgically get rid of stubborn fat in hard-to-reach areas, then CoolSculpting is a great opportunity that you can explore.