My Marie France Experience 2020

This year, I finally decided to receive treatment for my mental problems. After about two follow-ups, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Personality Disorder. The medication sure does something. It makes me oversleep. My body just feels heavy after my alarm goes off and I can't help but fall right back to sleep.

I didn't really notice a change in my body until I decided to splurge on milk teas every day. On my Instagram archive, I noticed that I still fit my skirts and my pants (that I use to go out) but after six weeks, none of them fit. Luckily for me, I still have five dresses that I could wear.

Basically, in that six weeks, I noticed I gained about 7.2 kg from milk tea and oversleeping. I was so alarmed by what happened that I decided I want to take a short cut in losing some fat. That's why I turned to Marie France. It turned out that for 2020, they have a one-time promo package of 5 FMS Elite treatments + 3 Plasti Dermi Treatments for just Php 8,000.

I've always wanted to try Marie France's services so I head to their branch in Cebu located at the 8th floor of 2Quad Building at Cebu Business Park near Ayala Mall.

This is how Marie France looks like:

They will provide you with a robe since you only have to be in your undies and bra. You can see the Plasti Dermi machine in the background.

There are also towels and a pair of slippers.

What happens is you get an appointment every other day and you can only ask for a complete schedule good for one week. In one whole session, you go under Plasti Dermi first then the FMS Elite right after.

Marie France's Plasti Dermi was so painful. I know the adage in the fitness world, "Pain is gain." While the gain there was meant for muscles, it also applies here. If you want to lose fat, you need to endure pain. The entire time, I just thought that I'd rather exercise for an hour with burpees, planks, spider and various tummy-fat-losing exercises than lay there helplessly while the nurse "tortures" you with the suction from the machine. Obviously, I have found out that I have such a low pain tolerance. With a setting from 1 to 6, I could only endure 2 at first. By the second session, I braved the 4 setting for my tummy.

This is the FMS Elite machine:

Again, like with Plasti Dermi, I also have bad feelings with the FMS Elite. The temperature is set to 10°C. While it's only for 30 minutes, it was like hell. I would always ask to turn off the lights when the nurse leaves. And as someone with depression and anxiety, it's terrible to be left with your thoughts alone because you have nothing to do. It's not like the kind of coldness you'd get when it rains and you're lulled to sleep. This is the time when I overthink on a lot of things. If I'm lucky on a room where you can hear music from outside, I'd just focus on it and count till it reaches seven songs or something.

Me at the end of all the sessions:

Before your first session begins, you are measured everywhere, on top of taking your weight measurement. They'd measure the circumference of your biceps, hips, butts, thighs, etc.

I wanted to take a shortcut so the only change I made was I stopped my medication and continued on drinking milk tea every day. I didn't exercise and I didn't change my diet. I first received my medication for depression on February in which I weighed 39.5 kg. My diagnosis changed on July and I weighed 40 kg. My clothes still fit me on Oct. 17. By November 30, I weighed 47.2 kg. My height is 4'9" so my BMI is fine but I don't look good. My waist had gone up 29 when it used to be 26.

In the end, what happened was I lost nothing. 😂 Nothing changed basically. Despite this, while I didn't reach my goal, I had a nice experience. The staff were all nice. I had a fun chat each time with the nurse for 9:00 AM. The consultant at the beginning (before you can avail a package) was also a good conversationalist. She'd make you feel good talking about yourself since they wanted to know why you wanted to avail any of their services to begin with. Like most things consultation-wise, they'd ask what you're doing (your job, hobbies, relationship). They basically ease me into it.

Going to Marie France is an experience I could never forget. I learned that exercising is lesser pain.