SMILING for the camera, my grin is strained as air drains from my lungs.
I’m not sure how much longer I can hold my breath.
Lightheaded, I exhale loudly and there it is again, another photo I’ll end up deleting.
Another snap in which the star of the show is my muffin top – that ugly tyre of fat that sits above my waistband and is the bane of my life.
It was during my early twenties, when I was a slim size eight and weighed little over 7st, that I first became conscious of that squidgy layer of excess flab bulging over the top of my tight hipster jeans.
“See, she might be skinny, but even Emily has a muffin top,” I heard one of my mum’s friends say while I was still within earshot.
Her words stung – and that sting has never left me.
Despite my slender twenties, having children in my early thirties inevitably brought with it some weight gain – carrying around two nearly ten-pounders in your womb for nine months will do that to anyone.
And I was left with excess skin once the weight came off.
Having invested heavily in maternity clothing when I first fell pregnant with my son in 2012, I stayed in stretchy-topped jeans and smock tops until my daughter turned one, more than four years later.
As I slowly resumed wearing ‘normal’ clothes, I was asked more than once: “How far gone are you?”. Ouch.
And even now, more than a decade after the birth of my youngest, I still look like I’m four months pregnant in certain outfits.
No matter which workouts I do, or which foods I cut out, the muffin top won’t budge.
While Stacey Solomon may once have declared that she loves her “muffin top, saggy boobs and stretch marks”, I can’t say I’m on the same page.
As someone who works out six times a week and now runs a pretty successful side hustle as a Personal Trainer and Nutritionist, I often feel embarrassed, and sometimes downright ashamed, of the muffin top that spills over the sides of my sportswear.
I’m a healthy 10st with a BMI of 22, so I know I’m not fat, but as for so many midlife women, hormones are also against me.
As a result, all my activewear is loose around the waist because I’m scared of being labelled a fraud if I turn up to a session with a roll of fat visible over my shorts.
With the help of Spanx, I can squeeze into figure-hugging dresses, but they make toilet breaks a battle, especially after a drink or two.
I’m the strongest and healthiest I have ever been, I’ve completed several triathlons, and this year crossed the finish line of the London marathon after months of gruelling training.
After cutting UPFs [Ultra-processed foods] out of my diet two years ago, I have dropped a dress size, my arms are toned and my bum is more pert than in my thirties.
REFUSES TO BUDGE
But still that squidgy ring refuses to budge.
Last summer, busting for a wee at a festival and faced with the horror of a 30-deep queue for the portaloos, I let my muffin top explode over my jeans and rested a supportive hand beneath my tummy.
“Let her through, she’s pregnant,” I heard someone cry as they ushered me into the next vacant cubicle.
I giggled at my deception but the question remains: what can we do about our muffin tops?
Surgery feels too drastic and I’m not overweight, so fat jabs aren’t an option.
Besides, many Ozempic and Mounjaro users have been left with a tell-tale tyre of excess skin above the hips following rapid weight loss.
Scrolling through social media doesn’t help, the flat tums of 60-year-old Liz Hurley, Jennifer Aniston, 56, and Davina McCall, 57, are unachievable for ‘normal’ women.
Less invasive solutions for a muffin top do exist. There is CoolSculpting, where your fat cells are frozen and kneaded so you can ‘excrete’ them after, and micro-liposuction, where fat is removed via tiny cannulas.
But I can’t justify spending thousands of pounds on what is essentially a vanity issue.
Just as I’d resigned myself to a muffin-topped future, Instagram’s stalker like algorithm parked a possible solution right in front of my eyes – ‘fat tape’.
Tonee skin tape, formerly known as Instalift, is already a huge hit in America.
And for just £16 for a pack of ten (you might need two or more, depending on your outfit) it’s a lot cheaper than surgery.
The video showed a woman much wobblier than me taping up her tummy and I was sold.
As it’s shipped from the States I had to wait a week for delivery, but it was worth it.
It’s pretty easy to apply. You just scoop up all your wobbly bits and secure the transparent tape – which is roughly the size of an A5 notepad – over them, smoothing everything out.
COMFY TO WEAR
It is super sticky, so there’s no risk of slippage if you work up a sweat on the dancefloor or in the gym, and it’s comfy enough to wear all day and night.
Afterwards you just peel it off, but you can’t reuse it as it shrivels up once removed.
Out of everything I’ve tried, from firming oils to juice fasts and shapewear, nothing has been as practical – or cost-effective – at getting me into that slinky party dress.
At just £3.20 for two strips, I can instantly drop another dress size and smooth out my midriff, putting an end to decades of hiding beneath loose tops and tummy support jeans.
And unlike Spanx, a secure patch of tape around the belly means you can pee as often as you like without worrying you’ll give yourself a hernia trying to pull your knickers back up.
While I’ll only use ‘fat tape’ when I want to wear a slim-fitting dress on special occasions, the price and ease of applying it means you could wear it every day if you wanted to.
From muffin tops to loose skin post-Ozempic, this tape could be a secret weapon.
