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https://www.yahoo.com/style/whats-the-deal-with-the-corset-training-101355906803.html

I am posting an article which I found the other day on Yahoo! Style which made me chuckle. Here is the original link as well. I will reserve comments until the end of the article.

To the ways you can attempt to whittle your waist — Slim-Fast, side planks — add one more: Corset training.

The method, which requires you to cinch yourself into a corset for four to six hours a day, is popular with celebrities and has been intriguing many other women seeking hourglass shapes.

Both Kim and Khole Kardashian have tried it. Kim posted a picture of herself yesterday in her mom’s foyer wearing a corset — hers is from a company called “What A Waist” — with the caption “I’m really obsessed with waist training!”

Jessica Alba is a fan, too. She actually wore two at the same time to help her lose weight after both of her pregnancies. “It was brutal; it’s not for everyone,” she told Net-A-Porter. “I wore a double corset day and night for three months. It was sweaty, but worth it.”

Self-described “corset fetishist” Kelly Lee Dekay, 27, has been doing corset training for seven years, and claims she has a 16-inch waist because of it. “I loved how Batman’s outfit let him channel a different side of himself,” she told the Sun. “That’s what the corset does.”

Women have worn corsets for ages. In the 1500s, they smashed down their entire torso. Later, in the late 1800s or Victorian era, they were used to help define the waist. It’s thought that the reason ladies back then were always fainting was because their corsets were squeezing their internal organs and restricting their breathing.

In these modern times, however, women now think that wearing a corset can actually help you lose weight. The Cincher by AMIA claims, “[It can] sculpt inches from your midsection and enhance your curves while increasing thermal activity in your core.”

According to TheCorsetDiet.com, you can shed up to six pounds a week by wearing one of their custom-made waist shapers. The UK-based company describes the pressure from its corsets as “gentle hugging feeling.”

But when writer Rebecca Harrington tried wearing one, albeit from a different brand, she wrote on NYMag.com, “My breathing is slightly impaired, but I can still breathe; I just have to take short, staccato breaths. I try to drink coffee, and it’s very difficult. After four hours, I whip off the corset and throw it across the room. My waist has red welts on it.”

In reality, doctors say that the corset is not — I repeat not — helping you reshape your body with simple pressure. It’s simply so tight around your stomach that you won’t — or can’t — eat too much, and doctors roundly decry any kind of corset diet or waist training as a viable long-term weight loss method.

“It’s outrageous, and it just absolutely makes no medical sense whatsoever,” Keri Peterson, M.D., a physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York told Women’s Health.

It also could be dangerous. Wearing one could actually shift or compress your internal organs and fracture your ribs, Dr. Jyotindra Shah said. “People might put it so tight that the liver, spleen and kidneys could get bruised,” she told The Huffington Post.

Even “corset fetish” Dekay knows she has to remove hers sometimes. “It can be restrictive when climbing stairs,” she told the Sun. “You can’t carry heavy things as you could hurt yourself. I don’t go to the gym in it. That would be very dangerous as I lift weights.”

Okay, here goes my commentary. I jumped on the corset bandwagon back in 2011 when I was informed that it was a very effective way to whittle the waist. During the time in which I diligently wore a corset (or two) several hours a day, every day, I noticed my waistline whittle down from 24 inches to 22-1/2 inches. So do I think it works? I KNOW it works.

I have to say I disagree with so-called doctors’comments that the corset prevents consumption of large amounts of food, thus resulting in weight loss. This just sounds like something one of my male colleagues would mutter. If caloric consumption is kept constant, women and men who engage in corset training WILL have a reduction in inches no matter what. This sounds like the typical uber conservative medical snobbery which makes other doctors the types of people I will NEVER choose to spend extensive periods of time with. I do agree that the practice of wearing a corset is outrageous, painful, and could be dangerous. But it DOES work. What price beauty?

Over the centuries, women have compressed their waistlines effectively with corsets, so it blows my mind that these narrow minded physicians have decided to toot their horns and express skepticism. As a physician who competes, I chose to give corsets a chance and had great results. I am glad that I didn’t allow the part of my brain which is trained in traditional Western medicine talk the competitor in me out of doing all that I could to make my waist smaller.

I would usually wear a neoprene wrap underneath my corset (or Squeem as it is somewhat affectionately called in the bodybuilding world due to one manufacturer brand), or one corset over a second. I would do this for at least 6 hours, sometimes as long as 14 hours. Was I uncomfortable? Yes. Did I sweat like a pig? You bet. Was it worth it? I think so.

I have dealt with the metal boning poking out as the corsets would wear out, and would glue them back into their channels, so I know all too well the sensation of metal poking into my underboob, my ribcage or my hip bone when the corsets began wearing out. I would have digestive upset, abdominal pain, and at times had difficulty breathing. During one stretch of time when I was wearing latex corsets, I developed painful lesions all over my back from the yeast overgrowth which resulted from the long hours of wear and the constant sweating. It took me over a year for my skin to heal from all those lesions, and I have a couple of permanent scars to mark my determination to sculpt a waistline that would win a Pro Card. Thankfully, I won that Pro Card in 2013 and almost immediately tossed the corsets aside.

Now I wear corsets from time to time if I feel the need to squeeze out extra water from my midsection, but I will probably never return to the days of wearing corsets for many hours, driving to work in pain because a metal boning was jabbing me in the rib, sweating profusely under nice clothing, and dealing with skin around my midsection which was constantly macerated, lighter in pigment, and showing signs of skin breakdown.

I know you ladies want to slim down the midsection, but please be careful when you wear corsets! It isn’t worth ruining your skin and compressing organs to wear these torture devices for extended periods of time. Give your skin and your torso a rest in between the sessions during which you are training your waist. I recommend wearing corsets for a 4 hour stretch.

I am described as a hapa in Hawaii, which means mixed or part. Typically this means part Asian or Malaysian, mixed with any other ethnicity, usually resulting in very exotic and often strikingly beautiful looks. Over the years I have noticed a strong sense of community among hapas, and this sense of community has strengthened over the years with the popularity of hapa celebrities such as Kristin Kreuk and Dean Cain. I am always fascinated by the combinations which result from such ethnic mixings, because they can be quite unpredictable. Hapas are often studied for their unusual phenotypic characteristics, and usually present an amusing puzzle for others to figure out. I personally get a kick out of people who try to guess what my ethnic blend is!

Dean Cain is 1/4 Japanese, while Kristin Kreuk is half Chinese. Can you see the Asian features in these celebrities?

I am still waiting to see if research marketing organizations catch onto the idea that more and more people are unable to check just one box when asked to describe their ethnicity. I think it is ridiculous that someone like me who is EXACTLY half Asian and half Caucasian must claim only one ethnicity. Since I was raised by my Japanese mother and had been exposed to a more Asian upbringing, I check off the Asian box. I also know of many people who have such complex ethnic mosaics that no single ethnic group dominates over the others in terms of percentage. Do these people have to go “eeny meeny miney mo” to fill out a survey?