It’s not quite how I’d envisaged the end of the summer – aged 49, and alone with my two children Lola, ten, and Liberty, eight, in a haunted monastery in Puglia, southern Italy.
But after a flight mix-up in which I booked the wrong week to stay with friends at a nearby villa, we ended up in this beautiful but deserted corner of Brindisi in a 17th century monastery turned rustic hotel – the only place with vacancies.
It’s undoubtedly wholesome – we eat fresh watermelon, figs and nectarines for breakfast, and in the afternoons lie by the pool under the shade of a lemon tree – but it’s also exceptionally quiet.
Which is a shame, since for the first time in my life, I am more than happy for people to look at me in my little red bikini.
Yes, weight loss drugs have liberated me from self-consciousness – I lost more than two-and-a-half stone in 2024, dropping from ten-and-a-half to just under eight. But it’s not just that. Not only have I ditched the tent-like holiday kaftans to show off my newly slender figure, but for the first time ever, I also have the toned midriff to go with it. Hallelujah – I have abs!
It’s on this Italian holiday that I first really notice them (for reasons which will become clear).
Returning to our room to change into a vintage black dress for dinner in the courtyard, I pass a tall mirror and nearly trip over the stone step to the bathroom.
‘Oh my goodness,’ I say out loud, ‘I have a six pack!’ It’s as if I’ve caught a glimpse of somebody else. I have defined core muscles and a snatched waist. My abdomen area looks pulled in and stretched firm. It looks like I’ve spent the entire summer doing crunches and Pilates.
For the first time in my life, I am more than happy for people to look at me in a bikini, writes Charlotte Cripps
Better still, the skin on my tummy looks youthful – as soft and elastic as it did in my twenties. Gazing at my reflection, I feel that sense of smug satisfaction you get when Botox kicks in and you look really rested. How annoying it’s happened at the tail end of the summer…
But also how astonishing given the state of my stomach immediately after all that weight loss. The pounds fell off at such a speed two years ago, I was left with a distinct sag around my middle. In fact, until very recently, the whole area was jiggling around like a blancmange. Not a good look when you’re a single mum getting back onto the dating scene.
So what have I done to get this long-desired six pack? How much sweat have I dripped onto the floor of a dark basement gym, and how many hundreds of crunches have I put my poor middle-aged body through?
The answer is… none. I haven’t stepped inside a gym or done a workout since last winter.
There was no hard grind or tyrannical personal trainer. No Pilates bootcamp and definitely no Hyrox habit. The truth is I spent the school summer holidays – in between packing for a trip to Corsica with a handsome single dad friend and my mad trip to Italy – cheating my way to a glorious midlife midriff using revolutionary radiofrequency treatments and electrical muscle stimulation in a cosmetic clinic.
All of it was done while I was lying down.
The fact is, getting abs the hard way is hugely time-consuming. When I looked down at my flabby tummy earlier this year, I knew it would take many months or even a year of consistent training, with two to four focused core sessions a week, to achieve the look I wanted.
And yet, thanks to the jabs, I also knew I was in the best shape of my life in terms of showing them off. Since losing the weight, I’ve been microdosing Mounjaro to maintain it, and now have precisely the kind of lean body mass that shows good ab definition – if only I could tone the muscles and tighten the loose skin.
There was one easy option – a treatment that could achieve exactly the same effect as all those crunches and give my skin a total rehaul while I was at it.
That’s why, in early July, I booked in for a consultation with Sadaf Jaffari – a celebrity aesthetician whose clients include make-up guru Charlotte Tilbury and reality TV stars Olivia Attwood and Millie Mackintosh.
I’d seen the amazing results of Millie’s midriff treatment at the Baftas in May. In a pale gold tummy-baring gown, the mum-of-two looked like a goddess with abs of steel.
Yet Millie’s route to the perfect stomach was hardcore, involving a semi-surgical procedure called Quantum RF (by Inmode) which sends shivers down my spine (and almost does send shivers down the spine).
Charlotte got her glorious midlife midriff using revolutionary radiofrequency treatments and electrical muscle stimulation in a cosmetic clinic
This is a procedure that requires a surgeon to make tiny incisions – one through the belly button and two either side of the hip bone – for probes to be inserted under the skin. The probes are then moved around to deliver a radiofrequency energy which melts stubborn fat cells and shrink wraps the loose skin above it.
When Sadaf explains it to me, I’m ridiculously tempted. It costs from £8,500 for a one-off treatment and results start to appear about three months afterwards.
But in the end, I feel Quantum RF is too invasive for me. Unlike Millie, I literally don’t have the stomach for it.
Instead, I go for the milder option – three sessions of a contouring treatment called Morpheus8 Body, costing £1,801 per session. This is a non-surgical procedure that I’m told will trigger production of new collagen and elastin in the dermis, the deeper layers of the skin, and melt superficial fat, as well as resurface the skin texture and tighten and lift.
There is no real downside – just redness for a day or two – but I will need maintenance treatments once a year afterwards. Of course, the results are a level lower than Quantum RF – but the big selling point is that in between the three sessions of Morpheus8, which are spaced six weeks apart, I’d have something called truSculpt flex, costing £3,005 for a course of six.
This muscle-sculpting treatment delivers targeted electrical stimulation through pads placed on the skin to tone, firm and strengthen muscle groups. The claim is that it causes up to 64,000 muscle contractions in a single 45-minute session, mimicking the effect of literally thousands of sit-ups or crunches.
The total cost is £8,408 over four months – eye-wateringly expensive yes, but when you’ve gone as far as I have in terms of total body transformation, the last piece feels almost priceless.
I admit that as I sit in the clinic, which has more of an Ibiza villa vibe than that of a cosmetic clinic with soft, ambient chill-out music on a loop and an open plan kitchen doubling as a luxury waiting room, I wonder if I’m mad to be worrying about abs at my age.
Have I cracked under the pressure of Ozempic culture, which demands not only thinness but flawlessness? Does a mum like me really need a perfect tummy?
But why not? I’ve got so far with the jabs – it would be daft to stop now when the body I’ve really always wanted feels so possible. Besides, you try dating in your late 40s: I need every advantage I can get.
As I show Sadaf my non-existent abs in a treatment room, the harsh reality of quite how much my body has deteriorated in the previous year becomes clear. Perhaps it’s because the novelty of being newly thin has worn off – and I’m now noticing the damage – but my midriff really is like jelly.
The loose skin is hanging over the top of my C-section scar – and I have no waist to speak of.
The muscle-sculpting treatment delivers targeted electrical stimulation through pads placed on the skin to tone, firm and strengthen muscle . Charlotte shortly after receiving the treatment
The reasons are all fairly clear: collagen decreases with age, which contributes to skin wrinkling and sagging – and I’d had rapid weight loss on top. As I stare sheepishly at the slump around my midriff, my resolve stiffens.
The good news, says Sadaf, is that cheating my way to abs will fix the whole of my midsection. In Sadaf’s view, if it bothers you, fix it. She treats most of her clients from head to toe. ‘When one area is done, they move onto another,’ she tells me.
Of course, she can spot body dysmorphia and won’t treat women obsessed with non-existent body flaws, but she is also careful to respect people’s insecurities, telling me ‘If they want to be perfect, then they will be perfect.’
She makes it clear that for best results, her treatments need to be undertaken in conjunction with working out. I nod enthusiastically but know that as a solo parent and working mum of two I won’t have time.
We start with the truSculpt. I lie down while four big sticky electrical pads are arranged in a grid pattern on the front of my stomach (two are placed on the upper abdomen below the ribs and two on the lower abdomen). To target the side abs, two additional pads are stuck either side of the obliques, which make up the core and help shape the waistline.
Then I am wrapped in cellophane like a cheese baguette and wired up to a small machine next to me. It takes 45 minutes – and some getting used to.
As the electrical pulses kick in, I start to feel tingling and pulling sensations in my abdomen that get stronger, before lessening in intensity to give me a small break. The muscles are contracting as I lie there, just as if I were doing sit ups. At times it triggers memories of giving birth – the sensation of involuntary contractions, your body doing its own thing while you watch it. It’s not painful – just an odd sensation like a spasm.
Sadaf warns me I might feel ravenous after the session because I’ve used so much energy even though I’m lying down and watching Netflix on a TV on the wall in front of me.
I’m not making my muscles work – the machine is – but my body uses its own energy stores to power those movements and repair the muscle fibres afterwards.
I’m told I can expect to see a 30 per cent increase in muscle mass after six sessions of this, and I’m having two sessions per week. It would take me months of lifting weights to get to the same point.
Morpheus8 takes longer to see the full results – about three to six months. A handheld device with tiny, gold-plated microneedles punctures the skin to create micro-injuries that trigger a natural wound healing response, while also delivering radiofrequency energy that heats below the surface of the skin. Together, they stimulate the production of collagen and elastin in the skin’s fibroblast cells, which continues over the weeks and months following the treatment and keeps on tightening, lifting and resurfacing the skin.
Once again, I lie back on a couch, and then get lathered in a numbing cream, which theoretically makes the treatment pain-free. Now Sadaf zaps my abdomen area in a stamping motion to deliver the treatment.
Despite the cream, it feels undeniably uncomfortable – like an intense sharp pinch. ‘We can melt some superficial fat but the majority of the treatment is focused on tightening the skin to help with skin laxity, crepiness, and lines,’ she tells me.
Then she presses deeper into the area, and the discomfort ramps up.
Each zap is followed by a quick, hot sting. In the bony areas such as under my ribs, it’s almost too much to handle. I feel traumatised. Even though the pain is dulled, on a deep level my body knows it’s under attack. I lie there and feel rising nausea.
Thankfully, it only takes 20 minutes. But then I look at myself in the mirror: my stomach is bright red and dripping with blood like I’ve been pulled through a bramble bush with sunburn.
I’m told this is to be expected – the device uses tiny needles to pierce the skin, after all – but it still looks alarming, and I can barely drive home with my T-shirt rubbing against my red-hot abs.
Later I take a paracetamol for the burning sensation – and there is a slight smell of cooked skin.
The next day, it’s calmed down. I can’t go in the sun for two weeks after each session – so we space them out carefully in between my holidays – and then I’m to always use factor 50 suncream. My stomach looks mildly swollen for about a week to ten days after the Morpheus8, but each week I notice a small difference… until – bam! – my abs seem to pop out by the Italian pool. I’ve also lost an entire inch off my waist, and now fit in 23-inch jeans.
And that’s not even the final result. I had my third and last session of Morpheus8 in mid-September, which means I should have the perfect washboard stomach just in time for Christmas. I’ve already started looking at flights to the Maldives!
Until then, it’s annoying that my abs will be hidden under baggy jumpers and winter dresses. I can’t commit to half a dozen sessions every week, but I resolve to carve out a little time at the gym to maintain them.
At the school gate back in west London after the holidays, I can’t resist showing a very fit mum friend my new abs. ‘Yes, you’ve got the outline of a six-pack,’ she says amazed. ‘How?!’
The temptation is to lie and smugly claim the kind of self-discipline I know I don’t have. But I come clean and she laughs.
Of course, I haven’t tied my self-worth to a washboard stomach, and I know it’s not the secret to happiness.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not overjoyed to have abs. Even though I won’t be in a bikini any time soon, I’ll be flaunting my new tummy every chance I get. The trend for see-through black lace evening gowns will work very nicely this Christmas.
Or I might even get myself a Millie Mackintosh-style Greek goddess gown, with a strategically placed cut-out over the abdomen. Whoever thought I’d be wearing such things as I hit 50?
