The men who freeze, shock, and explode their fat away

Pete Holfelder spent $2,500 to have four high-tech, clamshell-shaped devices strapped to his belly and sides to freeze his fat away. And it worked. 

“I did it because of my vanity,” Holfelder said, who got the treatment in 2019. “I was working out a lot on my abs, and not being able to see them after working so hard on them — it was bothersome to me. I was 43, and it just gets harder as you get older.”

Holfelder, VP of Trusted Media Brands in New York, was part of a vanguard of men paying thousands to freeze, electrically stimulate, and even explode fat away. The kinds of men taking these measures has also evolved and that, in turn, is changing the aesthetics of the industry itself. 

CoolSculpting, the FDA-approved treatment sold by AbbVie subsidiary Allergan, helped Holfelder lose about five pounds of belly fat, and costs the average patient $3,200, according to its website. It works by freezing and killing fat cells, which are then flushed out of the body through the lymphatic system. The process, called cryolipolysis, is just one of a growing number of ways to jettison body fat without diet, exercise, or surgery. 

Other FDA-approved treatments, like Cynosure’s SculpSure, are a bit cheaper, costing as little as $200 per session, though multiple sessions are required. These work via a process known as lipolysis: by heating fat cells and basically “exploding” them, as one spa owner described it. Finally, there’s EmSculpt by BTL Aesthetics and Cutera’s truFlex, which, for $1,000 to $3,000 a pop, sends electrical pulses to muscles, stimulating them and replicating the effects of a hard workout.

What they all have in common is a multi-thousand-dollar price tag and a growing male clientele. 

In 2023, the noninvasive fat-reduction market was about $1.5 billion, and is expected to grow by over 16% each year to $4.3 billion in 2030, according to Grand View Research. A report by United Financial Consumer Services that projected an even more aggressive 24% growth rate for CoolSculpting alone highlighted that “men are seeking aesthetic treatments more than ever.”

“If I want to look my best, why not do that extra 10% to 20% that gets you there,” Andrew Codispoti, 43, said. CEO of apparel company Goodlife, Codispoti has gotten various treatments at New York’s SKINNEY Medspa. “Not everything can be solved in the gym.” 

Before the pandemic, men made up about 10% of body-contouring treatments at SKINNEY, which operates three locations in New York City and one in Miami. Now that number is close to 40%, according to Lindsay Malachowski, the company’s chief operating officer. 

At VIO Med Spa in Naperville, a suburb of Chicago, they’ve seen 28 new male clients in the past year, an explosion over the three to five they usually got in previous years, according to spa manager Kate Wesolowski. 

At New York’s CoolSpa, about 15% to 20% of body-contouring clients were men in 2021, a number that has risen to about 30% this year. 

“The growth in the male market is expected to be more dramatic,” CoolSpa CEO Jonathan Rapaport said. 

Unlike women, who primarily get treatments on their chins, arms, inner thighs, and bellies, men mostly focus on their bellies and “love handles,” deposits of fat on the lower back and outer abdomen. 

“In Miami Beach, I get a lot of people who are just trying to keep up with the healthy aesthetic we have here,” CoolSculpting specialist Rachel Matos said. “I have so many people tell me, ‘I was on the beach and saw all these beautiful people and it made me think about my love handles.’ More men are doing it now.” 

The kinds of men getting treatments are different, too, spa owners say. 

“It was majority gay. Now it’s 50-50,” SKINNEY’s Malachowski said. “Hetero men are now more comfortable getting these treatments.” 

“Gay men usually blaze the trail for men on these things,” Codispoti, who is straight. “They’re typically more fit and in tune with taking care of themselves, but straight men want to look good, too.”

VIO’s Wesolowski has nothing but praise for her male customers.

“Men are the best customers. They buy two or three packages at a time,” she said. “My women clients like to shop around more, try a few different procedures. But the men, once they are informed of something and understand the ‘why’ behind it, they buy two or three packages. They come in consistently. They’re creatures of habit.” 

Wesolowski is pivoting to meet demand. Her marketing efforts used to be geared almost exclusively to women, but now she tries appealing to men, too, using male images in marketing emails and in-store signage. 

At CoolSpa, the days of Papyrus font on treatment menus and Enya playing in the waiting room are over. The company recently launched a new brand in Manhattan, Aethos, aimed at a more male clientele. Its lobby is designed as an information center rather than the magazine-filled waiting rooms of other medical spas. The company worked with a branding agency to come up with the name, tagline, and ethos of the new location. 

“Aethos is Greek, more masculine-coded, and the design of the logo is meant to evoke a level of experience, sophistication, and refinement,” CoolSpa’s Rapaport said. “This year, we are shifting from CoolSpa to Aethos, which will be our global brand.”

The company’s new tagline — “an aesthetics journey guided by science” — is meant to “disrupt the med-spa industry through education, transparency, and science,” Rapaport said. 

As opposed to women, who may be more comfortable in a “spa” environment, men are drawn to the “science” of aesthetics, according to Rapaport, and have been influenced online by people like Bryan Johnson, a tech founder with a net worth of $400 million who is perhaps most well known for reportedly spending about $2 million per year to stop aging. 

The rise of alternative ways to lose weight, like Ozempic, hasn’t dampened the growth among men, either, according to spa owners. In fact, it’s an upsell. 

“We might recommend a GLP-1 first, and body-contouring treatments next,” VIO’s Wesolowski said. 

Ozempic has been known to leave some people with “facial hollowness” after losing weight, which can be treated with “a variety of devices at our disposal,” including fillers, Rapaport said. 

One thing that could slow the massive growth of these treatments among men is that they aren’t as willing to talk about it as women are. Search “CoolSculpting” on TikTok and you’ll see dozens of videos of women getting the procedure, talking about it, and showing before-and-after photos. There are few, if any, men doing the same. 

“With men, it’s more of a secretive thing,” Miami Beach Microblading’s Matos said. “Men are definitely more concerned with it seeming like there might be signs they didn’t do it themselves.” 

When Holfelder got his first CoolSculpting treatment in 2019, he kept it to himself. 

“I didn’t even tell my partner, because A) he’ll kill me for spending the money on it, and B) he’ll tell me I’m fine the way I am. But I’m a vain gay man, and I want to be my vain self and look good through my 40s,” he said. 

In 2024, at 48, Holfelder has moved on from CoolSculpting and does truFlex, the muscle-stimulation treatment that its web site says is like doing 54,000 crunches in 15 minutes. He got a package deal and paid $2,150 for five treatments. 

“I’ve had many people comment, ‘Oh my god, you’ve gotten so skinny!’” he said. “And I say, ‘Thanks,’ but I don’t tell them what I’m doing.” 

Jeremy Greenfield has written about media, culture, health, careers, startups, and AI for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, GQ, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Reader's Digest magazine, Hard Pack magazine, and others.