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SLIM: Anna Friel.
Wet suit helps Friel to slim
David Ottewell28/ 9/2005
WE'VE all tried holding in our stomachs to look thinner - but film star Anna Friel took things a stage further to regain her figure after childbirth.
The Rochdale-born actress, who shot to fame as Beth in Brookside, used a state-of-the-art slimming machine that combines a wetsuit and vacuum to shift the pounds.
The bizarre device sucks out the air between the body and the suit, supposedly increasing blood flow around the stomach area and thereby absorbing fat.
And it seems to have worked - Ms Friel has shrunk back to a size eight only three months after the birth of her daughter Gracie three months ago.
Natural
Ms Friel, 29, told an Italian magazine: "I wear this space-age wetsuit that wires me up to a suction pump as I walk a treadmill.
"You are judged if you gain it [weight], you are judged if you lose it. I just wanted to get into my natural shape."
Ms Friel - whose film credits include The Land Girls and A Midsummer Night's Dream - was under pressure to lose weight in order to shoot nude scenes for her latest movie.
She turned to the machine, called the Vacunaut, as an alternative to liposuction or hours of hard graft in the gym. Instead she has been using the contraption for light workouts of just 30 minutes or so a few times a week.
Slimming experts are still divided on whether the Vacunaut is a miracle device or just a short-term fix that simply removes liquid from the body.
Ms Friel, whose partner is actor David Thewlis, is due to start filming in the next few weeks a follow-up to her most recent movie, Goal!
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29/09/2005 at 18:00
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