But trainers aren't about to be liposuction poster children, given how few of them are liable to own up to having it. "Most of them would never admit to getting liposuction," says Colen of her trainer patients. "They might get fired if they did. They're supposed to be promoting their club, not their doctor."

Case in point: another trainer in her early thirties who's a columnist for a prominent fitness magazine. She was ready to have liposuction on her legs and be interviewed for this article. Then her editor got wind of it. If she talked to me, or went through with the liposuction, the editor said, she would never write for the magazine again. That was the end of that. (Not the liposuction, necessarily. Just talking about it.)

Or take the trainer who gave a glowing account of her liposuction but declined to give her real name, and says she doesn't generally tell her clients she had it. "I don't gain from it -- in fact, I could stand to lose a client," she says. But she doesn't feel as though she's being dishonest in keeping it secret. For her, liposuction was a last resort to get at a stubborn reserve, and she argues that it's in her clients' best interests that they not think of surgery as an option until they absolutely need -- or want -- to. That is, after they get fit and develop decent eating habits. "I like to get them to have a relationship with food, get the bad stuff out of their diet, and not be so obsessed with being skinny."

As of the three-week mark, Sanfilippo is reluctant to wholeheartedly endorse the surgery. "It's a high price for vanity," she says now. "I wasn't prepared for how much everything would hurt afterward." But, she says, "if those spots are gone, it will be worth it. I keep telling myself it's like being pregnant. When you finally get the results, suddenly you forget the pain."

And hey -- as you've heard your trainer say so many times: No pain, no gain.

Related:

• Archive: “Features”
• Articles by David Colman
• Table of Contents: Apr 17, 2000 issue of New York | Subscribe!