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SALT LAKE CITY — Losing weight is a popular New Year's Eve resolution, and one woman is making it happen after designing sweat pants that make you sweat.
Like many women, Dessi Bell wanted to lose weight, but was short on time. She wanted to get more muscle tone and slim down to fit into her wedding dress for her upcoming big day. As a result, the 28-year-old banker invented Zaggora's HotPants, workout clothes that make you sweat more and burn more calories.
"I was going to the gym, I was going to yoga, I was doing 10 things at the same time," Bell told ABC News. "And I thought, 'I'm not the only woman who is short on time.' "
Bell designed the workout gear to not only help women lose weight faster, but also to help them look stylish while working out. The stretchy, multi-layered material helps women to accentuate or cover up areas of their body.
"We spent 12 months developing that," Bell said. "Really making sure the fit is right, that you look great in it. The curves in the HotPants make sure they hold you in all the right places."
During the developing stages of the clothing, Bell had several tests done to prove the effectiveness of the heating layer. They tested 13 subjects in Zaggora HotPants and 13 in standard exercise clothing and found that exercising in HotPants can increase energy expenditure during exercise by an average of 11 percent.
Although Bell's clothing line became a growing trend, others have had the same idea for working out. In the past, workout enthusiasts have been known to don garbage bags over their workout attire to help them sweat more.
The Zaggora clothing line instantly gained popularity and was so successful that Bell quit her job as a banker to devote all of her time to the booming project. Zaggora sold more than 500,000 items in less than a year and a half.
The website has now had more than three million visitors from 119 different countries around the world, making Zaggora one of the fastest growing companies in the UK.
