Ep # 187 - How Lymphatic Massage Supports Real Wellness

Your body is moving fluid all day long, but one major system does not have a built-in pump. That small detail explains a lot of the puffiness, inflammation, and “why do I feel swollen?” moments people shrug off as normal. We sit down with Nil Abassi, nurse practitioner and founder of The Body Club in Englewood, NJ, to break down lymphatic drainage massage in a way that actually makes sense and feels usable, whether you came for wellness, recovery, or body contouring.

We talk about what lymphatic drainage is (and what it is not), how “drainage” works inside the body, and why clients often notice immediate changes like less facial puffiness and a more sculpted look. Nil shares how her surgical and hospital background shapes the studio’s approach, including why spacing sessions matters and why the aesthetic results are secondary to better inner function. We also dig into who benefits, from athletes and physically demanding jobs to people dealing with lymphedema or lipedema, plus the common misconception that you need plastic surgery to “qualify.”

Nil walks us through what a first visit looks like, starting with a real consultation and clear goal-setting. We cover the add-ons people ask about most, including ice therapy for skin rejuvenation, magnesium wraps, sauna detox, and Venus Legacy radio frequency treatments for skin tightening and body contouring, especially for those navigating GLP-1 weight loss and loose skin. You will leave with a clearer picture of how to start safely, what to expect, and how to choose what fits your life right now.

If this conversation helped you rethink wellness from the inside out, subscribe to the Good Neighbor Podcast, share this with a friend who’s always battling bloat, and leave a quick review. What’s the one result you’d want most from lymphatic drainage: less puffiness, better recovery, or more energy?

The Body Club
Nil Abassi
20 Nordhoff Place Suite 020, Englewood, NJ 07631
thebodyclub.glossgenius.com

Transcript

Welcome To The Body Club

Intro/Close 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.

Doug Drohan 0:20

Just up the road from Anglewood, which is where the Body Club is located. And I bring that up because today we are speaking with the founder and the owner, Neil Abasi of the Body Club. And welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Hi, everybody. Good afternoon.

Doug Drohan 0:35

So the Body Club is not a gym. It's not a place where I'm going to go pump iron and be like Anald Schwarzenegger. It is not a Pilates club. It is really about, I mean, the services, I guess, are more about sculpting your body through massage. Is that a good way of describing it?

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Yeah, that's a good foundation. It's really, it's a wellness studio. The Body Club is a wide range of services that really focus on inner wellness that promotes outer beauty.

Doug Drohan 1:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

All right.

Doug Drohan 1:09

Well, there's a lot of wellness studios in the world, uh, especially where we live, right? I feel like everybody calls themselves a wellness studio. So what is, you know, makes you unique and you know, you're the body

The Lymphatic System Explained

Doug Drohan 1:22

club unique. And then we'll talk about what makes you personally unique.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

The body club is focused on the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is something we're all born with. It has um we it doesn't have a pump. We have to manually manipulate it. So that's what the body club does. Everyone comes in and it sounds like, oh, I'm just coming in to get sculpted, look good, but you're really not. It's uh inner like medical therapy. It's we promote body drainage, we help promote your like fluid system. So that's why you lead with the sculptor. Look, I tell all my clients you come in, it's really the aesthetic part of it is secondary to the inner wellness.

Doug Drohan 1:59

Got it, got it. So I mean, I've heard of you know the lymphatic system, but I've never heard of like draining. It sounds painful. Like, there's like, do you is there like a tube hooked up where all this fluid is coming out where you're draining me?

SPEAKER_02 2:14

No, you have tubes hooked up, but how it drains is you're actually your it comes out through, it goes into your blood system. And the way we excrete is through peeing it out, you know, we you go to the bathroom a lot afterwards, you sweat it out, we do full body magnesium wraps, we have sauna detoxes where we help sweat it out, everything else you could do on your own time.

Founder Story And Medical Roots

Doug Drohan 2:38

Nice, nice. So, where did the idea for this? Is this your first um, you know, kind of lymphatic um, you know, therapy wellness studio, or have you owned others in the past?

SPEAKER_02 2:50

No, this is our first one. This is the original body club. Yeah, it came in. It really is like a personal story. I've personally been getting lymphatic drainage massages for 15 plus years, and I started doing the research on it as to why I always feel good, why my skin is always shining, why everything is so bright, why I have so much energy. And it really like after much research, many, many years, I was like, oh my God, this is like the I'm getting lymphatic drainage massages. That's the only caveat to my wellness therapy that most people are not getting. So it was a passion. I'm in healthcare, and I just I started from there and never looked back.

Doug Drohan 3:27

Wow. So you say you're in healthcare. So what is that? What's your background?

SPEAKER_02 3:31

I'm I'm a nurse and now a nurse practitioner. I've been a nurse practitioner for seven years, a nurse in RN for 17 years. I've always been in the surgical field. I started out my career in MedSurge, went to surgical ICU, PACU. Now I manage interventional services, which encompasses all surgeries, all procedures at a local hospital in Jersey. Uh so it's like I this is my passion.

Doug Drohan 3:58

Wow, that's that's amazing. So I'd imagine you said your skin looks great, and you probably had a lot of your friends come up to you and say, What are you doing? You look amazing. Uh you know, what what's is it Botox? Is it you know, uh fillers or whatever other cosmetic um outward, external things we do to our skin. But you're you know, you said, No, I'm actually working from the inside out.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

I'm working from the inside out. That's exactly what it is. When you have a clean lymphatic system, everything else just naturally shines.

Why Lymphatic Massage Is Trending

Doug Drohan 4:27

Now, you know, so this lymphatic drainage, you're not the first person that I've talked to, or you know, first uh time I've heard about it. I admit I don't know much about it, as you can tell from my questions. But what's happened recently in the last five years or so where this has become more kind of in the in the zeitgeist, if you will, like we, you know, we hear about it more often. Like, what was this something new that people discovered? Uh I mean, I know that you know, maybe medically, you know, lymphedema and things like that, that people are suffering from cancer, have those issues. But is this type of uh massage therapy new, relatively new?

SPEAKER_02 5:05

It's actually not, it's always been a medical therapy for years. It is new to the beauty world. So probably heard more about it in the past five years because, like I stated earlier, the secondary effect is that naturally um sculpted look because you move the fluids, the inflammation goes down, you start debloating the body. So you get a natural, like so. The beauty world kind of said, Wow, this is something to jump on. Let's do it.

Full Body Results And Scheduling

Doug Drohan 5:33

Yeah. So now let me ask you is um is it a full body or do you focus on certain areas of the body? Like, is it just like your torso or is it your face, your neck, legs? How does that work?

SPEAKER_02 5:46

It's full body, it's full, and there are places like depending on what your needs are. If you had plastic surgery, you know, that we try to focus on just that area. And every place is set up different. The way the body club is set up is because we do focus on inner wellness, so we do the full body neck down, face is done either at the same time, or a lot of clients like to get body done weekly, and then they add in face like every second or third, every second or third session, but it is a full body treatment.

Doug Drohan 6:14

Got it, got it. And then so you're people feel more rejuvenated. So I'm just thinking about uh, you know, sometimes a lot of people get into this uh gluten-free diet because they feel like they get bloated, uh, or they had a rough weekend of partying and now their face is kind of puffy and bloated. Would a lymphatic massage um therapy on your in your face, in your face, on your face, help with puffy eyes and things like that?

SPEAKER_02 6:43

100% and immediately the results are visible immediately.

Doug Drohan 6:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Decreases inflammation because that that stagnant fluid is there. Our lymph nodes are meant to collect and they just stay there. So once you start shifting them around and moving them, you detox the body. Like it's crazy how it works. People think that they've gotten facelifts from it. They come in and they're like, wow, I look 10 years younger.

Doug Drohan 7:05

And how long does it last? Do you need to come in once a month, or is it um every few weeks, or is it a couple times a year?

SPEAKER_02 7:14

It's it's promoted, like it you can get it every 72 hours. You need 72 hours in between because you don't want to overload your circulatory system because you are draining toxins into your circulatory system. So 72, like three to four days generally in between therapies. Um, and then once a week, it's like you know, like you would go in for a massage, it's a luxury treatment. Once a week is definitely ideal. If not, I have clients that come in once in the beginning of the week, once at the end of the week, especially people that are on TV, athletes, people that are like doing, you know, like if they have strenuous activity. I have a lot of, believe it or not, a lot of city workers that are a part of the union, roofers, electricians, they love to come in.

Doug Drohan 7:56

And I'd imagine um, since you said the effects are immediate, somebody's daughter's getting married, they're going to a wedding or they're going to the high school reunion or something like that. And they yeah. Now, why is it different to get a uh lymphatic drainage massage for a woman versus a man? Because I notice you have like lymphatic drainage for men. What's different about it?

SPEAKER_02 8:19

So men have more muscle mass generally than women do, and they are naturally bigger, they're just just bigger surface space to work through.

Doug Drohan 8:26

Got it, got it. Okay, okay, but the actual therapy is the same, it's just the actual therapy is the same. Got it.

Ice Therapy And Skin Rejuvenation

Doug Drohan 8:33

And then what are the different types? So there's like, you know, I guess you use different types of tools, but you have um, you know, the the massage, I guess the the basic lymphatic drainage massage, but then you also have uh ice therapy. So what's the you know, obviously there's a difference. What's the benefit to ice therapy?

SPEAKER_02 8:51

I think exfoliation, rejuvenation, it really is such a nice therapy. It's like one of those luxuries that you go in and your whole whole body comes out. A lot of people can't tolerate cryo or like cold plunges. So this we have like charcoal ice that helps rejuvenate the skin, and we use metal therapy tools instead of the wood therapy tools to help contour.

Doug Drohan 9:13

Wow. So it's a little cold, but it's not like cold plunge. I tried a um, I did there's a place that does a it's a sauna and cold plunge combined, and um the problem with the cold plunge, I would do better if it was like a pool where I just jumped in. This is like a bathtub where you got to ease yourself in, and that one's a lot harder. Like I totally get the benefits of it, but I was like, I'll put one arm in, I'll splash. I went in, I like went in and out a few times. But you know, when I grew up in Long Island and you went to the beach in the summer, the water never got like above 70. Yeah, you were freezing, and the only way to go in was to just dive right into it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

It makes it easier when you dive into it.

Doug Drohan 9:58

In a bathtub is a lot harder to kind of ease yourself. There's no easing yourself into a cold plunge.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

No, no, no, absolutely not. This is like we have a warm, we you have a warm blanket underneath you, so you're kind of warm on one side, and we do one area at a time. So it's like your lower body or your upper body, we cover the other side of the body, but it is like once the initial cold goes down, then it feels really good.

Doug Drohan 10:21

Nice, nice.

Who It Helps And Myths Debunked

Doug Drohan 10:23

So, what is the um like who's your typical customer? Is it somebody uh, like you said, you know, people that are working careers? Uh, is there a certain age group of people that are coming in that maybe, you know, the older you get, the more you need some things like this. But I think, you know, there's a certain population. There's a reason why you're in Anglewood, right? Anglewood uh is in an area of with an affluent population. I feel like um, you know, the more professionally educated people are, the more they might spend on their own personal health and wellness because they've done so much in their lives providing for their families that it's a little bit of self-care and they have the means to spend and they're willing to do because they see the benefits.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

100%. 100%. And it it's such a great area, and that's exactly our population. It really lymphatic drainage is for anyone. You know, I came to the area, I just kind of like I, you know, was meant to be is meant to be. I wasn't even looking at Englewood, I didn't even know Anglewood existed, honestly.

Doug Drohan 11:20

I live where are you from?

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Rockland County. Uh but I grew up on Long Island and I moved to where about in uh West Iceland.

Doug Drohan 11:29

Okay, I'm from uh East Northport Huntington area.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Yeah, so similar area. Um, we and moving out here to Rockland County, I was really looking at a place in Rockland County, and Englewood came up just like out of nowhere. It was like, oh, there's the gym, there's this location if you're interested. And I went in and it's been like history since then, and I love it. And you're right, it's it's for everyone. I do have people that are in the know, but you'd be surprised how many people think that lymphatic drainage, like my the biggest misconception in this industry, is that I have to have a BBL to get lymphatic drainage. That's what a lot of people think. So it's becoming more and more the awareness is there, they're understanding you really don't need surgery. It's for everyone. Everyone has a lymphatic system and it has to be manually manipulated.

Doug Drohan 12:15

Wow, okay. And you know, we also live in an area with a lot of environmental pollutions, and um, you know, there's a lot of toxins and a lot of stress. So I had to imagine there's uh a greater need for it here than maybe some other places. Absolutely, absolutely. So you you said you're a nurse practitioner. So how did you get into that field? Like, why did you become a nurse?

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Oh my god, nursing has always been my passion, just helping people ever since I was a young child. I've always wanted to do something that makes other people happy. I don't, it's just I've always been that person, you know, like the girl that would take her lollipop and give it to the girl next to her, like, oh, here you go, you can have it. You know, just to see her smile and be happy. And that kind of like I was brought up with that giving nature. And nursing, of course, just naturally compassion is needed, giving is needed. Nurses give so much of themselves to other people, whether it's energy, whether it's physically, whether it's mentally, spiritually, we you know, and it's always been my calling. And holistic healing is something that stands like it's uh deep within me, it's in the core of my practice. I truly, the human body is magnificent. We can heal ourselves of so much, and like you said before, there's so many pollutants, toxins, there's so much going on in this world that I'm like on a mission to inform people that you know you can clean out, you can make yourself healthier, and you have to start from the inside out.

Doug Drohan 13:38

Right, right. Yeah, I mean, it's about nutrition as well as a lot of different things. Um, you know, I'm always a proponent of well, what I what I espouse, what I preach about is um an integrated, holistic approach to marketing and how it's not about clicks and likes and you know, views, it's about building something that's going to be long-lasting. And in a world where people would rather choose a pill or surgery over a lifestyle change, you know, it's tough, but um, you know, you got to lead by example. And I think um, you know, when you're walking around, you are a an advertisement for your business. If people look at you and say, My God, your skin looks great. What are you doing? Right. Um, but it's nothing that maybe happens overnight, you know, with nutrition and a healthy lifestyle. It's maybe it happened because you've always lived that way, but for some people they didn't live that way, and now they've got to change their lifestyle and they've got to stick to a process and understand that it will get there, but it may not be overnight.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And everyone has to start somewhere, and I think that's like the message uh about like the body club that I want everyone to take away is that you, you know, like even if you're scared, and I get that a lot, like, oh, the the tools scare me. Do I need it? No, you don't, you know, just have coming in, even if you want like very light pressure, someone to just like you know, it feels good, it can feel good, like if we do deeper pressure, if you want more contouring, like you just have to start somewhere, take care of yourself, yeah.

First Visit Consult And Services

Doug Drohan 15:06

You know, like so why don't you tell me a little bit more about all the services that you offer? I want to understand like what what's the experience like if somebody comes in for the first time? Like, how does it go uh from you know, I guess, client intake to, you know, when somebody gets their first uh session? And there's so many different things to choose from. So why don't you take me through that for a few minutes?

SPEAKER_02 15:28

We always start off with a consultation. Um, it usually requires 15 to 20 minutes of sitting down and just talking about you and what your goals are. What are you looking to do? Is this something you're doing because you have a wedding coming up and you want to sculpt and you just want to look good? Or is this something because you're starting your wellness journey? Or is it did you start GLP ones and now you have loose skin that you're looking to tighten or you're looking to start a new health journey? So it all depends on the consultation. I do have clients that come in that do have lymphedema, lipadema. You know, they come in. I have a lot of surgeons that I work with. They always send consultations to me. Are you planning on having plastic surgery or not? So, depending on what the consultation results are, we start from there. I always recommend doing a full-body lymphatic drainage massage. And then face is recommended definitely, if not at every session, every second or third session, because we have over 300 lymph nodes in our head and neck. You want to make sure you're draining them too. You don't want to hold on to that stress. The feeling I give everyone a disclaimer, it's addicting. You know, the biggest problem I have now is telling my clients, like, you come next week. You don't have to come at the end of the week.

Doug Drohan 16:35

Okay, yeah. Give it a few days.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Give it a few days in between. Um, depending, you know, I have we uh we offer Venus Legacy treatments for skin tightening, body contouring. It really was created to battle the GLP one craze. A lot of people are losing 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 pounds within a couple of months.

Doug Drohan 16:55

And they're losing out of muscle.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

They're losing muscle mass and they're being left with loose skin. So Venus Legacy is a Canadian, uh, Venus Concepts is a Canadian company. They offer a couple of machines, but their base foundational machine is the Venus Legacy, and that helps tighten skin by using radio frequency and heat technology. So it's a wonderful machine. It feels like a very intense hot stone massage while you're doing it.

Doug Drohan 17:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

And I love it because I've I have three children. I just had a baby. It's the one thing that I swear by thing. It's the one thing that I swear by, it's the one thing that I've done, and I know it works. I've seen the results, so it's something I offer my clientele, and they all love it. And then the we do sauna detoxes, full body magnesium wraps, ice therapy. It all depends on your goals. And we can we always stagger them, right? You don't have to get everything done at once.

Intro/Close 17:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

You can do what serves your life purpose at that time. I have a lot of bodybuilders that come in, you know, they're training for a show. Their therapy looks different than the, you know, your your 30-year-old postpartum mom that just had a baby and is looking for, you know, to help get their energy back.

Doug Drohan 18:05

Nice. I'm gonna uh just turn my phone up a second, give a second. Sorry about that. Here we are. We're

Booking Details Plus Business Advice

Doug Drohan 18:18

back. All right, that was a brief uh message from our sponsor, and now we're back. That's so so where are you located in Englewood?

SPEAKER_02 18:26

We're on North Hoff Place, we're right above the gym off of Route 4.

Doug Drohan 18:30

Oh, yeah, yeah. Um there is a great pizza restaurant, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Right, yeah. Yeah, it's right across the street.

Doug Drohan 18:37

Uh what's it called? Uh Ohm. Ohm.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Yep. Yeah.

Doug Drohan 18:40

So I used to live in North Bergen. The first one was there on Broadway, and then they opened up.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Oh, really?

Doug Drohan 18:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

What a small world.

Doug Drohan 18:46

Yeah, it's a great space. So, so what's the um, you know, the phone number or how do people book a session? Like what's uh do they go online? What what do you recommend?

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Uh the easiest way now is Instagram because I feel like everyone communicates on Instagram. There's no more need to even carry a phone, everyone's DMing. But um, our Instagram handle is at the Body Club Englewood. And our yeah, but we do have a phone number that you can text, call at any time 201-535-1201. Um someone's all it's very easy, like someone eat responds right away.

Doug Drohan 19:21

Uh you have to explain your your email address though. So body snatchers, what was that?

SPEAKER_02 19:28

No, get snatched at the body club England.

Doug Drohan 19:34

Okay. So where where does that come from?

SPEAKER_02 19:38

So this is this is the beauty world making my job a lot easier because the beauty world markets lymphatic drainage like no other. So it was like getting snatched is uh the term used constantly when your body, you know, because we de we de-blow. So you have that snatched waist, you know, you get that that curvy figure. So it was get snatched at the body club angle.

Doug Drohan 20:00

There was a movie called Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and I'm like, I don't see the connection, but you know, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

We're definitely not body snatchers.

Doug Drohan 20:09

Okay. And you're open every day of the week except for um Thursdays and Sundays, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:15

And Sundays, yep. We open up at 8 a.m. We're there till 6 p.m. Um, we are very flexible with timing, we leave a lot of space and time for our clients to come in. Uh, what generally happens is they book one session and then they want everything done when they come in.

Doug Drohan 20:29

Okay, yeah. So I gotta I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit. So you're a nurse practitioner by trade. Is this the first business that you've ever owned and run?

SPEAKER_02 20:39

No.

Doug Drohan 20:40

Okay. This is not your first rodeo because I ask a lot of people that are doctors or trained to do something else that are now running a practice, and you know, no one taught them how to be a business person, how to be an accountant and an HR manager and a marketer and all that, and it's somewhat overwhelming because they don't teach you that in medical school.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

No, they definitely don't. Like that was definitely not my strong suit, but we do own a family business, and my husband taught me like the finances and the HR component and all that that came with it. So I was a little prepared.

Doug Drohan 21:12

Yeah, that's good. That's great. Well, what advice would you give to someone who's thinking of starting their own business? It could be anything, like a lot of things came out of COVID where people were home and maybe they lost their jobs and they realized that they had a passion for something and they decided to go for it. Um, any advice you'd give someone who's thinking about starting a business but not sure if it's if they can do it? Like it might be too much for them. It's a dream and you know it's for other people.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

It's never too much to dream. I always say reach as far and high as you can. It's never too crazy, it's never too big, it's never it might not be an immediate attainment, but it will definitely come. As long as you stay true to your own true north, whatever that is, you'll success will always come.

Doug Drohan 21:58

That's great. Well, Neil, this is. This was great. I really uh I think I'm gonna have to come check out a uh lymphatic.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

I might have to hire you. I might have to hire you.

Doug Drohan 22:09

Oh, there you go. Yeah, okay. Uh it sounds great. Well, thank you once again for for joining us, and you and I will be right back. We're just gonna have Chuck say a few words.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Okay, thank you.

Doug Drohan 22:18

All right, thank you.

Intro/Close 22:20

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergen.com. That's gmpbergen.com or call 201 298 8325.