The Scoop on Cellulite

Who looks in the mirror and says- "Ooh, look at that cellulite! That's HOT!" I wish we could all be that confident :)

Hopefully, you've never spent a dime on any cellulite creams, because on Oprah, Dr. Oz says that none of them work! He says it's genetic. I've also read from various sources that it can happen on a lean, thin person, not just someone who's overweight (which is a common misconception.)

Oprah's site sums it up here:

What is cellulite? Do all women get it?

"Dr. Oz says that if you have cellulite, point the finger at your family tree—the way your body stores fat is genetic. He says that fat cells, when they're doing their job, suck in as much fat as they can and then grow larger.

"It looks like a huge marshmallow," Dr. Oz says. "And these marshmallows begin to touch each other. And as they touch each other, they begin to push bigger and bigger and bigger molds of this stuff. … You put all this together, guess what happens? Cellulite."

There is a massive billion-dollar industry of anti-cellulite treatments, and Dr. Oz says all of the treatments...have one thing in common: They don't really work. "You can't put a cream on and get inside the fat cell," he says. While they may be able to give you a short-term reduction in appearance of cellulite—caused by swelling in blood vessels and tissue—"It doesn't hold," Dr. Oz says. "Here's one more bit of data: The guys don't care that much. They really don't."


-- Well that's comforting that he thinks guys don't care! I'm sure we still want to get rid of it, but I'll be honest with ya. We can't necessarily get rid of it once we have it! It's comparable to stretch marks. We can have tighter skin by toning our muscles, which will help reduce the appearance of it, but once it's there it's most likely staying there.

Don't let someone tell you that you can get it off by doing leg exercises only. There's no such thing as "spot reducing". Our fat will come off where it was most recently put on. For example, if you do 100 ab crunches everyday, you might not lose any fat off your stomach but instead in your arms. It's just the way our bodies work. So don't think that you need to do a ton of leg work to get rid of the cellulite. It will be a result of total body fat reduction and being more toned that will help reduce the appearance of it.

Stay away from junk food, especially sugar. Stick with the whole foods. Of course we can have our ONE "free meal" during the week (it's a free meal, not cheat meal, because cheat makes you think you're being sneaky and can cause us to binge), but in general we should be cutting those types of foods out of our daily intake. They're treats, so that's how they should be treated, not as every day occurrences. We're always looking for quick fixes now-a-days. Let's eat CLEAN, do our cardio at least 4x a week, and a total body circuit strength workout 3x a week to help decrease our excess body fat.