Has Anyone Succesfully Eliminated Cellulite?

Ah, cellulite. The scourge and plague of women (and men) everywhere. This dreaded condition is so feared, so hated, and so despised that every major cosmetic and phramaceutical company has managed to make nothing short of several hundred million dollars selling various cellulite treatment creams and products.

Pharmacies are overloaded with larger-than-life cardboard displays, obnoxiously broadcasting smooth, supple thighs and taut rear ends, free of the dreaded bumps and divots that herald the onset of that awful word —cellulite, sounding like a strange futuristic product nobody wants and needs, reminding us of a jiggly, jello-like substance that creeps up and attaches to the legs and body, like some kind of alien visitor of unknown origin.

WHAT IS CELLULITE?

Dramatics aside, just what is cellulite, anyway? It’s something that happens naturally, and has nothing to do with whether you are skinny or not. After puberty, your skin cells change. Due to complicated hormonal factors that have not yet been fully understood by science, various things happen to fat buildups under the skin, and this can create cellulite.

Look at wikipedia’s description, cited from multiple sources: “the causes are poorly understood, and may involve changes in metabolism and physiology such as gender specific dimorphic skin architecture, alteration of connective tissue structure, vascular changes and inflammatory processes.”

And hormones contribute to all of this, but again, there is no scientific consensus suggesting that one hormone is entirely responsible for the formation of it.

In other words: it can — and probably will — happen to anyone. So what can we do about it?

WHY THE CREAMS DON’T WORK.

Here are three fundamental points that you need to remember, the next time you see an advertisement for a cellulite treatment:

Number One: There are no published reports in the scientific literature showing that any cellulite therapies work.

Number Two: In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Molly Wanner, an instructor in dermatology at Harvard Medical School and an author of a 2008 evidence-based review of existing treatments, asserted, “At this point, there is no outstanding treatment for cellulite.”

Number Three: Dr. Michael F. McGuire, a clinical associate professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, confirmed that “realistically there is no cure for cellulite.”

Really? So all those creams are a scam? It can’t be true — dozens of fancy companies are selling more and more expensive creams that really do promise to get rid of cellulite! How could they possibly be scams? Wouldn’t the government have shut them down by now?

Here’s why: those creams do work, for a couple of days at the very most, but probably just a few irritating hours. They cause your skin to tingle extensively and tighten up superficially, which temporarily reduces the appearance of cellulite. Then they wear off. That’s it.

But what about all those claims that the creams attack the underlying causes of cellulite, the fat structure, the skin cells? Nope. Like any cream, they are absorbed into the layers of your epidermis, and that’s it. They don’t go to work on your fat cells, changing and altering the way your skin is structured. That is 100% junk science, but it’s amazing how often the claim is made. What feels like a tingling sensation is just that, and nothing else.

No cream, no pill, no complicated deep massage technique is going to get rid of your cellulite. There is no cure for it.

However, there are things you can do in order to reduce those underlying factors that cause cellulite. You guessed it — exercise and a rational, healthy diet!

THE ONE AND ONLY WAY TO COMBAT CELLULITE.

That’s right: there is only one real way to combat cellulite, and we highlighted it in this article right here. You need to exercise, to reduce the amount of fat on your body, and to build lean muscle (oh, and to do that, you also need to eat right, too).

Here’s the thing: you’ve probably heard that there’s no way to ‘choose’ where your body is going to lose fat from. This is partially true: if you do cardio, and do it specifically for fat loss, it is pretty much random as to where that fat might melt away first.

But when you add in weight training, and when you begin to build your lean muscle, you are targeting specific areas on your body. These will tighten up the more you work them out, and are the only real way to work specific zones that you want to improve.

With cellulite, it’s the same thing: even ‘super-skinny’ people have fat on their bodies (as we all do), and are at risk for developing cellulite like anyone else. Just because someone is super-skinny doesn’t mean they’ve got any lean muscle built up. The fat cells could just be minimized, almost-invisible, because the overall body weight is rather low. But trust us — they’re still there, and still susceptible to cellulite.

No matter what your weight might be, don’t be swayed by expensive creams, special treatments, and complicated massage. And don’t think you need a crash diet and 4 hours of cardio per day in order to lose it either: if you can somehow survive on a program like that, the cellulite will still be there at the end of it.

Instead, start concentrating on routines like our Butt and Abs workout, or our Lower Body Workout, and integrate weightlifting into your exercise as soon as you can. Lean muscle is the #1 way to combat cellulite, and the more time you spend on that (and less on ineffectual treatments), the more amazing results you’ll see.