Cellulite – it’s not everyone’s favorite conversation topic. Especially when it’s otherwise known as cottage cheese thighs, orange peel skin and hail damage.
There’s a reason why people cringe at the word cellulite and its other so delicate descriptors – because the vast majority of adult woman have it and ALL don’t want it.
At the same time, there is no need to talk down to yourself because you do have a few pockets and dimples to spare. There is big lesson in learning to love your body just as it is and appreciate the wonder of it for everything it does for you every second to keep you alive and functioning.
While you can’t spot reduce…the good news is that you CAN reduce cellulite! You really can help your body to become firmer and leaner and reduce cellulite. I am going to share with you now what cellulite actually is, why you have it and give you some ways to reduce the appearance of cellulite on your body. You don’t have to have bikini shame anymore!
What is cellulite?
Cellulite is the term given to fat deposits just below the skin, typically in the abdomen and lower pelvic region – such as on the thighs and tush.
There are a lot of reasons why cellulite is said to appear on your body including hormonal reasons, poor diet and lifestyle choices, age and genetic predisposition.
While each of these factors can play a role in cellulite formation, there is one common denominator to all of these factors – the accumulation of toxicity in your body.
Think about this: the vast majority of people have had decades of eating packaged foods, refined sugars and salts, processed starches, cooked animal proteins, chemicals, pesticides and preservatives, and even higher quality foods but too much of them and in poor combinations. That’s just what you’ve eaten.
Then consider the environmental chemicals and pollutants inside your home and outside in your environment that you have been exposed to for years. Maybe you also smoked, drank and took drugs (even pharmaceuticals) for weeks, months or years at a time.
That equals an awful lot of toxins which your body is not able to eliminate fully while you continue to feed yourself poor quality foods and don’t put special attention and effort into removing this accumulation.
Why do toxins have anything to do with whether you have cellulite?
Your body stores toxins in your fat to help minimize how much toxicity your vital organs are exposed to. This is why a skinny person with an unhealthy lifestyle can be in more danger of symptoms and sickness than a person who is slightly overweight and has an unhealthy lifestyle.
They have the extra bit of fat for the body to store toxins in so that the precious vital organs and body functions are less compromised by exposure to those extra toxins. The dimples and pockets of your cellulite are also storing toxins.
If you feel embarrassed or ashamed of your cellulite now, how will you feel in five years time when it has only gotten worse? In ten years time? And take a deep breath, in 20 years time?
You will have accumulated a lot more toxicity in your body in that time and it will show in your cellulite (and a myriad of other unpleasant symptoms). It doesn’t paint a pretty picture, does it? No pun intended.
The key to reducing cellulite is to remove the accumulation of toxins from your body and prevent further build up of toxins.
Below I share with you 7 tips to help you do this.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: This is not just the way to reduce and prevent cellulite but also the way to live a long, healthy life and look and feel as beautiful as you can.
1. Eat a clean, alkaline, unprocessed diet
In order to remove the toxins from your body, you must first draw them out from where they have accumulated in your cells, tissues and organs.
The way to do this is to consume alkaline forming foods (meaning they leave an alkaline ash in the body). All fresh fruits and vegetables are alkaline and should make up the largest part of your diet.
You might be thinking “can fresh fruits and vegetables really help me to reduce my cellulite?”
Yes, they can when combined with the other tips provided. This is how it works: the alkalinity of these fresh, life force rich foods magnetizes to the acidic toxic matter in your cells, drawing it out so it can be removed from your body.
The key is to gradually increase your fresh produce consumption (mostly vegetables) so that you don’t magnetize out more toxicity than the body can remove. Otherwise the toxins will just re-circulate and then re-settle. Baby steps and transition is vital, as is getting in tune with your own body and its signals so you know when to include more or when you are drawing out more toxicity than your body can handle.
If you want to flood your body with alkalinity and minimize cellulite (and ageing and other symptoms) get into fresh vegetable juicing.
2. Hydrate and flush
You need to drink enough pure, clean water and organic hydration from fresh fruits and vegetables to keep toxins flushing through you. Water is essential to life and it is also essential to reducing and preventing further cellulite.
Just think about the effects/look of dehydration: shrivelled, lumpy, aged. This doesn’t make a cellulite free body with smooth, supple skin.
Drink pure water every day as the first thing you consume. If you don’t like your water straight up, some lemon juice or lemon slices.
Herbal tea is also great but avoid coffee and tea as much as possible and if you do choose to include them drink extra water and fresh vegetable juice to help counter their dehydrating effects and acidity.
Again, fresh vegetable juice is king.
3. Swap your salt
Seriously, it can’t get any easier than this: swap your refined salt (table salt) for Celtic sea salt or Himalayan crystal salt.
Refined salt is extremely acidic and leaches minerals from your body. It is also highly dehydrating (hello cellulite!) and so refined that your body will need to use its vital life force to try to assimilate this dead salt. Refined salt only adds to the accumulation of toxicity in your body.
Crystal and sea salt however are alkaline, packed full of beneficial minerals, give to the body rather than take from it and have a fuller flavour…if you can notice the difference at all!
It’s a total no brainer. Get into your cupboards and throw away the refined stuff now.
4. True detoxification – getting the waste out
When you put clean, alkaline foods into the body as per the first three tips, the alkalinity of those foods starts to attract out old acidic waste matter deep within your body. This is brilliant and exactly what you want as once this stuff has come out your body will have a chance of showing less of the toxicity through your cellulite.
However if you are drawing this toxic waste out of the cells and tissues they still need to be removed from the body completely. This is where your elimination channels come in. They work to get this stuff OUT so it doesn’t just re-settle in your body.
But here’s the thing: this stuff is typically really gnarly and not easy to remove from the body. Most people already have compromised elimination channels, particularly the bowel, so relying on your body’s compromised channels is not necessarily going to get the waste effectively out of your body. You need to help it happen.
The best way of doing this is to get into some regular colon cleansing through professional colonics or at home enemas. Find a professional colon hydro-therapist in your area and talk to them about your needs. Or purchase an at home enema kit and get into a regular habit of using it. I certainly DO NOT recommend over using this though, because your body has it’s own processes and when you take away the one main job your colon has..elimination…then he (not sure why I think it’s a ‘he’..lol) will stop doing it on his own!
The bowel is where the most waste can be safely dumped from the body so to ignore this essential elimination channel is to really set yourself up for limited success.
5. Skin brushing and massage
Stimulating the lymphatic system (the lymph sits just underneath the surface of your skin) through dry bristle skin brushing and massage helps toxins to be circulated into the elimination channels for release.
Skin brushing can specifically target areas of cellulite. Using a skin brush in small circular movements over your thighs, butt and other areas with cellulite for a few minutes a few times per week will help to break down the fatty deposits that cause the dimpled appearance. It is best to start with just a minute of skin brushing and then work your way up to a few minutes at a time. This will help your skin adjust and prevent sensitivity.
6. Moving and sweating
When you do sweaty exercise you are not only helping stress relief and giving yourself an endorphin rush, you are also expelling toxins through your skin. This is another avenue of elimination that is best not ignored if you want to decrease the appearance of cellulite.
It will also help to improve the overall appearance of your body by tightening, toning and lengthening so that even if your cellulite is there, the overall appearance of your body will be more flattering.
7. Limit the use of skin thinning creams
If you are currently using any chemicals or pharmaceuticals on your cellulite areas which thin your skin (such as steroids), your cellulite is going to be more obvious.
It makes logical sense that if your skin is thinner, the appearance of dimples beneath the skin will stand out more, right? Plus your skin will show age and imperfections more generally – I know, I used skin thinning steroids almost daily for over 25 years to manage my severe eczema.
The answer isn’t to just ditch the meds and creams cold turkey of course – this is something you need to discuss with your doctor or alternative health practitioner. However you may want to look at putting all these other tips in place as they will start to really improve your health overall, and then you may find that you can decrease the usage of these creams.
Whether they are for physical improvement or to manage an internal condition (what is on the outside is just a reflection of what is going on in the inside), your health and beauty will improve if you put these tips into action so you just may need less of the medical or chemical help anyway.
Instead nourish your skin with moisturizing totally natural oils and creams such as coconut oil, olive oil or a gorgeous organic moisturizer.
Now it’s time for you to put these tips to work. Pick one to start and get that happening in your daily life, like swapping your salt. Then pick another and tackle that one. You could try one new tip per day or one new tip per week until you have them all a part of your regular life. Keep it up and you will see results!
Thx to MindBodyGreen!
