Smart Way to Fights Cellulite

Newsflash: dieting and hardcore exercise won't blitz your cellulite. Try this dimple-busting plan, so is your smoothest bottom ever. 

4 Months to Go 

Eat Fat 

Cutting fat from your diet to lose inches off your thighs is plain silly. Not only will you feel hungry all the time, but the fatty acids in natural, unprocessed sources of fat actually help to process fat from the body. Just stick to good fat (found in nuts, fish, plant oil and avocados) and avoid hard, white fat or meat and anything deep-fried or with 'hydrogenated' on the label. 

The real enemy is 'diet' foods (full of additives or sugar) and CRAP (Caffeine, Refined sugar, Alcohol and Processed foods). Cellulite is toxic fat, and these foods flood the body with toxins and fat-storing hormones, depleting it of essential nutrients, so they're a sure-fire route to a lumpy bottom. Eat home-cooked meals and natural, unprocessed foods. Plus, avoid preserved foods or anything that has added sugar, fake flavors or unfamiliar ingredients. 

Chill Out 

Stress gives you love handles and saddlebags; it sends fight-or-flight hormones racing around your body, and without a sabre toothed tiger to slay (your stress is more likely due to deadlines and credit-card payments), these hormones are stored as fat. So make it your business to relax more. Get immersed in a hobby, go for long walks, get a dog (stroking one lowers your blood pressure—fact), and replace jitter-inducing junk food, fizzy drinks and muffins with stress-busting berries, green veggies, and turkey. 

3 Months to go

 

Exercise 

If you exercise like a demon or stress yourself out to fit in your sessions, you risk getting podgy from stress hormones you produce. That doesn't mean exercises isn’t essential for fighting cellulite— just limits your sessions to three a week, and replace one cardio session with yoga or Pilates to calm your system and stretch your muscles. Squats and lunges are still the best moves for a killer bum and thighs. 

Feed Your Skin 

If skin gets slack and thin, cellulite shows up more. So moisturise with creams full of collage-boosting ingredients, using firm, upward strokes. You can use omega oils; also look for peptides and plant butters. 

2 Months to Go 

Invest in the Latest Treatments 

These are all about breaking up the fatty, fibrous clumps under your skin, without any scalpels or needles. 

RADIO FREQUENCY 

WHAT IS IT: It uses radio frequency waves to heat up the water in your cells. This boosts their metabolic function—i.e., their fat-burning, and collagen-producing ability. It's also available in combination with ultrasonic therapy, which helps in reducing obstinate fat and evens out your skin's texture. 

HOW IT FEELS: Your bumpy bits are massaged firmly with a smooth paddle that can feel from tepid to hot. 

BEST FOR: Superficial, soft cellulite and loose skin. It'll improve its texture and tone, and have a tightening effect. 

‘X-WAVE' ACOUSTIC WAVE THERAPY 

WHAt IT IS: This is a very promising treatment that uses sound waves to penetrate deep into the cells and break up the cellulite under the skin. So it literally shakes loose fatty, fibrous clumps of cellulite. 

HO IT FEFLS: Hardcore vibration pummeling your saddlebags. There's a little muscle- achy soreness involved, but it's not really painful. 

BEST FOR: Thick, lumpy fat deposits that feel a little hard when you squeeze them. Once broken up, the cells get redistributed in a much smoother 'formation', making the skin on the surface look less pitted. 

NEEDLE-FREE MESOTHERAPY 

WHAT IT IS : It works by promoting the body's circulatory system, and reduces cellulite formation by enhancing blood and lymph circulation. Active ingredients like vitamins, minerals and homeopathic medicines are delivered deeper into the skin using aquapheresis. 

HOW IT FEELS: Almost painless 

BEST FOR: It's most helpful for softer cellulite. The effect lasts from a few weeks up till a couple of months before the next sitting is required.

Take a Supplement 

Some powerful nutrients are proven to help the body burn fat and keep skin plump and healthy. Look for Vitamin C, which helps build collagen. One kiwi or a cup of strawberries a day should do the trick. While Vitamin E helps improve circulation, Vitamin A reduces free radicals in the body. Food rich in calcium and low in salt and sugar works best in improving and preventing cellulite. 

6 Week to go

 

Go For a Massage 

Massaging your legs can smooth and reshape them. The massages are a mix of deep-tissue, lymphatic and 'cupping' techniques that improve blood circulation and activate lymph drainage leaving your thighs slimmer. 

Cellulite caused by water retention, which feels almost like jelly, will show the most dramatic improvement. But the firmer cellulite caused by fat clumps or hardened skin fibres can be minimised too. Go for hour-long deep-tissue massages on the legs only with your therapist using upward movements to boost circulation and toxin drainage. Six sessions will make skin look far less cottage- cheesy. Dry body-brushing is also surprisingly effective. Do it for a minute every day pre-shower, using firm strokes towards your heart. It'll speed up your body's detox process and make dimples look airbrushed. 

Try a Cellulite Cream 

No beauty editor has ever used a cream that made her cellulite vanish entirely. Fact. But using a good one for four to six weeks will make it less noticeable if it's quite light. High levels of caffeine and botanical extracts of algae, horse chestnut, and rosemary rev up skin's micro-circulation and the metabolism of the fat cells underneath it. 

1 Week to Go 

Have an Incredible Shrinking Bath.

Use Epsom-salt baths (from the chemist), the magnesium in them drains toxins fast and helps boost digestion.