What happened - did summer arrive earlier this year? Every day brings us closer to the day when we've got to go to the pool or the beach and let everyone see what we really look like. Now, more than any other time of the year, is when people - especially women - spend a lot of time in front of the mirror, checking out their bodies. The flood of emails about it over the last few weeks is ample evidence of this. This article, then, is about last week's number one question - how can you lose cellulite on thighs, butt, or legs?
After so many years of education efforts about fitness and appearance, I was pretty surprised to find that people are as confused and ill-informed about cellulite as they've ever been. The efficacy of different topical creams and lotions was probably the number-one topic when it came to discussing how to treat cellulite. In addition, from my perspective, far too many women seemed to think that there's a connection between eating cottage cheese and cellulite development.
Cellulite: What is it, and how can I get rid of it?
We use the term "cellulite" to refer to the excess fat cells your body stores. Our bodies organize our excess fat cells into small compartments by means of special connective tissue. Men's bodies produce this connective tissue in a criss-cross pattern; women's bodies make compartments shaped like honeycombs. It's this honeycomb pattern that makes some women's thighs appear dimply, or their arms to look like cottage cheese.
Although the solution to cellulite is simple and straightforward, it's not necessarily that easy to accomplish. There's only one way to reduce cellulite: reduce overall body fat. Cellulite will not respond to having topical creams or lotions rubbed on it, and there's no way to target any particular part of the body for fat reduction. Cellulite also will not respond to starvation diets or crash diets. There's one way to banish cellulite from your body, and that's to follow these five simple and effective guidelines:
1) Make your meals smaller but eat more frequently during the day - 5-6 per day is ideal. There should be about 2-3 hours between meals. At each meal, make sure you have one protein and one carb. Your first meal of the day should be taken no more than an hour after waking.
2) This is critical - you need proper hydration. Drink a cup of water with each meal.
3) Get your proper rest. Proper rest, of course, means that you need to be getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night, without exception. It means a lot more, though. Your muscles need significant rest time between weight training sessions - once a muscle group has been weight trained, it must get at least 48 hours of rest before any additional weight training takes place. Finally, proper rest means taking a one- or two-day break from your workouts every week.
4) Mix up the intensity levels and session lengths of your cardio sessions. Consider, for example, doing one low intensity/long session and one high intensity/short session every week, filling up the balance with two or three medium intensity/medium length sessions.
5) Each muscle should be strength-trained one to three times weekly. Weightlifting, a crucial element of most strength training programs, should also be performed. Make certain to perform the proper number of sets and reps as called for by your own strength training program.
Cellulite can be reduced when these five steps are combined and followed every day. Miracle creams and potions are the stuff of late-night infomercials and internet hucksters. Like any other good thing in life, it involves hard work, effort and perspiration. That having been said, it's best for you if you work out smarter, not harder! Look at your body honestly and develop a set of realistic, reasonable goals, and then craft a workout program tailored to the body and engineered to help you achieve those goals. Combining these five tips and following them regularly will pretty much guarantee that you can lose cellulite on thighs, your butt or anywhere else.
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