Mirror mirror on the wall, who has the wobbliest thighs of all?

October 19, 2006 11:14 AM

Best way to rid self of seriously awful cellulite, short of surgery?

As I lurch through my thirties, I find myself carrying around some serious cellulite on my thighs. And arse. And... arms and belly. Knees even. I swear to god, one minute I was 21 and sort of plump but relatively firm and the next, in my thirties, wobbling and sagging like some kind of terrible 'before' makeover picture.

I know this might seem like shameless-vanity filter, but it really is distressing me. I'm posting anonymously because it's screwing with my head. I feel horribly embarrassed and ashamed, to the point of tears and refusing to take my clothes off, and turning down invitations to go swimming, or to the beach.

This isn't just a bit of cellulite, or a little wobble, it's... awful. Really. I feel borderline deformed.

So far I've been:
1. Cutting out caffeine (tea, coffee, coke, red bull, V etc).
2. Cutting back on processed food. (Main vices have been chocolate and icecream.)
3. Stuffing myself with moderate portions of fruit, veg, wholegrains and protein.
4. Exercising like a mofo, starting with weights 3 x a week, walking and swimming and building up (slowly*) to add in cycling and running
5. Taking a multivitamin daily.

*Slowly because I want these changes to stick and also my knees are buggered.

I already drink 2-3 litres of filtered water daily and have done for a couple of years. My skin improved immeasurably zit-wise, but it did nothing for the cellulite. Unless, I suppose, it could be worse.

I've done a fair bit of googling about creams and lasers and diets and exercise and things, but there's not much that isn't advertorial. And so, hive mind, I ask what (if anything) you have done for your dimples - that has worked?

1. Supplements (apart from the obviously not-very-good for you fen-fen and the like)?
2. Creams? (Head tells me total bunk, but hope springs eternal.)
3. Endermologie, lasers?
4. Healthy eating and exercise? (This seems like the obvious one to me, but about how long 'til you saw improvements?)

And I have the obligatory anon gmail address if anything comes up here that needs a reply: lonesome dot thighway at gmail dot com.

Last, could I pre-empt anyone suggesting that referring to myself as deformed is a little extreme? I know. But that's how I feel. I also know I should learn to love myself for the beautiful unique snowflake I am. And I'm working on that. For now, I'm just looking for advice on reducing cellulite.

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (11 answers total)

Sorry... cellulite is fat. You have to lose fat. Even then, some cellulite will probably remain (because you won't reach 0% body fat). However, the leaner you become, the less jiggly the cellulite will seem, because the underlying tissue (muscle) is much more firm than what used to be under it (more fat).

The creams and lasers and treatment are all bunk. Listen to the head.
posted by penchant at 11:32 AM on October 19, 2006

If you can afford it, hire a personal trainer. A once-weekly session runs about $50 (at least in my personal experience). So for $2.5k a year you can have someone on your side who's giving you good exercise tips, holding you somewhat accountable and giving you eating tips as well. The eating tips are really what's going to swing this. I suspect you'll have to completely eliminate processed foods and probably put in more whole grains than you are right now.
posted by Happydaz at 12:03 PM on October 19, 2006

Not smoking, cutting down on dairy, and drinking 8 glasses of water a day will help a little. The one thing that really worked for me was taking Tonalin CLA (conjugated linoleic acid). You can buy it at any drug store or vitamin store and WalMart. As long as your diet is pretty good, you drink enough water, and you're not overweight more than 20 - 30 pounds you should notice a big difference in a month. It will also make your skin smoother to the touch and firmer. CLA is also recommended to help you lose weight.

If you exercise, taking CLA and LPP Protein together will make a dramatic difference in cellulite reduction and losing fat.
posted by Ariadne at 12:12 PM on October 19, 2006 [9 favorites]

I'm sure you've heard this before, but like penchant said, you're going to have to lose the weight.

The key thing you need to know: 3500 calories = 1 pound of fat.

To lose weight, you have to burn more than you take in. Be obsessive about counting your calories, figure out how much you typically burn, and shoot for a 500-calorie deficit a day. That's losing a pound a week, which is a healthy rate for someone very overweight.

Congrats on starting out right - the little things can make a big difference. Start taking the stairs. Park at the back of the parking lots and walk in when you go to stores. Walk around while you think or do an exercize bike while you watch TV.
posted by chrisamiller at 12:38 PM on October 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

Even skinny people have cellulite. I've always been told that once you have it, it never goes away. The creams and stuff are scams. Excercise will make it less noticeable, as noted above.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 12:49 PM on October 19, 2006

I have heard that the MBT shoe has a teensy bit of scientific data. Haven't tried them, though.

Also. Unfortunately, losing the weight might not get rid of all the cellulite. I've never been overweight and I have hideous cellulite, albeit only on my thighs and butt. It's worsened as I have aged, mostly because my skin seems to be less taut, rather than any additional fat.

Of course, losing weight is good for lots of other reasons, not the least of which is that even if you still have the cellulite, you'll have less of it.
posted by miss tea at 12:49 PM on October 19, 2006

Just keep doing exactly what you're doing, and you'll eventually get there. Want to get there faster? Escalate the intensity. Try to avoid mixing fat and carbohydrate in the same meal.

Don't, whatever you do, go for one of the stupid diets floating around the net. They're all lame. I can recommend the South Beach Diet, because it's basically what you're doing now, but focusing on low-carb and put into idiot-proof terms.

Keep in mind there's no such thing as spot-reduction. Your genetics determines where it comes off first, but if you keep at it, it will start coming off other places once it's done coming off where it wants to first.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 1:13 PM on October 19, 2006

Once you get the excess weight off, you might look into having Thermage to smooth out and tighten any trouble spots. (N.B. -- this goes to the Web site of MeFi member shogoth, who is a friend of mine and who owns a medical and laser cosmetic practice, but it's got good pics of the results.)
posted by kindall at 2:10 PM on October 19, 2006

Cellulite is caused by the way fat attaches to the underside of your skin. Nothing else. And you can't stop it happening, it's physiology. So all those creams and lasers and diets and whatever are total crap. Much of what you mentioned in your post and some of what's been posted since? Complete bollocks.

There are only two ways to reduce the appearance of cellulite:
1) firm skin tone so the dimples don't show as much (i.e. stop the skin sagging down into the depressions)
2) lose all the fat (so there is nothing to dimple)

Many of the things you're listing are aimed at the first idea, just as many of them don't really work. The one thing I've seen evidence for is using moisteriser to firm the skin. The rubbing on motion improves skin tone and the added moisture makes it more elastic thus reducing the dimpled effect. Most people's skin is under-moisterised and will benefit from this treatment anyway. Note that the studies show that cheap supermarket-brand moisteriser is just as good (or often better) than any fancy expensive cream. Don't get sucked into spending a lot of money, it won't make any difference.

Exercise may also help by improving overall muscle tone and good diet will optimise your skin tone. Neither are a cure-all but can help make the best of the situation.

Losing all the fat is very difficult and probably unlikely (because I really do mean all of it). Also probably not healthy in the end, you're supposed to have body fat. Reducing body fat content may reduce the appearance of cellulite depending on how much extra you're carrying and the order in which you lose fat (e.g. I lose fat off my thighs last so the cellulite there isn't going anywhere, but I lose it off my arms first so they aren't cellulitey). You can't spot lose fat so can't influence the order.

Aim for being healthy. Keep your skin healthy and be a normal weight. It's the best bet for reducing your cellulite's appearance and will make you look and feel better all round. Ignore the scams, they're not worth it.

By the way? Cellulite is totally normal. Even supermodels have it in places. The best way to deal with it is to get over it, it's all part of being human after all. It really pisses me off the way we've been made to think it's a problem by the scamsters making money off this. I see so much bad science and stupid advice on this issue (the poor circulation argument is the worst and totally false). Fat sits under the skin in a certain way and causes a certain look, it's physiology and it's normal.
posted by shelleycat at 3:11 PM on October 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

As others have said, lose weight. I can personally testify that losing ~20lbs while lifting heavy weights has massively reduced the amount of cellulite I have. I will always have some, but at least it is contained to the upper-thigh area and not all over. I stress the heavy weights part, you really want to reduce body fat. Cardio alone might make you smaller, but if you can shrink the amount of fat while maintaining the amount of muscle you currently have, it will look much better than losing both some muscle and fat.
And don't worry about giving up this that or the other. I lost all that cellulite while still eating processed everything, drinking coffee tea diet soda milk, eating dairy, etc. Just make sure to get enough protein and not eat too many calories.
posted by ch1x0r at 5:05 PM on October 19, 2006

A good friend of mine who had/has a lot of cellulite is really convinced that it's not the creams and moisturizers that seem to reduce cellulite, but that it is the actual act of massaging the creams and moisturizers in consistently that seems to reduce cellulite. There might be something to that theory.
posted by gt2 at 11:40 PM on October 19, 2006