Diet for Cellulite Reduction by Sue Kira
by Sue Kira, Naturopath & Clinical Nutritionist
Diet for Cellulite reduction and prevention
Case study: cellulite reduction for a fashion model
About cellulite
Why do we have cellulite?
Cellulite is the term given to lumpy looking fat deposits just below the skin, typically in the abdomen, legs and butt areas but can be anywhere on the body where fat deposits.
There can be many reasons why cellulite appears on the body including hormones, poor diet and lifestyle choices, age, and genetic predisposition. While each of these factors may play a role in cellulite formation, there is one common factor, and that’s the accumulation of toxins in the body.
Some of these toxins can come from unhealthy food, chemicals, pollutants, smoking, alcohol and drugs, including pharmaceuticals. Exposure may have been over weeks, months or years.
Your body stores toxins in your fat to help minimize how much toxicity your vital organs are exposed to. The dimples and pockets of cellulite are in fact, stored toxins.
How to reduce cellulite
The key to reducing cellulite is to gently remove the accumulation of toxins from your body and prevent further build-up of more toxins. This will not only help to reduce, eliminate or prevent further cellulite but also help you to live a clean healthy life and feel beautiful and vibrant.
Apart from a clean nutritious diet, there are many things that can help reduce cellulite such as:
- exercise and sweating
- detoxification programs that include colon cleansing
- drinking plenty of clean pure water to flush out toxins
- skin brushing and saunas.
Most importantly, from the beginning, do not continue to add more toxins to your body from your food, drink, lifestyle and what you use in your personal care regime e.g. creams that contain chemicals (use natural products instead).
Diet for Cellulite reduction and prevention
A diet for cellulite reduction and prevention is a clean unprocessed diet high in non-starchy vegetables, with small amounts of quality protein, some good quality fats and small amounts of Celtic, Himalayan or unprocessed sea salts (mixed minerals not just sodium). Toxic foods and beverages should be eliminated e.g. chocolate, cakes, sugar laden soft drinks, alcohol,
A diet for cellulite reduction and prevention is not considered a cure, however by including foods that support the body, and eliminating detrimental foods, you will help your body to do its natural job of healing and your efforts to reduce and remove cellulite.
For this reason, the diet should be free of gluten, dairy, additives and low sugar.
Important: Before you change your diet I recommend you see your medical or health care professional for qualified guidance. Also, do not stop any medications or supplements previously prescribed unless advised otherwise by your medical or health care professional, who may even prescribe extra supplementation.
Note: During the early stages of a new diet, you may experience symptoms such as fatigue, headaches or body aches, which may occur because your body is detoxifying. However, if you are unsure about a symptom at any time, check immediately with your medical or health care professional.
Case study: cellulite reduction for a fashion model
Client name and identifying information changed
When Tamara first saw me, her energy was low and she was embarrassed because she wanted to get rid of cellulite and although she knew she had an atrocious diet, she was reluctant to change it.
Tamara is a fashion model and for her it was all about being very slim, almost to the point of anorexia. She ate sparsely and drank lots of caffeine and diet coke to keep her metabolism high. She also knocked back copious amounts of vodka with soda water to keep her sanity (her excuse).
When I explained to her that cellulite is toxins trapped in fat cells, she was horrified. Being so self-conscious, Tamara couldn’t believe that this was happening to her and to realise that she was doing this to herself was even more horrifying.
But to her credit, she realised her health was important to her (although you wouldn’t have thought so initially) and she needed to make changes and take care of herself for reasons more than vanity.
Because Tamara was used to a very low calorie diet, her thyroid would have been producing reverse T3 to conserve energy because of the little amount of food she consumed.
Initially we had to be careful about piling too many healthy foods into her diet, so we started by changing her lettuce sandwiches to some cooked broths with low GI vegetables and a small amount of lean chicken or fish. Fats from chicken and fish, which are good quality proteins, along with coconut oil, help to absorb fat soluble toxins, and loads of veggies and water in broths and soups are great for flushing out the toxins.
Later we introduced some nuts, seeds, berries and coconut into her diet and then more low GI vegetables both raw and cooked.
Tamara also stopped drinking diet coke which is incredibly toxic and contains several artificial sweeteners (look them up and be shocked). Tamara also did some colon cleanses as she had been terribly constipated from her diet. She thought the constipation was due to not eating much and therefore little to pass.
Skin brushing helped to increase her circulation to stimulate the release of toxins from her skin. Self-massage around the area of the cellulite increased the lymphatic flow to stimulate the release of toxins from her body, at least until she regained her strength to go back to the gym, as exercise is the best way to move toxins away from where they accumulate in the body.
After three months of doing this Tamara had lots more energy, looked more vibrant and you could hardly see her cellulite, unless you pushed her skin.
She was on a mission to stay this way so no more cellulite would form and she would always feel vibrant and healthy, especially as her work-load and travel was quite hectic.