What is a cellulite?

Cellulite is the dimpled skin that appears on the lower abdomen, buttocks and thighs as a result of the pockets of fat placed under the dermis and the epidermis. It shouldn’t be related only to fat, chubby or obese women as it can appear on thin women as well. The cellulite gives the skin a lumpy appearance due to the budges and hollows. It shouldn’t be considered just as an aesthetic problem because it affects body tissues, blood circulation and the lymphatic system.

Women affected by cellulite find the symptoms subtle at first, tingling feeling, red capillaries, varicose veins, cold feet and while in the latter stages these women feel pain when pinched. Cellulite affects the person on a psychological level too, as it can result in insecurity and anxiety.

Cellulite creams are designed to help break this up and penetrate into the skin to help reduce the puffy, pitted look with various ingredients, and of course combined with vigorous massage into the skin.  The best cellulite creams come in a thick formula that allows the user to massage it and get a good grip on the skin for maximum breaking up of the fatty deposits manually.

How to conquer cellulite in time for summer?

There are various ways to conquer cellulite, some being more effective than others:

Diet

One of the effective methods in preventing and, in some hand conquering cellulite is the consumption of the sufficient amount of water. Experts usually recommend that a healthy person should drink at least 2 liters of water per day, and even more in summer!

This will flush toxins, improve nutrition and reduce the size of the pockets of fat for a longer period of time.  One shouldn’t expect spectacular results just from drinking water but its good to know that it is beneficial for the skin. In this type of diet, the consumption of fruits, vegetables and products that contain Lecithin (soy products, eggs etc.)  is also very important.

Some of the Best Cellulite Creams Out There

There are various creams for skin care on the market that can reduce or completely remove cellulite. The good thing is that these creams not only have there initial result in approximately 2 to 4 weeks but they prevent new cellulite forming.

Exercise

Everyday exercise is also very beneficial in conquering cellulite, especially jogging, climbing, fitness, aerobics etc.  Besides these, there are a few medical and cosmetic procedures that are believed to conquer or lessen ‘the orange peel’ skin such as massage, dermal fillers, skin brushing and spa body treatments. By far more extreme methods than the previous but also effective are the following: liposuction, lasers, lymphatic drainage, peels, iontophoresis and mesotheraphy.

The last one is actually a microinjection of conventional, homeopathic medicine of vitamins directly into the skin (middle of the dermis).

That’s right. Cellulite is the bain of every woman’s existence, from thin to overweight, and sadly cellulite only tends to get worse with age. Why do women get cellulite more and worse than men?

Well, it all has to do with estrogen, and the abundance of it that we have flowing freely in our system.  Our hormones and the fact that we are the sex that gives birth to children actually contribute to the fact that women tend to have more body fat than men. Men are naturally more lean than women are, and because of this, they have less of that “air pocketish” fat that deposits around key areas like the thights, buttocks, and even sometimes the upper arms and belly.

It is true that if you lose a portion of your body fat, the your cellulite tends to look much better. This is because your fat cells are not as large and “well fed” and they therefore do not bulge out against the collagen bands that are there to sort of hold it all in. This is what causes the appearance of celluilte – that dreaded, spongy, pitted look that women get around their outter thighs, butt and other areas.

Now that summer time is approaching, it’s time to kick your cellulite treatment regimen into high gear. Get yourself a good cellulite massager. Just one of those pronged, manual ones that you can buy online (I like the Seqhora and Philosophy brands). Also get yourself a good cellulite treatment cream and use that in conjunction with the massager on your problem areas. Try to do it every night after a hot shower, when your skin is most pliable and susceptible to manipulation.

If you want even better results in smoothing out the lumps, then try doing it twice a day, moving back to once after you’ve achieved good results.

The before and after pics were pretty impressive on there, which is what made me take notice. The place that offered it out here in Ohio was in Avon called Stags Family Chiropractic/Wellness, and it was a chiropractic clinic, which it appears is the only offices that offer it so far, as the only other place I found was in Texas and it too was chiropractic practice.

They had one of a woman’s mouth before and after, it was less lined and her lips appeared a tad fuller, one of a woman’s neckline, which was more taught and smooth after, and one of a woman’s thigh with dimpled cellulite allover it before and very smooth “after first treatment”. The process is non surgical, non invasive, and there is no downtime at all, so I thought, wow, if I were rich, I’d be signing up for this! I couldn’t find the cost for the Lulum energy treatment anywhere online though. In fact, I could find very little on the treatment at all, it must be so new.

My guess is it might be kind of like microdermabrasion or most other cellulite treatments for body, maybe a hundred bucks a pop, although I don’t know how many treatments you need to maintain or even achieve results. If any practitioners read this, please leave comments with this information and your office info for interested people, that would be great.

I was able to find out how the Lulum energy treatment works though. It is a device that uses several different types of electrical currents, color therapy, and heating therapy, to deeply stimulate the tissues, which probably explains how it rejuvenates collagen production. This is probablyl also how it breaks up cellulite formation and is useful as a cellulite treatment as well. Oh, there was also a pretty amazing before and after picture of a woman with crows feet who looked very smoothed out after treatment.

This treatment, like most other rejuvenating aesthetic treatments for anti aging and body sculpting, probably requires ongoing maintenance to maintain any achieved results, but hey, if you get great results, it may be something you choose to use in your anti aging and wrinkled reduction arsenal, and also your body shaping and cellulite treatment regimen. Anyone who has experience or knowledge of the Lulum energy treatment, please comment and share. Thanks!

The mesotherapy treatment consists of several stages of injections of a fluid directly into the fatty deposits that patients want to get rid of. They claim that this “all natural concoction”, which still remains unclear as to what exactly it contains, breaks up and destroys fat cells. The whole premise is that the fat cells, after they have been destroyed, are basically absorbed by or expelled by the body through natural waste elimination efforts. The areas that are treated may become noticeably smaller within either weeks or months, depending on the patient.

However, some patients end up with almost disfiguring areas of oozing and bacterial infection in the areas where they were injected, and that has caused some concern over the safety of this increasingly popular procedure that has been performed for years in Europe by practitioners. Some of the patients identified as having serious infections actually had to be opened up to drain absesses that developed because of the infections, while other were successfully treated nonsurgically.

Most of the cases identified as serious were from a specific clinic where patients were given several rounds of mesotherapy, which is now closed, so it is unclear whether this procedure is just plain dangerous no matter who performs it, or whether this one particular clinic had exceptionally high rates of infection in their patients.

Mesotherapy is still a popular option because it is often cheaper than other methods of fat removal like liposuction and Smartlipo, both of which usually use suction to get the fat out, with the latter using lasers to melt the fat first. Other methods of cellulite removal and fat removal have gained popularity amongst women who often struggle more with cellulite and fat deposits because of hormones.

There are a few things I really like about this Sephora cellulite massager. First off, it’s very easy to handle. It it a solid constructed product with a larger round rubber head that covers a lot of surface area, so you get a lot of area covered in a shorter amount of time. It also has a great handle that allows you to put the full pressure of your arm strength on the treated areas which is ergonomically well constructed so you can get optimum pressure without all the effort. You hold it basically as you would hold a loofah sponge, to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.

The pink massager part is very well constructed, and it’s not made in such a way that over time it will peel off of the handle, like a lot of other cellulite massagers do. I have used it with very high pressure for numerous days now with no signs of stress or breaking, so that’s already better compared to a lot of the other cellulite massagers I’ve used in the past.

The pink massagers are small little bumps that are contoured in such a way that they will help break up the fat deposits topically by applying pressure to them and manually forcing them apart, which is basically what cellulite is, fat deposits that are intermittently dispersed with excess water weight and therefore they look spongy.

You do have to use it with a very good, thick emollient cellulite cream, which is how most cellulite creams are made, because if you use it with a cheaper normal cream, it does not glide as easily and makes it much harder to put a lot of pressure on the areas you’re targeting. All this was less than twenty bucks on Amazon, so I consider it to be well worth the price thus far, and by the way, I have noticed a visible reduction in the appearance of my cellulite. Oh, and don’t be surprised if you notice you have a lot of little bruises at first, this is just from the pressure and you’re skin getting used to it.

Not that I’m going to even get it, although I’d never rule out anything that was minimally invasive that I could afford without putting my other bills in jeopardy that would make me feel great about myself, but it’s kind of my job to know what the latest, greatest techniques for all these fun, new and exciting forms of plastic surgery and self improvement are. Not to mention, it’s a great time reading about all of it!

His staff did write back to me. I questioned whether he offered it because I couldn’t imagine that he didn’t, being so up on everything else, and I was right. Although his website showed only liposuction before and afters, his staff wrote back and told me he uses the Pro Lipo system for laser assisted liposuction.

I couldn’t find much on the internet about people’s experiences with this type of liposuction, nor could I find much about the specific brand name, except what I did find intrigued me since this appears to be just like liposuction, except the laser assists in breaking up the fat, and the cannula is probably smaller as well, and the recovery time is reduced, but they actually suck the fat out like they do in regular lipo, not just rely on the body to “get rid” of the fat after it’s broken up and supposedly destroyed by the heat of the laser.

That’s the only reservation I had about Smartlipo. It seemed that not every doctor used suction as well, and some people were saying they weren’t getting results after the surgery, making me wonder if there was no suction, did their body really “get rid” of the fat cells that were “destroyed”? It is hard to find docs that tell you they use suction along with the laser, so you’d have to go talk to them about their method. Laser assisted liposuction is supposed to help treat the appearance of cellulite as well, which is another bonus, since usually the areas we’re getting treated for are also marked with cellulite, which gets worse in fatty areas of the body.

I’ll admit it, I’m a perfectionist, and it’s not the best thing in the world, but I also feel like it’s gotten me places that perfectionism and obsession may not have taken me. It can be a burden though, and even though I do tell myself that I don’t have to be perfect, there are certain things I’d like to be content with, and a certain way I like to look in and out of clothes. Call me vain, but my theory is that you only have one time around, why not look and feel your best, and present your best self forward to the world?

There really isn’t much you can do about certain pockets of fat that have been there your whole life. Shoot, ever since I started to develop a woman’s figure, my thighs were there – bang, boom, pow. I wouldn’t mind them if they didn’t also have cellulite on them, but they are an aggravating part of my anatomy I’d like to change if I get the chance, and what with the recession and Doctors reducing prices on non essential procedures, it might just be the right time to take the opportunity to get this bothersome part of my body improved.

Sure, I could spend it on home improvements, but then again, sometimes I think, you only live once and if you aren’t happy with something, why not change it and throw caution to the wind, especially when it’s a totally safe and minimally invasive procedure, and may even improve cellulite? After all, you have a certain amount of fat cells in your body, and the only way to reduce the amount of them is literally to have some of them sucked out.

It’s true that when you gain weight, you don’t actually gain more fat cells, it’s just that the ones you do have grow larger and take up more space, thus expanding parts of your body that are problems, for women namely the buttocks, hips, thighs, belly and upper arms. Researching Smartlipo has lead me to several reputable doctors in the Ohio area, but it’s hard to tell which are the most reputable and most reasonably priced. What is the most important thing when considering who will do your Smartlipo?

Definitely the Doctor’s experience with Smartlipo specifically. If your chosen doctor is new to this procedure, it leaves you wide open to being a guinea pig who may or may not get the best results. If you’re booking a consultation, ask for before and after pictures and specific references for the Smartlipo procedure from former patients.

The supposed benefits that make this a little more efficient than the already fairly efficient SmartLipo procedure are that the laser is supposed to be specifically geared toward the liquification and destruction of adipose cells, so it does not really interfere with anything else, and is guided to only the cells it’s designed to remove, so it’s a more efficient fat tissue targeting agent, and more fat may be removed as a result of that (or may not, they seem to be careful not to make outlandish claims even on their site).

I couldn’t find anything about the cost of Smooth Lipo on their website, but I’d imagine that it’s about the same as SmartLipo and traditional liposuction, which runs around 3,000 per body area.  It’s still a pretty expensive procedure, but if you have tried dieting and exercise and still can’t seem to get rid of certain pockets of targeted fat, than you may want to look into something like this if you have the money and are so inclined to spend it this way.

They do caution that this is not a permanent fix against gaining back in those areas again.  If you overeat or stop exercising, you will gain the weight back again in those areas and then some, your fat just sort of redistributes itself, so this is not something that should be viewed as a weight loss mechanism at all, in fact it should not be viewed as a replacement for dieting and exercise either, because if you do not incorporate those into your daily routine to begin with, you will just end up putting it back on anyways.

I talked a little about Smartlipo in the last post, and I really want to taper that off her because Smartlipo is really more of a spot fat reduction treatment that also claims it may help to smooth and tighten skin, which means that cellulite may also take a hike eventually, in addition to those ounces of fat removed.  It is not however a primary treatment specifically for cellulite reduction, so we’ll focus more on Endermologie and Velasmooth.

To start with, both treatments are pricey, although it’s looking like in most areas Endermologie has the edge over Velasmooth when it comes to cost.  Energmologie usually runs around a hundred bucks a pop, while Velasmooth runs anywhere from two hundred to three hundred dollars, but also claims to give results a little faster due to it’s three pronged approach, which is suction/vacuum action combined with infrared light and heat, which is supposed to effectively break up the collagen bands that cause cellulite (that puckered look).

I do happen to know someone who had Velasmooth, just one treatment so far though.  She said that she was very impressed, and that she felt she noticed an immediate difference in the appearance of her cellulite and a small size reduction in circumference as well.  She had her upper arms done and also her thighs and buttocks, and said that her pants seemed to even slip on a little more easily right afterwards, and her arms already had appeared to be a bit smaller.

Now, this may not be for everyone, and I have read a lot of good and bad reviews on this treament, but it’s always encouraging to hear something directly from the horses mouth, so to speak.  Endermologie gets mixed reviews, but there are lots of women who swear by it for the ultimate in cellulite reduction and treatment, and have been getting it done for years.

Of course I’m exaggerating a tad, but you get the point.  Cellulite has been the proverbial albatross around women’s necks (well really their thighs) for years now, and we can’t seem to get any good, firm data on a cellulite treatment that you can pay for in good faith knowing that it’s actually going to give you a thousands of dollar result like they all seem to claim.

Enter some of the more popular spa and dermatologist administered cellulite treatments that you can get professionally done today.  Let me first stress to you that all cellulite treatment, even ones done professionally in a Dr. or professional’s office, must be kept up with some sort of maintenance schedule.  Cellulite is not something that you can just zap away forever, because the collagen bands that make that puckered look will eventually come back together and form “holes” in the skin that make the unattractive appearance of a sponge or grapefruit that we all know and love (not).

That means that whether you choose endermologie, which runs about one hundred dollars a session, but varies per demographics of where you get treated, or you choose something like smart lipo or Velashape, you will have to make sure you keep the treatments up, although usually at a lesser pace and frequency, in order to maintain whatever results you enjoyed during your initial regimen.

Since this is fairly lengthy (cellulite discussions always are) I’ve divided this into two posts.  The next one we’ll talk more about the three cellulite smoothers that we mentioned, Endermologie, Velashape and Smart Lipo, and which one may be best for you.  In the end, it all comes down to digging in and finding the right place and person to do your treatments, and what you feel most comfortable with.