Cellulite – Its Causes & Cures

Ahh Celluite, how we hate this particular change in our bodies, where smooth, supple skin turns into cottage cheese, and nothing – and we do mean nothing – seems to help it. However, nearly 90% of all women have cellulite, and it's the most commonly complained about condition to dermatologists around the world.

The root cause of cellulite is that the skin gets a little bit thinner as we age, and in doing so, stops providing the elastic pressure that keeps fat cells from clumping. Your skin can be thought of as being like the surface of an umbrella, held together with lots of little fibers. When the fibers relax, or the skin between them thins, things…bulge out. Cellulite is also caused by poor circulation and weakening of he skin’s fat cells, which cause sagging cells.

It's not about how much you weigh, it's mostly about your genetics. Lighter skinned people are likelier to get cellulite, and it'll hit anyone – thick or thin – without much warning. In a lot of ways, it's like Coopers droop, where your breasts sag more as you get older, because the ligaments stretch out. (In fact, most of your breast tissue is fatty tissue, and gravity takes its tolls on us all.)

So what can you do about cellulite? First and foremost, treat your skin well. That means moisturizing it, and that means exercising regularly. Regular exercise keeps blood flowing to all parts of your body, and that's a key part in keeping those little fibers keeping your skin taut happy and tight. Yeah, yeah, "Now you tell me…", but really, the best thing you can do for cellulite is to not get it in the first place, and nothing does that better than regular exercise. Need more of an incentive to use that exercise gear? Set up a mirror so you can see the backs of your thighs, and you'll be pushing harder on every step. If you can, try to change your job so that you're not sitting on your butt the entire time you're at work.

Now, treating your skin well also means eating right. Get a diet that's heavy in antioxidants and a full panoply of vitamins; these help your body fight off lots of changes in skin and muscle tone; next to getting enough exercise to keep muscle tone under your skin, this is the most important change you can make. Emphasis lots of vegetables and eat enough fiber to keep yourself regular.

Other factors in your lifestyle can make a difference on this front as well. The first is smoking – if you smoke, quit, and do it seriously. Smoking causes a lot more health problems than emphysema, and its impact on your skin is often underreported. Likewise, while you may like how you look with a tan, and tanning actually thickens your skin, do it carefully. Drying out your skin is one of the factors that eventually leads to cellulite.

Other factors that lead to cellulite are anything that triggers estrogen production; estrogen production is one of the major reasons why cellulite bites women in the butt more than it does for men (plus the fact that men have thicker skin to begin with, and different places, other than the hips and thighs, where they store fat). But this means that your birth control pills are also likely to be a cause in cellulite risks. Anything that's a diuretic – something that causes you to shed water weight abruptly – or anything that will cause you to retain water – are also hazards. Think of shedding and gaining water weight as being sort of like a balloon. The less you distend or contract your skin from its 'comfort zone', the less likely that you're going to 'wear it thin'. This is also why crash dieting almost always leads to cellulite; most of the weight you lose in a crash diet is water weight, and even worse, crash dieting tends to encourage you towards extreme changes in your water intake, worsening the other factors.

So, now that we've taken all the fun out of your life, told you to stop sitting down at work, and to exercise as if every missed rep will cause an extra dimple on the back of your calves, what do you do if you've already have cellulite?

First, there's exfoliating. This will helps a little. Using certain types of chemical peels to exfoliate, helps to produce collagen and sheds the top layer of skin. So if you exfoliate often using a chemical peel, than it seems that this could help with cellulite. There are also techniques that use topical applications of caffeine (a diuretic) to cause fat cells to expel water. It's not a permanent cure, but if you need a quick fix before putting on the swim suit and heading to the beach, this is one way to go about it. There are also camouflage options, like using a tan in a can – darkening your skin makes the contrast between the dimples and the surrounding skin a lot less noticeable.

This next option isn’t a do it yourself option, but there is also a temporary medical treatment called Endermologie. It's about 80 to 120 dollars per session; it's a spa treatment that rolls and suctions the skin to break up fat tissue; it's very effective in the short term, but it doesn't last. Your body will eventually rebuild the fatty tissue under the skin. This is also why 'light lipo' is only a temporary solution as well.

This article is provided by www.do-it-yourself-skin-care.com