The 5 steps to get rid of cellulite

Cellulite is that growing appearance of “orange peel” lumps and bumps that seems to exist just under the skin. It’s an annoyance that is more likely in women than men, and it can start as early as the pre -teen years. There are lots of cosmetic products designed to rid women of cellulite, but there’s some controversy about whether these really help.

So how do you get rid of it without spending a lot of money? Weight loss alone doesn’t do the job, so starving yourself is out. Exercise helps a lot, but even that doesn’t work entirely. It’s the structure of the tissues underneath the skin that create the bumps, so working on what’s on the inside is a great start.

Here are the five easy ways to make cellulite disappear:

1. Skip the elevator

One noted Rancho Mirage, California cardiologist suggests that exercise should be daily to keep your heart strong. He says that 30 minutes of walking or other aerobic exercise in your day means you’re doing splendidly. A lot of us don’t have time to go to the gym every day, but he says this exercise can include walking up the stairs, parking your car far from the entrance to the store, and tooling around the mall at a clip. It all adds up to that 30 minutes daily.

2. Turn off the stove

To work on those tissues under the skin, Leslie and Sussanah Kenton, in their book Raw Energy, suggest that eating raw, unprocessed and uncooked foods offers an effective way to clear cellulite. Since researchers have found that cellulite is a result of inefficient elimination of wastes and poor lymphatic drainage, eating raw foods with all their fiber and vitamins, helps to clear out the digestive system. If you eat too many processed and overworked foods, they hang out in your gut longer and can create problems like diverticulitis or leaky gut syndrome.

3. Use your hairbrush

A longtime Japanese custom of brushing the skin to improve circulation is an inexpensive and effective way to keep your skin clear and clean out the lymph glands. Think of a goldfish in a bowl. If you don’t change the water or add a circulating device, the water becomes stagnant and starts to grow algae and other smelly gunk, eventually killing the fish. A good stiff hairbrush systematically brushed against your skin can remove dead skin cells and get your blood moving. Do it just before a shower in the morning or evening to be most effective.

4. Eat an orange, with some green tea

By eating an orange or other citrus, and plenty of the white stuff that surrounds it between the juice and the peel, you’re getting a good dose of bioflavonoids, the stuff that helps strengthen capillary walls. Other veggies that have bioflavonoids are peppers, onions, garlic, and blue and red berries. Green tea is also a good source, and something you can drink while at work.

Bioflavonoids are abundant and they have been shown to strengthen the walls of your capillaries, the smallest of your body’s blood vessels, and where microcirculation takes place. When these capillaries are strong, there’s less chance of blood plasma seeping into tissues which can add to cellulite. When they’re not strong, you’ll see more bruising, inflammation, and allergies.

5. Drink fresh juice

This is where a juicer will come in handy, but you might be able to get by with a food processor, blender or other smoothie-making device. By juicing a couple apples and a pear and drinking it every evening, you’ll be adding pure vitamin C, enzymes and pectin to your body to work on overnight while you’re sleeping. (If you have it as a smoothie, you’ll be getting more fiber as well!)

Another option is to drink a body-cleansing juice combination using a cucumber, four carrots, a ¼ inch slice of ginger root and a half an apple.

Try any and all of these combinations for three months and you should see some real changes in your cellulite. It takes commitment, although the payoff is not only your good looks, but your longterm health.