Cellulite, affecting a lot of post-pubescent women more commonly than men, is a rugged and disconcerting appearance of the skin due to fat deposit, usually around their pelvic region, the thighs, and the abdomen. The skin is the largest organ in our body, and everyday, our body gives the boot to one-fourth of toxins in the body through the skin alone. Cellulite is the build-up of superfluous deposits of fat, proteins, and toxins that aren’t quite being eliminated from your body efficiently due to various factors such as a sedentary lifestyle, improper diet, interrupted metabolism, insufficient water intake, and an affected digestive system. It is capable of making the haughtiest of women swivel to being completely awkward and peeved if the mirror shows a pair of thighs and a bum likened to the surface of an orange peel or cottage cheese – except, of course, that it’s neither half way as fruity nor appetizing.
Going on a specific, stringent diet may not work for everybody, as everybody’s bodies have different needs at different times. Yet, it is best to summarize what foods make you look and feel better or worse.
Liver and Liver Cleanse
The best way to commence this plan is a detox diet, essentially including a liver cleanse recipe, as the liver is one of basics for metabolism and flushing out toxins.
Avoid too much caffeine (though, in modest amounts, it is an antioxidant too), foods with a lot of saturated fats, refined flour, and sugar, and excessive alcohol, as they all are major problematic issues for the lymph system and your liver.
Fresh Fruit Juices and Water
Drink an adequate number of glasses of water everyday; but don’t overdo it. Water does flush out some toxins if not all. We are made of 72.9% water, so it does make up for quite a lot of cell-structures, and aids with all the basic functioning of the body and all its organs.
Fresh fruit juices are great to hydrate your body and flush out toxins. The grapefruit juice diet, too, works well. A juice fast is great if you’re planning on doing a detox.
Stay away, at any rate, from soft drinks and diet drinks.
Antioxidants
Natural antioxidants, and the foods containing these are great when it comes to this diet, as they take care of the free radicals that weaken and damage the cell-structure in our body.
Free radicals invade our bodies by way of foods that are either processed, burnt, or stale. Preservatives that aren’t natural, cigarette smoke, pollution, herbicides and pesticides, chlorinated water (swimming pools and drinking water), etc., are the other sources of free radicals.
Foods high in antioxidants, for instance, fruits and vegetables that are of exuberantly appetizing colors, should be consumed. Fruits rich in antioxidants are blueberries, blackberries, mangoes, oranges, strawberries, cranberries, grape fruits, apples, kiwi fruit, etc., and vegetables are tomatoes, avocados, carrots, spinach, zucchini, red radish, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, fennel, endive, green beans, and onions.
Stay away from canned fruits. Including all these in the diet plan would certainly give a spurt of impetus to the metabolism in your body. Also, herbal teas are great cleansers.
Vitamins and Minerals
Vitamin C present in citrus fruits assists in the formation of collagen, a protein, that makes for most of the connective tissue in your body.
Make sure you don’t heat foods that have vitamin C in it, as it gets easily destroyed by heat. Foods containing vitamin E increase blood circulation; and those high in beta-carotene, are very much a requisite in your menu.
Zinc helps with growth and development of cell tissues and boosts the immune system by protecting it against free radicals. Zinc is found in pumpkin seeds, cashews, sunflower seeds, Parmesan cheese, seaweed, and wheat germ.
Selenium is another mineral that acts as an antioxidant found in salmon, walnuts, cashews, and lentils. Foods that contain phosphorus also contain calcium and help regulate protein in your body. Though, high phosphorus intake without calcium in it can lead to osteoporosis. Lean meat, eggs, fish, and skimmed milk are excellent choices.
Olive Oil
It is best to use olive oil in your salads, and cooking with olive oil is a whole lot better than with other oils or butter. Olive oil contains monounsaturated fat, which is easily digestible. Too much heating of olive oil too, can lead to formation of toxins in it. The green extra virgin olive oil, comes directly from the first press and is better than the golden one, as this one is more natural.
There are a lot of health benefits of olive oil. It lowers the tendency of forming gallstones. The compound in olive oil, identified as oleuropein, aids greatly in LDL cholesterol lowering and prevents it from oxidizing and forming free radicals in your body. Thus, it serves as a great antioxidant too. It eases out gastritis and ulcers and is great for the general well-being of your digestive system.
Proteins
If you are a meat-lover, eat more of lean white meat that comes from poultry that is fed on a natural diet, and that of fish from unpolluted waters.
Trim away fat, and do away with the skin of poultry. Red meat is heavily laden with saturated fats, and the amounts cause more harm than benefit.
Some producers of red meats and poultry have been found out to, very insensitively, use dangerous additives, illegal hormones, and drugs that make the animal unnaturally gain abnormal fat in order to make greedy profits.
Proteins that come from fermented soy and fish are beneficial.
Iodine
The right amount of iodine in can make a sluggish thyroid gland function well again. An inactive thyroid gland makes your body gain weight excessively, which eventuates to form cellulite. Though, overly salty foods are certainly harmful, as your body tries to retain fluid in the tissues.
Natural sources of iodine are dairy, eggs, and an iodine-rich seaweed called kelp.
Essential Fatty Acids
Omega 3 essential fatty acids and omega 6 fatty acids, classified simply as ‘essential fatty acids’ are involved in the basics of our biological processes – they help manufacture, nourish, and repair cell-membrane and tissues, thus aiding cellulite-reduction.
They also help with metabolism by expelling toxins and waste products out of the body.
Avoid processed foods, as these go through a process called ‘hydrogenation,’ which helps in increasing the shelf-life of the foods, but destroys most entirely the essential fatty acids in it.
The best sources of food for essential fatty acids are fish, such as salmon, mackerel, and herring, hemp oil, walnuts, almonds, dark green leafy vegetables, olive oil, flax seed oil, whole grain foods, lean meat, and eggs.
Fiber
Fresh raw fruits, vegetables, whole grain cereals, pastas, and bread, and nuts, seeds, and beans make it into the list of high fiber foods.
Dairy Products
It is best to switch to yogurt and whey and avoid milk. If you are a lover of milk, skimmed milk in moderation should do, but not whole milk. Avoid processed cheese and other processed dairy products at all costs, and opt for natural low-fat cheese.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are broken down into glucose, which is where your body gets its energy from. They are very essential for your body. It is determined by the glycemic index (GI) of a particular food whether the carbs in it are healthy for you or not.
Low glycemic foods to eat are usually the ones that are healthier, giving you a nice, slow, steady, and certain supply of glucose and energy. Foods high in GI are usually the ones that are made out of refined flour – like pizzas, bagels, white pasta, and are high in refined sugars too.
Don’t believe it when fancy packages scream out, ‘low-carb!’ when you walk into a supermarket. Opt for buying foods that are a natural source of carbohydrates, such as high carb fruits, whole grains, nuts, and seeds – these are a few that can be added to the low glycemic food list.
Thus, one of the most healthfully appeasing and effective ways for cellulite reduction is simply going on the right kind of balanced diet – which helps you with visceral fat reduction too. You don’t have to spend heavily neither on buying products like creams nor on surgeries that force you to believe that they work, without you really knowing if it’s worth. It is estimated that an astounding 80-90% of women have cellulite. A fact that twinges yet consoles – if you’re suffering from this particular displeasure. But at least you know you aren’t in the minimal whom this injustice has been layered upon. If you’ve often looked at skinny porcelain models in glossy magazines with a wistfully wishful look in your eye, you must get something clear that even a lot of slender beauties suffer from it; and that obviously their pictures are airbrushed whilst you aren’t!
