I hate myself every time I look into the mirror. I don’t hate my face, don’t get me wrong. I hate what I see on my body and what’s called cellulite. There is hardly any woman who doesn’t know what cellulite is, so I don’t want to spend time on defining it. Instead let’s see whether you and I can find the best skin care and get rid of it or no. But first let’s understand one thing — cellulite doesn’t develop among women who gained or failed to work out their weight. Every woman is at risk of developing it.
On which parts of the body does it develop? Such was my first question to my dermatologist. The common places, she said, where cellulite develops are the backside and the thighs. However, note that the abdomen, upper arms and breasts are also risky places.
What causes cellulite? Some time ago I heard one of my absolutely skinny friends talking highly that skinny people don’t develop cellulite. Trust me she was wrong — it doesn’t matter how slender you are, because cellulite is not related to your fats or bones, it’s related to your skin.
Genetics is an important factor in cellulite. For example my mom had cellulite, and now I have. Other causes of cellulite include aging and hormonal changes. These are factors you can’t control.
However, there are factors you can control. Let’s not forget that cellulite cannot be prevented, but your lifestyle can affect the appearance. For best skin care avoid fluid retention, inactivity, excess body fat, yo-yo effect and a high-carbohydrate diet.
For a long time I thought that tanning can hide cellulite. I’m sure many of you thought the same way. And that’s the basic reason why I always exposed my backside to the sun whenever we were at the beach. My dermatologist smiled when I told her this. She said that tanning is not a good way to hide cellulite because once it fades away, cellulite becomes even more obvious. “Do not forget that the UV rays damage the skin and make it less resilient,” she said.
I wondered whether healthy weight loss could be a good “treatment” to my cellulite. She was kind of waiting for such a question. She said that it doesn’t matter whether it’s healthy weight loss or no, because weight loss, in particular, can even worsen it, as weight loss may cause loose skin.
Then I told her that I use certain retinol creams, methylxanthine creams and herbal creams to treat my cellulite. “Do they help?” she asked me. “Not really,” I answered. “Those creams can sometimes show signs of improvement but yet there hasn’t been any research proving their effectiveness. Some of them seem to improve the cellulite appearance by creating thicker skin, others break down the fat, but it’s a question whether they treat cellulite itself or no. Herbal creams, for example, are believed to reduce cellulite, but they cause allergic reactions in people. So they are not effective and are not best skin care for cellulite,” she said.
Learn about the rest of our conversation in my next post.
Photo © zimbio, zimbio1
In my previous post we talked about basically two things — my complaints of my cellulite and my dermatologist’s advice. Now we’ll go on with my dermatologist’s introduction on the ways to treat cellulite. Almost all the ways she mentioned include cosmetic skin surgery.
Liposuction — This is a cosmetic skin surgery to what I’m absolutely against. Even without visiting the dermatologist I knew that liposuction is the last thing I’d go for. Why? Because liposuction can worsen the cellulite, as the fat that causes it is “located” very close to the surface of the skin. Today there is laser-assisted liposuction, which is thought to completely remove the fat, but I think there is great risk in it.
Body wraps — This is the treatment I went through. I have to admit that somehow it felt good being wrapped in warm and slenderizing bandages. It tightened my skin, but again temporarily. And I decided to go for this treatment from time to time, especially at the beginning of summer.