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❝Does anything actually get rid of cellulite? Nothing seems to❞

Let’s get the bad news over with in one go:

Nothing (that the scientific world currently knows of) can get rid of cellulite permanently, nor completely guard against it proactively. Which, given that it affects up to 98% of women to some degree, and often shows up not long after puberty (though it can appear at any time and often increases later in life), any pre-emptive health regime would need to be started as a child in any case.

As with many things that predominantly affect women, the world of medicine isn’t entirely sure what causes it, let alone how to effectively treat it.

Obviously hormones are implicated, namely estrogen.

Obviously adiposity is implicated, because one can’t have dimples in one’s fat if one doesn’t have enough fat to dimple.

Other hypothesized contributory factors include genetics, poor diet, inactivity, unhealthy lifestyle (in ways not previously mentioned, e.g. use of alcohol, tobacco, etc), accumulated toxins, and pregnancy.

Here’s an old paper (from 2004); today’s reviews say pretty much the same thing, but we love how succinctly (albeit, somewhat depressingly) this abstract states how little we know and how little we can do:

Cellulite: a review of its physiology and treatment

However, all is not lost!

There are some things that can affect how much cellulite we get, and there are some things that can reduce it, and even some things that can get rid of it completely—albeit temporarily.

First, a quick refresher on what it actually is, physiologically speaking: cellulite occurs when connective tissue bands pull the skin down in places, where fat tissue has been able to squeeze through. One of the reasons it is hypothesized women get this more than men is because our fat is not merely different in distribution and overall percentage, but also in how the fat cells stack up; we generally have have of a vertical stacking structure going on, while men generally have a more horizontal structure. This means that it can be easier for ours to get moved about differently, causing the connective tissue to pull on the skin unevenly in places.

With that in mind…

Prevention is, as we say, probably impossible if your body is running on estrogen. However, those contributory factors we mentioned above? Most of those are modifiable, including these things that it is hypothesized can reduce it:

Diet: as it seems to be worsened by inflammation (what isn’t?), an anti-inflammatory diet is recommended.

Exercise: there are three things here: 1) exercises to improve circulation and thus the body’s ability to sort things out by itself 2) HIIT exercise to reduce body fat percentage, if one has a high enough starting body fat percentage for that to be a healthy goal 3) mobility exercises, to ensure our connective tissues are the right amount of mobile.

Creams and lotions

These reduce the superficial appearance of cellulite, without actually treating the thing itself. Mostly they are caffeine-based, which when used topically increases blood flow and works as a local diuretic, reducing the water content of the fat cells, diminishing the appearance of the cellulite by making each fat cell physically smaller (while still containing the same amount of fat, and it’ll bounce back in size as soon as the body can restore osmotic balance).

Medical procedures

There are too many of these to discuss them all separately, but they all work on the principle of breaking up the tough bands of connective tissue to eliminate the dimpling of cellulite.

The methods they use vary from ultrasound to cryolipolysis to lasers to “vacuum-assisted precise tissue release”, which involves a suction pump and a multipronged robotic assembly with needles to administer anaesthetic as it goes and small blades to cut the connective tissues under the skin:

Tissue Stabilized–Guided Subcision for the Treatment of Cellulite

That last one definitely sounds like the least fun, but it’s also the only one that doesn’t take months to maybe see results.

Cellulite can and almost certainly will come back after all of these.

Home remedies

Aside from at-home versions of the above (not the robots with vacuum pumps and needles and microblades, hopefully, but for example homemade caffeine creams), and of course diet and exercise which can be considered “home remedies”, there are two more things worth mentioning:

Dry brushing: using a body brush to, as the name suggests, simply brush one’s skin. The “dry” aspect here is simply that it’s not done in the bath or shower; it’s done while dry. It can improve local circulation of blood and lymph, allowing for better detoxification and redistribution of needed bodily resources.

Here’s an example dry brushing body brush on Amazon; this writer has one and hates it, but I’ve also tried with other kinds of brush and hate them too, so it seems to be a me thing rather than a brush thing, and I have desisted in trying, now. Maybe you will like it better; many people do.

Self-massage: or massage by someone else, if that’s an option for you and you prefer. In this case, it works by a different mechanism than dry brushing; this time it’s working by the same principle as the medical techniques described in the previous section; it’s physically breaking down the toughened bits of connective tissue.

Here’s an example wooden massage roller on Amazon; this writer has one and loves it; it’s sooooooo good. I got it as a matter of general maintenance for my fascia, but it’s also very good if I get a muscular pain now and again. As for cellulite, I personally get just a little cellulite sometimes (in the backs of my thighs), and whenever I use this regularly, it goes away for at least a while.

A quick note in closing

Cellulite is normal for women and is not unhealthy. Much like gray hair for example, it’s something that can be increased by poor health, but the thing itself isn’t intrinsically unhealthy, and most of us get it to some degree at some point.

Nevertheless, aesthetic factors can also have a role to play in mental health, and we tend to feel best when we like the way our body looks. If for you that means wanting less/no cellulite, then the above are some ways towards that.

As a bonus, most of the nonmedical options are directly good for the physical health anyway, so doing them is of course good.

In particular that last one (the wooden massage roller), because that connective tissue we talked about? It matters for a lot more than just cellulite, and is heavily implicated in a lot of kinds of chronic pain, so it pays to keep it in good health:

Fascia: Why (And How) You Should Take Care Of Yours

(that article, also written by this same writer by the way, suggests a vibrating foam roller—those are very popular; I just really love my wooden one, and find it more effective)

Take care!