Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How to Get Rid of Cellulite Naturally and Safely

Episode Date: December 9, 2019

I want to do some posts specifically for women, starting with a question I get asked often: how do you get rid of cellulite naturally and safely? Ironically, cellulite was once respected as an attractive symbol of wealth. It meant you could eat rich foods and didn’t have to physically labor. Well, these days almost all women have cellulite to one degree or another, and it’s generally considered a blight–a sign of a lazy, unhealthy lifestyle. Millions of women spend tens of millions of dollars per year on all kind of cellulite treatments looking for a cure, and aren’t any better for it. Is there anything you can do, really? Fortunately, there is. It seems like a good time to dive into the subject and help you sort the BS from the truth, and work out what you can do to get smoother, sexier legs, hips, and butts. --- Mentioned on The Show: Shop Legion Supplements Here: https://legionathletics.com/shop/ --- Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider supporting my sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, which produces 100% natural evidence-based health and fitness supplements, including protein powders and protein bars, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more. Head over to www.LegionAthletics.com now to check it out. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout and you will

save 10% on your entire order and it'll ship free if you are anywhere in the United States. And if you're not, it'll ship free if your order is over $100. So again, if you appreciate my work and if you want to see more of it, please do consider supporting me so I can keep doing what I love, like producing podcasts like this. Cellulite. What is it exactly? Why do people get it? And what can you do about it? How can you go about getting rid of cellulite naturally and safely? That's what we're going to talk about here. getting rid of cellulite naturally and safely. That's what we're going to talk about here. All right, so what is cellulite? We all know what it looks like. It's the dimpling on the skin, the fat that gives that dimply kind of look, that lumpy look that is often referred to as cottage cheese. Why though? Well, what's happening here is swollen fat cells are pushing up against connective tissue

that is then pulling the skin down which creates that pitting now cellulite is more common with women than with men and is more commonly seen among women as they get older and the reason for that is as women get older, estrogen levels decline, and this then weakens the fibrous tissues that are surrounding fat cells, which means that there's just worse support for the skin. And it also worsens circulation in the body, which then blunts collagen production, which produces weaker skin. So it's kind of a double whammy there. produces weaker skin. So it's kind of a double whammy there. Another bit of physiology unique to women that contributes to the formation of cellulite is that they tend to have more body fat. They naturally have more body fat than men. And also their fat cells are arranged in vertical

columns, which are prone to bulging, whereas men's are arranged in a net-like pattern, not prone to bulging. Now, what can you do about cellulite? Well, the first thing you need to know is there are no magic bullets. There are no quick fixes. There are no simple pills or powders you can swallow or creams or special massages you can do to magically get rid of the problem. One other small frog to swallow is that you can't completely get rid of cellulite if you have it, but you can reduce its appearance. You can do something about it, certainly. And the best ways to do that are to build muscle, to improve the health of your skin, to lose body fat. If you have a high-ish body fat percentage, for example, if you are a woman and you are above 25% body fat, then losing fat is almost certainly going to help. And in some cases, I've seen where women are around 25% body fat with cellulite.

They get down to about 20% and they add muscle. And that alone is enough to dramatically reduce the visibility of it. There is one more thing too that contributes to reducing the appearance of cellulite. And that is increasing blood and lymph flow. of cellulite and that is increasing blood and lymph flow. And the reason why those things help is poor circulation and poor lymph drainage can lead to inflammation and swelling. And if the circulation of blood and lymph remains low for too long, these hardened collagen bands can form around fat globules and that makes the cellulite even worse. Now, how do you do that? How do you increase circulation and lymph drainage? Well,

weightlifting is great for that. Great for both of those things. And weightlifting is also great for building muscle, which helps fill in the spaces, giving you a softer, smoother look. increases giving you a softer smoother look and of course weightlifting also can help you lose fat so weightlifting really is one of the most effective things you can do to combat cellulite hey if you like what i am doing here on the podcast and elsewhere and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider supporting my sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, which produces 100% natural evidence-based health and fitness supplements, including protein powders and bars, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more.

Every ingredient and every dose in every product is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research. Every formulation is 100% transparent. There are no proprietary blends and everything is naturally sweetened and flavored. To check everything out, just head over to legionathletics.com. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout, and you will save 20% on your entire order if it is your first purchase with us. And if it is not your first purchase with us, you will get double reward points on

your entire order. That's essentially 10% cash back in rewards points. So again, the URL is legionathletics.com. And if you appreciate my work and want to see more of it, please do consider supporting me so I can keep doing what I love, like producing podcasts like this. Now, I mentioned earlier that supplements are not the answer and they're not the answer, but there are a couple supplements that can help. One I want to mention here now, and then in a minute, I'll talk about a couple others. So the one that I would say is most important, not just for dealing with cellulite, but for overall health is fish oil is a good omega-3 fatty acid supplement. And really the best choice is fish oil. And the reason why this can help is if you take enough of it, which I would say is at least one gram of EPA and DHA. Those

are the two omega-3 fatty acids that we're really trying to get from fish oil. So at least one gram of EPA and DHA per day, but you can take up to five or six grams per day for the purposes of reducing inflammation, especially if you are physically active. Research shows that that high dose can be quite effective for reducing inflammation all around in the body. And as one of the issues that can aggravate cellulite and just make it look worse is inflammation, taking enough fish oil can counteract that. Another unwanted condition related to excess inflammation that fish oil can help have fewer joint aches and pains, just fewer joint problems with fish oil in your regimen than without it. Now, as far as fat loss goes, this is pretty obvious why it helps. The smaller the fat cells are, the less swelling and bulging there can be. However, swelling and bulging there can be. However, you can have cellulite at relatively low body fat levels. And what most people find is that the cellulite is worst in the areas that have the

most stubborn fat, the fat that just takes its sweet time to go away, that is hardest to lose. And for women, that is usually hips, thighs, butt. Those are the most stubborn areas. For guys, it's usually the lower abdomen, the tire. And so then what you can do is focus on losing stubborn fat in particular. Now, of course, you can't just target stubborn fat. Mostly what that means is getting to a relatively low body fat percentage. If you do that, it's going to involve losing a fair amount of stubborn fat. But because the fat stores, I don't want to get too much into the physiology of stubborn fat because I've already spoken about that and written about that rather extensively. So if you want to learn about what stubborn fat is and why some fat stores are just very resistant to being mobilized and burned,

then search my podcast feed or my YouTube channel for stubborn fat and you'll find a podcast I recorded on it. Or you can also find a long form article over at Legion Athletics that I wrote on it. But for the purposes of this discussion, all you need to know is that the stubborn fat stores, which are almost always the fat deposits that you want to get rid of the most, are the last to go. You do have to get to a pretty low level of body fat to have very little stubborn fat. And again, for women, that's about 20% body fat. For men, it's about 10% body fat. And so what can happen then is a woman can start at, for men, it's about 10% body fat. And so what can happen then is a woman can start at, let's say, 30% body fat and get down to 25% body fat, doing well and definitely getting leaner, but not seeing that much of a change in the areas that she cares the most about, her hips, her thighs, her butt.

She is going to see mostly the changes in areas that she cares less about, like her arms and just her upper body in general, her face and her back. And that can be pretty discouraging because if she doesn't understand what's going on, she can then conclude that, I guess this fat is never going to, I can't get rid of it. It doesn't budge no matter how strict I am on my diet, no matter how good I am following my meal plan and the weight, the scales going down and I'm seeing results from my waist up, but not really seeing much from the waist down. And coincidentally, that's also where the majority of the cellulite is going to be. So it can be doubly disappointing. But the long story short is you just need to keep going.

She just needs to get down to that 20% or so body fat level. And a lot of the fat that she's going to lose going from 25 to 20% is going to be that stubborn fat. Whereas not much of the fat that she lost going from 30% to 25% will be. And unfortunately, there isn't much you can do to lose stubborn fat faster. Most of it is just sticking with it, maintaining your calorie deficit, eating plenty of protein, training your muscles, not overtraining, et cetera, et cetera. But there is one supplement you should know about called yohimbine, which when combined with fasted exercise in particular, you need to be in a fasted state to get yohimbeen's fat burning effects. You can lose stubborn fat faster. This has been shown in a number of studies. And if you want to learn more about that, I'm not sure if I've recorded any content on yohimbeen

in particular. You can search my podcast feed or my YouTube channel. If there's nothing there, just head over to legionathletics.com and search for yohimbine and you will find some stuff that I've written on it. And you also find it in one of my supplements called Forge. All right. So back to talking about cellulite in particular, the last thing is a couple other supplements you should consider. Now I saved them for the last because the evidence is weak and they may or may not work, but they're inexpensive. They're safe. So if you are really trying to improve the cellulite issue as quickly as possible, if it were me, I would throw them in because why not? And those supplements are Gotu Cola, G-O-T-U, new word, K-O-L-A, and horse chestnut. Why those? Well, research shows that go to cola may be able

to increase circulation and collagen production, which as you now know, would be beneficial in the case of cellulite. And studies show that horse chestnut may have anti-inflammatory effects and may also be able to increase circulation. So again, good if you are dealing with cellulite. It's also worth noting that these supplements have been shown effective in treating varicose veins, which is a condition that's highly associated with cellulite. So again, a good indication that they can indeed help reduce the appearance of cellulite. Now, as far as dosing goes, you want to go for 750 milligrams to one gram of go to cola per day. And for the horse chestnut, it is 400 to 600 milligrams per day, but you need to make sure that it's standardized to contain enough of a molecule called Essin, A-E-S-C-I-N. What you're really going for is 100 to 150 milligrams of Essin per day.

Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider supporting my sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, which produces 100% natural evidence-based health and fitness supplements, including protein powders and protein bars, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more. to www.legionathletics.com now to check it out. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. And it'll ship free if you are anywhere in the United States. And if you're not, it'll ship free if your order is over $100. So again, if you appreciate my work and if you wanna see more of it,

please do consider supporting me so I can keep doing what I love, like producing podcasts like this. All right, well, that's it for today's episode. I hope you found it interesting and helpful. And if you did and you don't mind doing me a favor, could you please leave a quick review for the podcast on iTunes or wherever you are listening from? Because those reviews not only convince people that they should check out the show, they also increase the search visibility and help more people find their way to me and to

the podcast and learn how to build their best body ever as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and whatever app you're using to listen, and you will not miss out on any of the new stuff that I have coming. And last, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts. Let me know how you think I could do this better. I read every email myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. All right. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to looking for constructive feedback. All right, thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.