If we take a look at the weight loss market today, it is riddled with quick and easy weight loss solutions – lose weight with as little as 5 minutes work a week, lose weight instantly, diet pills, secret formulas or any other newly discovered shortcut to weight loss heaven. You rarely ever see anyone talking about consistency and hard work.

However weight loss success is rarely easy and rarely ever comes without any hard work or consistency. You can choose a path of least resistance, going at your own pace and end up where you want to be later down the line. But this won’t give you instant results or instant gratification either.

Changing a lifetime of habits is not going to be solved in a simple pill or 5 minute a week formula and if it is solved – it will be short lived. If you want to lose weight for good you need to work at it and be consistent in your efforts – whether that is gradually working towards introducing more and more fresh whole foods, increasing your weekly exercise schedule or whether you suddenly change your entire lifestyle overnight. You have to keep at it for lasting results.

It is very easy to get stuck in the cycle of wanting one thing after another and thinking that THIS will be the cure to your weight loss woes (the latest diet pill or exercise equipment to flatten your abs). Advertisers and marketers are just good at their jobs. Buying the item gives you instant gratification but its short lived and doesn’t get you anywhere closer to your weight loss goals.

When you aren’t seeing instant results from the lifestyle choices you have made and feel like you are getting suckered into another weight loss cure, step back and assess it for what it is. Think about past products/diet programs you have purchased and that you haven’t use or haven’t worked. This should help you and stop you from making the same mistake again.

What about the programs/products that do work? Even if you do find a quick fix product that does, I guarantee that it won’t be easy to maintain. So even with quick fix solutions you still have to put the hard work in – e.g. going on a crash diet and not giving into major cravings from lack of food. In fact quick fix solutions are much more work than simple diet and exercise.

It doesn’t have to be hard to change your lifestyle and make healthier choices, it can be effortless if you can provide your body with the right nutrition – the diet itself doesn’t have to be hard, neither does the exercise you choose to do (pick something enjoyable!). But learning and becoming knowledgeable in what you need to achieve can be hard work and this is where you really need to take the time and effort. Once you have the right knowledge you can implement it. On a long-term basis, for the least amount of effort you should ease into a new lifestyle change. Start by changing your breakfast to something healthier, then a few weeks later your lunch as well. You can also increase exercise as the weeks go by. This will make the transition to a healthier slimmer you easier and more successful. You won’t get instant gratification from it like you will from eating one of your favorite junk foods but you will have long lasting results. You will also enjoy the process a lot more than if you chose to struggle to find your instant cure or easy weight loss solution. They don’t exist.

There are easy ways to eat, optimum ways to eat for us and many people will claim it is an easy way to live and easy way to lose weight BUT somewhere among it will be some hard work and effort. Whether that is struggling to adapt to a new lifestyle (old habits die hard), overcoming emotional eating, cravings or struggling to get enough exercise in. There is always something. Pills and products cannot solve them – only you can.

Make a weight loss plan, work hard and maintain it and you will soon be seeing results. Maybe you won’t get them instantly but just knowing you are making the right choice for your health and body, should be enough motivation to move you forward and closer to your weight loss goals.

Helpful Articles:

Weight Loss Goals Part One: Creating A Positive Weight Loss Mindset

Weight Loss Goals Part Two: The 3 Beliefs You Need For Weight Loss Success

Weight Loss Goals Part Three: Weight Loss Planning

The China Study is one of the first books I read on nutrition and it alerted me to the consequences of too much protein in one’s diet and how this can contribute to cancer among many other Western diseases.  It is a book I recommend to anyone who is interested in nutrition, health and weight loss.

If you are not familiar with The China Study, this is a great video to get you started:

Being free from emotional eating takes time – it can take a LOT of time. For some people their emotional attachment to food is less severe and they can be done with the issue in months. For others, like myself, it can take years.

I never realized how much emotional eating was a part of my life and never thought I was an emotional eater. Only until very recently, in the past few years, has it become so abundantly clear that emotional eating is something I take part in on a regular basis or try not to! Unfortunately, although I was getting somewhere with my battles against it, it can take another emotional blow to send you back into an emotional panic again and delve for the food.

A year and a half ago my mother died. It was just after the birth of my son, so the blow couldn’t have come at a more devastating time. I was excited about my new bundle of joy, but I had been more excited about spending time with my mother and her helping me bring up her grandson. Unfortunately, this wasn’t meant to be and although I thought I could handle her death, it has been an ongoing battle since then. When people say it gets better, I really haven’t seen the evidence of this yet.

So what’s this got to do with emotional eating? Well, my emotional eating habits got a lot worse once this event occurred and have been a lot harder for me to deal with. They come in waves. Every so often a powerful wave of emotion hits me that I try to avoid feeling through comfort eating. It’s almost as though it creeps up on me and takes over me before I even notice. I then tend to act as though I haven’t really got a clue why I am suddenly obsessing with food again – but really, if I took a good look at myself the answer is there, I just want to avoid it. Avoidance of my issues seems to be on a subconscious level though, so I am not intentionally avoiding the issues but I am (if that makes sense!).

I did have my emotional eating under control before this occurrence but since, it is almost as though I have had to rewire my thinking again and get back on track – like I have fallen off the wagon. It hasn’t been as simple as addressing the underlying issues either – my grief. I can’t force it out all in one go. It comes in waves and I don’t know how long these waves will go on. All I know is that without the support of my boyfriend, I would have found it almost impossible to stop myself falling into the trap of emotional eating again and this is why I made this post.

If you are an emotional eater, you need to get support. You need to find someone you can go to when it gets too tough. It is so very easy to cave and eat the food. The instant gratification is so very tempting that we need someone to help us overcome it. When life gets tough, others’ support is needed to stop us indulging in the behaviors that cause us pain and repression. If you can’t find someone to support you in person, there are many forums online that can give you support too and I have used a few myself and found them to be useful in times when I felt misunderstood. So do a search for an emotional eating forum or use a forum you already frequent for support if necessary.

Sometimes, all we need is to discuss our emotional eating habits with someone who has been there or is there and once we have spoke about it, we feel instantly less emotional and more powerful.

So when you start to acknowledge your emotional eating and your maladaptive comfort eating, make sure you have a friend who can help you through the times when you feel like you can’t overcome overeating on your own. Sometimes its all you need.

And remember.

It is possible to overcome emotional eating,

You are able to overcome emotional eating.

And you deserve to overcome emotional eating.

Don’t suffer in silence: get support.

I was talking to a friend just now about her craving issues and how she struggles a lot with keeping them under control. She revealed that she rarely ever gets breakfast in and ends up drinking coffee all morning, which doesn’t really help with her hunger.  I told her that if she wants to overcome her cravings then the first step is to get a good breakfast!

So this article is just a quick overview of why it is important to eat breakfast and make a regular habit of it. WHAT you eat is just as important as eating. In Neal Barnard’s book Breaking the Food Seduction he mentions a study done where for 1 week volunteers had instant oatmeal and for another week they had regular oatmeal. Volunteer’s cravings and snacking reduced by 35%. The difference in these bowls was the amount of fiber. More refined foods have less fiber so make sure you have a fiber rich breakfast to sustain you until lunch.

A Breakfast To End All Cravings!

Breakfast is considered by many to be the most important meal of the day. Although I don’t necessarily agree with the “breakfast” part I do agree that the first meal you eat of the day is going to have the biggest impact on cravings and energy levels. I know that if my first meal is small and not very nutritious I will tend to crave like my by the time lunch has come around or very soon after. This feeling will often spill into the afternoon as well. If I have a nutritious breakfast then I tend to feel sustained throughout the day. So from my own experience the first meal I eat is usually a fairly hefty size

As stated above having a breakfast full of fiber is important as it keeps you from snacking. I also feel it is important to keep it simple, make it easy on your digestion and also quick for you to obtain the nutrients you need from it. This is why I start my day with a large banana smoothie (5-6 bananas or more! with some added water to blend). My smoothie will give me about 500-600 calories maybe more depending on how greedy I am. I tend to have this after being up out of bed for an hour as I don’t get hungry straight away.

Fruit to me is the best starter of the day – full of fiber, easy on digestion and quickly digested. The key is to eat plenty of it to feel satiated.

So if you want to lose weight and avoid cravings, make breakfast an important part of your day. For me, it was the easiest part to get right about my diet and the most crucial part to get right for my weight loss and well being.

End Cravings

Negative thinking can prevent you from living the life you want to live and becoming the slimmer lighter you: the you, you want to be. We may not even be aware of how negative we are as individuals as it can become part and parcel of who we are and the people we are around.

As children we seek acceptance from others around us, especially our parents. So we tend to absorb those ways of thinking and being into our own patterns without question. If we have negative parents and negative friends, we can become negative ourselves. I didn’t fully realize the extent of my negativity until someone pointed it out to me – since that time I have been able to turn it around quite substantially, but sometimes all habits creep in.

When we decide to look at the world honestly we might feel truly entrenched in these negative thought processes and feelings may arise against our ideal vision of ourselves.

Becoming aware of the negativity in your thoughts, speech and writing is the first step to changing it. By becoming aware and changing the way you perceive the world and how you choose to address others and talk to others can have a dramatic effect on your health and well being.

The more often you choose to focus on the positive the more you will notice the negative and will be able to step away from it.

Always focus on what you do want, what you love, what you enjoy and what you desire rather than on anything you perceive as a problematic. This will have a huge impact on your weight loss success.

Thoughts are extremely powerful and can help you get to where you want to be but can also hinder you and prevent you from losing weight.

What do you want to experience? Do you focus on your joy and love? (The slimmer fit you) Or do you focus on how difficult it is for you to lose weight and how unlikely it is you will lose weight or be able to stop overeating?

Keep your outlook light. This doesn’t mean be unrealistic – we all have challenge in our life, but try to view your experience as a game. Choose to enjoy your time. Remember your end goal: to be slimmer.

It cannot be said enough how important it is to maintain a positive outlook during the process of overcoming cravings. I discovered when I was overcoming mine that I put those foods I adored and craved on a pedestal. It was only by seeing that food for what it was and taken it off that pedestal that I was able to move forward.

Does that food love you back the way you love it? NO!

Changing your eating habits is a CHOICE. If you are offered something that doesn’t fit in with that choice, try to avoid saying things like “I am not allowed that” or “I can’t eat that”. Instead try to express yourself in a better way that benefits you and your journey e.g. “No thank you, I am choosing not to eat that way” or “It is my choice and I love it”.

Embrace and celebrate your lifestyle choices.  Enjoy the journey and weight loss will be easier than you think!

Previous Post: Sleep & Its Importance For Health & Weight Loss

Most of us do not get enough sleep and rest. Most of us don’t listen to our bodies when they scream out I need sleep/I need to rest/I am tired and instead continue to keep going. One of the main reasons for this is that we feel guilty for sleeping more or for resting and may even feel lazy. I remember when I was younger I would feel bad for sleeping in until 1pm as though I had wasted a big chunk of the day on something unimportant. But sleep IS important and you shouldn’t feel guilty for lying in or for having a lazy day to rest.

Getting little sleep and rest can cause you to gain weight and keep it on. A lot of overeating happens due to exhaustion. Often times we mistake signs of tiredness for hunger and end up eating instead of getting the rest we badly need.

These days I have taken it upon myself to make sure I am getting enough rest and if I do stay up to do some extra work and get hungry I often have a glass of water or a cup of green tea to warm/comfort me and keep me going until the end of my project and then go to bed. I used to mistake my tiredness for hunger as well as needing sleep so would eat. I now know that my hunger isn’t hunger but a sign I need to get to bed (not getting enough sleep puts the hormones that control hunger and appetite out of balance causing us to be hungry) and so I do not eat. If I did eat anyway it would cause me to have a bad night’s sleep so that is another reason to avoid it!

Sometimes when I get tired during the day I will take a nap with my 11/2 year old. I like napping with him.

So my advice to you it to learn and to allow yourself to rest when you need it. I know this isn’t always possible, but when you do get the opportunity to, take it! Don’t make excuses about it, it is important. Rest is just as important as eating and exercising and getting fresh air.

You are only as strong as your weakest link – if sleep is a weak link for you, you owe it to yourself and your weight loss goals to make sure you are getting enough. Sometimes all we need is to lie on the couch for half an hour to get more energy, we don’t necessarily need to sleep.

Resting and getting enough sleep are also important because when we lack these, our body also produces hormones that make us hold onto extra weight.

So getting enough sleep will not only benefit your mood and your energy levels but will also aid you in losing the weight you desire and stop you eating late at night and bingeing. When you get enough sleep you are also better able to handle stress and busy work days.

So get enough sleep! Learn to put your body’s needs first and learn to recognize when your body is asking you for sleep or rest. Observe how giving yourself that little extra rest or sleeping time affects your mood, weight loss and happiness – I think you will be surprised.

Previous Post: Weight Loss Goals Part 3: Weight Loss Planning

Deciding to lose weight or to get slimmer isn’t always enough to get where we want to be. Many of us struggle with diets, exercise and other lose weight facilitators because we lack the right direction or we don’t have enough knowledge to be able to pull it off. Most importantly we lack a plan.

When making lifestyle changes, sometimes it isn’t enough to just make the decision to change that habit or pattern. We have become so accustomed to living a certain way that the only hope we have of getting out of it is to create a plan that can help us achieve the goals we want. A plan is not only important for helping us to achieve our goals and set out what we need to do, but it is also important to write up a plan – nice and neatly – to show its importance to us. Losing weight is very important to a lot of us – it is our route to being healthier, to being slimmer. Noting down on a scrap piece of paper our plan of action to achieve our outcome/goal will only get forgotten and won’t be taken seriously. Writing our plan up, printing it off (and even framing it if you must) will show how important the plan is to you and will place in your mind this importance on a subconscious level. This is crucial!

So if you want to take your goal of weight loss seriously you must write a plan. Open word or notepad on your computer and start planning! This may take some time especially if you lack the knowledge needed to create an effective plan, but there are many resources online that can help you with your meal plans section (some you may have to pay for, like my own plans on this website and please feel free to email me if you need any help to write this) and there is also a lot of help online for writing other aspects of your plan too.

Below are some questions you should answer in your plan:

1.What do you want?

You may be tempted to write “to lose weight” here, but this is a negative outcome. It is much more beneficial for your thinking mind to work towards something as opposed to trying to avoid or move away from something. “To lose weight” implies you want to move away from something, so is negative. Instead frame your answer in a positive way – positive meaning moving towards something like “to be slimmer”

Set a date to achieve your weight loss goal and how much you want to lose – for in 6 months time is a good goal to aim for so set it for 10^th October or whatever you want it to be.

2. How will you know you are succeeding/have succeeded?

It is important to know that you are on the right track with your goal. You need the right feedback in the right quantity and it needs to be accurate. So try setting realistic goals – whether you are going to look at your weight loss on a weekly/monthly basis etc. I would set a plan for 6 months as well. So use this to work out what you want in 6 months time as well as working up to the end of the 6 months.

3. What resources do you have and what obstacles do you have for achieving your goal?

Exercise equipment, weight loss support from friends/family, anyone you can follow or learn from, personal qualities, knowledge in nutrition and diet overcoming cravings, emotional eating etc.

4. What do you need to do to achieve your goal?

Under this section you can write a list of things you need to do in order to achieve your weight loss goal and overcome the obstacles you face (e.g. not enough knowledge on diet, fitting in exercise around my family). Of course you may be tempted to write general statements here like: eat healthier, exercise daily – but this isn’t what you need. You need to be specific about what is standing in your way currently and how to overcome it. Here is a sample list of things you can work on:

• Educate myself on diet and what foods to eat.

• Educate myself on emotional eating and cravings so I can overcome these obstacles when they arise.

• Increase my consumption of fruits and vegetables.

• Pick an exercise I enjoy and do it for at least half an hour daily.

• Work out a plan to slowly ease myself into a better eating habit e.g. Starting with change my breakfast to something healthier (like a fruit smoothie) for week 1 (or first month) and then adding in a healthier lunch and then two weeks later a healthier dinner. Also what about changing snacks?

• Create a perfect vision to help me get through the toughs time.

Also have a section of daily tasks:

• Walk for 1 hour (or whatever exercise).

• Increase my fruit and vegetable intake.

• Only drink water – cut out all other drinks.

• Be aware and conscious of my eating habits: when I am eating for comfort or emotional reasons.

If you bought a meal plan or had someone help you come up with one, write here to follow your meal plan or to follow one aspect of it if that’s what you are choosing to do (e.g. like having a healthier breakfast for the first week before incorporating a healthier lunch in too). You can amend daily tasks as you progress in the direction you want.

If on your list of things to do you have the task of educating yourself on diet and nutrition so you can actually write a meal plan for yourself, you will have to do this before you can set any real diet goals for yourself (other than eat more fruit and vegetables a day if that’s one of them or only drinking water).

This is quite a general overview of a weight loss plan and it may seem quite daunting to do at first but it is WELL WORTH IT. It will help you become focused on what you really want. Just getting it typed up and on paper laid out properly will give you the mental boost you need to succeed.

If you have any questions about this article or how to write your plan, you can email me at kelly@eating-naturally.com and I will be happy to help you!

Weight Loss Goals Part 1: Creating A Positive Weight Loss Mindset

Weight Loss Goals Part 2: The 3 Beliefs You Need For Weight Loss Success

Previous Post: Cellulite Treatment: How To Eliminate Cellulite

As described in a previous post, cellulite is the visibility of subcutaneous fat cells and is caused by eating too much protein – specifically cooked protein, as opposed to raw (i.e. dark green leafy vegetables). So applying creams, medication or any advertised treatments you see on TV/online or in magazines will not get rid of your cellulite.

The only treatment (apart from diet change) that can help get rid of cellulite is potentially lymph drainage – a treatment you can get at your local beauty salon. This will speed up the process of your body ridding itself of the excess protein, however if you are just going to eat more junk protein then its not going to help you much. However just as effective in getting your lymph system moving would be to exercise, or to take up rebounding (which seems to be quite popular!) – jumping on a little trampoline. Any movement will help get your lymph system working and ridding itself of toxins.

Cellulite Creams/Lotions

We can all fool ourselves into thinking we are helping the issue with creams, when really we are not. I remember when I was pregnant, hoping to stop myself getting stretch marks by slapping massage oil on my tummy everyday. Of course that wasn’t going to help me and neither would cellulite creams help me!

Creams contain exfoliating agents that have all failed to act as effective treatments for cellulite. Caffeine is usually an active ingredient in these creams, and works by tightening the blood vessels. This can create a temporary smoothing of the skin but has no effect on the cause of cellulite.

On top of this creams get absorbed into the skin and the chemicals within them attract more water. As explained in an earlier post water retention causes fat cells to protrude and thus gives you cellulite, so really by putting creams and lotions on continuously you are adding to the problem and potential appearance of cellulite as the excessive moisture stretches your connective tissue.

Drinking More Water

Although the blood and lymph systems need sufficient water to be able to get rid of the protein, drinking more water doesn’t help eliminate cellulite.

Caffeine & Tea

Using caffeine or tea to draw water out of the cells some people believe helps with the appearance of cellulite. But even so, it doesn’t prevent the cause of cellulite, so can only help on a short term basis. Instead of using something like tea to rid yourself of water, you really need to be limiting your intake of junk proteins – the cause of the water being retained in the first place.

Losing Weight

Unfortunately just losing weight will not help you lose cellulite. Even skinny people get cellulite. If you are lucky you might reduce the visibility of it (if at all) but this will only be slightly.

There are many many more “treatments” for cellulite that simply do not work and this is for the simply reason that they do not solve the cause of the problem. Eliminate the cause. Eliminate the cellulite.

So what do you need to do to eliminate cellulite?

• Eat plenty of fresh fruits – as much as you desire before every meal and more!

• Eat plenty of fresh dark leafy greens for amino acids/protein.

• Eat a low fat diet.

• Exercise and spend plenty of time outside.

• Eat as little as possible of dairy products.  Milk products roughen the skin, increase your appetite and can cause cellulite and acne as well as other things (please see my Top 5 Nutrition Lies Ebook – see top of page for details).

• Eat as little as possible of meat. Try seeing meat as a luxury item, like we used to, and have it on the odd occasion or at the weekend only. We eat far too much meat in the Western world and treat it as a staple food but it is not necessary for a healthy diet and is not necessary for protein. You can get all your protein requirements from a variety and abundance of dark leafy vegetables.

• Reduce your intake of wheat based products.

For more information about cellulite, please feel free to contact me.

The Truth About Cellulite: What Is It & What Causes It?

Previous Post: The No Salt Diet: Why You Should Cut Salt Out Completely

Salt is literally in everything we eat – soup, bread, chocolate, macaroni and cheese, canned vegetables pizza…the list is endless. But it should be avoided at all costs – it is toxic, irritating, stimulating and a potentially deadly poison to us. If you have ever had an open wound and gotten salt in it – you will know firsthand how destructive it is.

Organic salt (sodium) is an essential mineral and can be naturally found in fruits, vegetables, nut and seeds. We only need a very small amount of sodium, which can easily be supplied by these natural sources. The salt found in these natural sources is also complexed with other organic molecules. This causes them to be absorbed slowly. This contrasts with table salt (including Celtic and Sea Salts), which enters quickly through the stomach lining.

Salt, unless in its natural form in fruits and vegetables, is very dehydrating. When excess salt enters the bloodstream, the body is forced to store it between cells until the kidney can filter it. While in between cells, salt causes a burning effect on the surrounding tissue. To protect themselves, the cells release water in order to dilute the excess salt. Giving up their water means the cells lose their elasticity and shrink. This causes an imbalance in the cell’s chemistry as a result of the loss of potassium.

Having low potassium levels causes more salt to penetrate the cell walls. When the sodium level rises, water enters the cell in order to dilute it. This causes the cell to become swollen. This continuous disruption to the cell’s fluid balance, in time, scars, calcifies and destroys the muscles, valves and arteries of the entire coronary route. Salt is an accomplice to one of America’s top killers – cardiovascular disease.

The body has to compensate to maintain homeostasis when you eat salty foods. If you eat salty foods for a prolonged period of time, just like caffeine and nicotine, your body becomes dependent on salt to maintain the balance. So when you begin to reduce salt intake, you may experience physical withdrawal symptoms.

Because salt is pretty much in everything we eat (you may not even notice or taste it because you have become so accustomed to it) it is very unlikely you wouldn’t have some sort of withdrawal from it. This can be one of the factors that prevent you from losing weight – craving salty snacks.

If you want to be healthy, lose weight and improve health conditions you need to simply cut out salt (unless its in your fruits/vegetables).

Your body potentially cannot even handle a little bit of salt and why risk it when salt has been linked to hypertension, stroke, asthma, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, premenstrual tension, cancer among many other diseases.

On top of this you are messing up your taste buds. Salt doesn’t bring flavor to food like so many of us think – what it does do is overpowers your taste buds and deadens them to all sensation other than salt. This causes unnatural cravings and overeating. So if you want to have your taste buds back, enjoy natural foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, then cut out the salt: if not for your taste buds for your health.

The little salt our body does need we should be getting from fruits and vegetables, for example celery. Salts in fruits and vegetables are in a safe natural usable form.

Completely cut out salt from your diet, eat whole fresh ripe raw organic fruits and greens, and your salt cravings will disappear for good. You will also live a much healthier life and foods that once tasted bland will suddenly become awesomely delicious again.

Previous Post: The Truth About Cellulite: What Is It & What Causes It

Cellulite is just the visibility of subcutaneous fat cells. It is as simple as that.

It isn’t caused by too much fat, or isn’t about trapped toxins of inflamed subcutaneous cells – it is just the visibility of them.

Cellulite is predominantly a female issue. Not many men seem to have this problem and this is because fat cells in women are clustered in sacs as well as the fact that we carry twice us much fat as men do.

Despite needing fat to fill fat cells, cellulite isn’t caused by being overweight. Have you noticed that many skinny women also suffer from the dreaded sight of cellulite? So losing weight isn’t necessarily your answer to ridding it. You can’t avoid having some fat anyway – it’s important for health to have some fat. So even though you may be able to reduce the visibility of the cellulite by losing weight (half filled fat cells will be less pronounced than full fat cells), you still will have cellulite, because as mentioned it is about visibility not how much fat you have.

So if most women have cellulite isn’t it natural?

Cellulite, despite most women suffering from it, is NOT natural. It can be considered normal by today’s standards to have it, especially when roughly 90% of us in the Western world have it. This is simply down to the health and junk foods we consume in the Western world and also the extra protein we eat. Our protein consumption is excessive!

OK, but what causes those fat cells to become visible?

Cellulite is categorized by the bulging of fat cells into the outer skin and this is caused by an increase in concentration of damaged proteins that have very high water-attracting properties. This leads to a rise in the amount of water the skin retains, which causes the fat cells to extrude. [1][2]

So if you retain a lot of water, then it is most likely you are consuming too much protein and too much damaged protein. A likely sign of this would be cellulite!

So cellulite is caused by:

1. Consuming too much protein! If you are eating a lot of cooked protein (rather than plant protein which will not cause this issue) then you are contributing to your cellulite issue. The heat from cooking the protein damages the amino acids and creates new substances within it. This creates amino acids that are much harder for our bodies to separate and utilized. As a result they aren’t utilized immediately and end up in the skin, making you retain water and making your fat cells visible.

But it also can be caused by:

2. An impaired hormone metabolism. One of the reasons you have impaired hormone metabolism can be contraceptive pills. The only way the pill can work is by dominating your hormone metabolism and if it didn’t you would get pregnant. It is known that contraceptives can cause water retention thus cellulite.

What about genetics?

No, cellulite isn’t hereditary at all, even though many sources seem to claim that it is. I think this is down to making people feel better by putting the blame on something that is out of ones control. Well I am sorry, but cellulite IS in your control.

The only way that cellulite can be even seen as remotely hereditary is that you possibly have picked up your parents eating habits. If you have become accustomed to eating a high protein diet from birth, then in that sense it is hereditary. This is something that can be very difficult to overcome because it has been a life long habit.

Conclusion

Cellulite maybe normal for society but its only because of all the health and junk foods we consume on a daily basis. It is a sign of ill health and nothing about it is natural. It isn’t hereditary, only in the sense of what your eating habits may be as a result of your parents.

You can get rid of it and it comes down to beating your addictions to wheat and dairy based products and high protein cooked foods. If you decrease your intake of cooked protein you will see a decrease in cellulite. If you want to have good looking skin then you must change your diet.

Upcoming posts on cellulite:

Cellulite and the Skin

Cellulite and How to Treat It

References for this article:

[1] Rosenbaum, M. et al, An exploratory investigation of the morphology and biochemistry of cellulite. Plast. Reconstr. Surg. 1998 / 101 (7) / 1934-1939.

[2] Lotti, T. et al, Proteoglycans in so-called cellulite. Int. J. Dermatol. 1990 / 29 (4) / 272-274.

[3] http://www.waisays.com

Previous Post: Weight Loss Goals Part 2: The 3 Beliefs You Need For Weight Loss Success