Many people don’t realize that their skin is affected by the way they eat. The skin is actually your largest organ and it’s cells are connected together by collagen – a substance that your body produces by using amino acids, many different vitamins and minerals and vitamin c. Collagen is also vital for connecting internal organs and muscles together, which is why if your body can’t make enough, it will choose to first repair those tissues and then if there’s any left – the skin. Chronic deficiencies in certain vitamins can be the root cause of cellulite and although you won’t fully reverse it by fixing the deficiencies, this can definitely reduce it. Let’s learn which common vitamin and mineral deficiencies can make cellulite worse and how you can fix them.
Deficiency: Vitamin C
This should be obvious – severe vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, which is a disease that causes your skin to break apart and bleed. Almost no one is that deficient, but according to many doctors the current RDI of Vitamin C (60mg/day) is very low and is just borderline enough to prevent scurvy or more obvious symptoms of deficiency. However, people during the paleolithic era consumed about 300 to 700 mg daily, which is ten times more. This is why we lost our ability to synthesize vitamin C. Dogs, Ducks and almost all other animals produce 10 000 mg or more Vitamin C per day in their liver.
Fix: Bell Peppers, Broccoli & Spinach
Red Bell peppers contain more than 100mg of Vitamin C per 100g. Broccoli & Spinach contain about half of that per 100g. Supplementing can also help, but is not necessary at all.
Deficiency: Magnesium
Magnesium is a mineral and not a vitamin, but it’s still a micro-nutrient that your body uses for more than 300 body functions. Deficiency of Magnesium leads to nerve problems, low energy levels, depression and most importantly – heart disease. It can also affect the elasticity of the skin as magnesium is also used during the collagen-synthesis process. Almost no one gets enough magnesium, as it’s traditional source is water from ponds, lakes and mineral water. Today, we have more than 5 times less magnesium in our water. In addition to that, magnesium in soil is rapidly consumed by plants, which means that with each crop, the magnesium content of the plant will be less and less, even though we use fertilizers.
Fix: Greens, Nuts & Mineral Water
It’s hard to source mineral water that’s high in magnesium (50-100mg/Liter), but if you can definitely do it. Greens are another good source of magnesium, although not as good as they used to be, due to soil depletion. Nuts are still high in magnesium, as they come from trees, whose root system is very deep and not affected by soil depletion of Magnesium. This is one of the main reasons why consuming just an ounce of nuts daily can cut your risk of heart disease almost in half. Unfortunately, there aren’t any studies done on cellulite directly, as it is not as medically important as other disease, but we know for sure that magnesium deficiency can affect the elasticity of your skin.
Deficiency: Antioxidants
Antioxidants protect your skin from free-radical damage, which comes either from outside sources (the sun, toxins in the environment, etc.) or your own body – your natural metabolism creates certain by-products that cause damage to your cells if not scavenged by antioxidants. Historically, humans have consumed a lot of antioxidants in their diet in the form of plants, which is how our bodies cope with toxins. Today, not only do we consume less natural antioxidants, but we also consume much more food that creates toxic by-products, trans-fat being the main enemy.
Fix: Eat a lot of Plants
Many people are starting to realize that vegetarian diets are not necessarily healthier just because the exclusion of meat, but because once you exclude meat you have to eat a ton of vegetables and plants to consume the same amount of protein. As a result, you boost your antioxidant intake 10-fold or more.
Foods to Avoid
Avoid carbonated beverages – no one understand the exact mechanism behind this, but it does seem to make cellulite worse and cultures with low carbonated beverage intake have almost no cellulite. Of course, this is also related to other factors – if you don’t drink any carbonated beverages, you are probably also not eating junk food. Fast food contains a lot of chemicals that are not natural for your body and created by cooking fat at high temperatures. Your skin gets easily damaged by those free radicals, especially in the absence of dietary antioxidants. Increasing your antioxidant intake and reducing fast food intake can have a massive effect on your cellulite, although it will not completely eliminate it.
A big factor in cellulite is blood flow. This is a complex problem and good blood circulation depends on a good diet – studies have shown that nuts are very effective in reversing blood-flow problems caused by constricted arteries. This is what special massaging tools for cellulite aim to do – by massaging your skin they supposedly improve your blood flow, which nourishes your skin and gets rid of cellulite. Unfortunately, this almost never works, as the effect is very temporary. Improving your diet can have a much more pronounced effect on the blood flow to your skin. Stress is another co-factor that causes your blood vessels to constrict.
As you can see, many factors influence cellulite. Generally, a healthy diet can greatly reduce it through it’s anti-oxidative effect on the skin. Collagen synthesis happens much more easily if you are healthy, which also repairs the bumps.
Completely Eliminating Cellulite
To completely eliminate cellulite, you can give leptitox a try.
Written by Angelina on March 28 2019