cellulite

With the inclusion of a segment, initially posted by me at BB.com, I would like to add to this post:

Regarding "spot-reduction", those that invoke this line of reasoning [saying it is not possible], are not capable of critical thought. When you lose weight in general, say, from your arms and stomach, what have you done? You just, lost weight/girth from several "spots" on your body".

As happened, you "spot" reduced; but, something can not come from nothing, and this process was not a grace of magic. Fat was mobilized in order to balance a deficit. Now, people block-think, and correlate this with the facetious notion that you can lose girth on stomach, by doing sit-ups ("I have fat on my tummy, so sit-ups I will do").

Alpha-2 receptors are implicated in the troublesome areas of the body, that do not give way, even when fat is lost, overall (able to lose weight/girth in arms, legs, and thighs, yet still have love-handles). If they can be blocked (as with LipoDerm), then, the process of fat-mobilization will extend to these areas as well, which previously, could not be accessed (due to the presense of Alpha-2's [the high density of them, in relation to Beta receptors]).

You are not getting something from nothing with this (magically "spot-reducing"). Simply, those areas in which Alpha-2 receptors held relative dominance, will now be accessible for mobilization, in the presene of a caloric deficit (whereas previously, the arms, legs, so on, could be accessed to balance the deficit, due to the lower density of Alpha-2's).

When you say a low carb diet, are you meaning ketogenic state? I mean I did the Atkins Induction for two weeks and that helped me to lose 7-8 lbs, and I distictly saw the effects in the "before" induction and "after" induction shots that I took. There was a visible reduction in the abdomen but not in the thighs. This weight that I lost came off in one week on that diet and has never come back on despite reintroiducing some carbs over the course of a few weeks. I had to reintroduce carbs because I could not lift basically. I was on a limit of 20 grams of carbs each day though.

I haven't seen any fat losses since then and I am wondering if I am too low on carbs and sending body into famine mode or something? That is why I questioned the macronutrient percentages for someone who is lifting three times per week and cardio x3 per wek too.

I think the fat cells on my body do vary in size. I can feel them just beneath the surface and the ones in the hips and thighs are distinctly much larger than say those in the arm area. So it stands to reason that these larger one will take longer to reduce down...hmmm think I will have a little patience and just wait a little longer for this to happen.

But I'd like to know what percentage of the total daily calorific intake carbs should take up or what is considered here as low carb diet?

Some get by with ~100 grams of carbs per day. If you're athletic, an eye to the long-term, then the Atkins diet is not suitable as it doesn't take Leptin into consideration (no refeeds unlike a CKD--cyclical ketogenic diet).

Carb cycling works well for those holding sensitive toward them. For example, on day 1 and 2 you may consume 100 grams, day 3---200 grams, and repeat. Depends on your bodyweight and activity levels.

As for fat deposits, in some areas, hips/thighs/butt for remales, it's not only a matter of time, but far beyond that, a matter of gender/genetics. Eventually a six-pack you could have, your thighs never leaning out as you'd like.

This, due to A-2 receptors. Could try use of oral Yohimbine HCl.

Well as long as my thighs look better than they did when I was 16 yo (and they have to basically because I am doing MORE now than I ever did as a kid) then I'm ok with it. I don't want lean skinny legs anyway. I prefer my legs to look full shapely. My other thought was that for every pound of muscle I put on my thighs, the fat cells are going to have less of a place there really. There will come a point where my body HAS to pull fat from my legs in preference to pulling it from anywhere else, and whatever is left there is probably how Mother Nature intended it to be.

Thanks for your insight. I really appreciate your help. I read more on the topic of A-2 receptors. What I did read was very interesting. Here's what it said:

Not having much money, we often entertained ourselves in the evenings sitting on benches in Waikiki watching tourists. As men approached women, their eyes would look directly at the pubic area. Then they traveled up to the face and back down again. If they saw something they really appreciated, they would swivel their heads around and stare at the woman's butt and thighs after she had passed. Funny, huh? But I kid you not! What was most interesting about this little research project was that the women the guys looked at most longingly were those I considered to have too much thigh. Men simply don't like women with skinny thighs and tiny behinds, no matter that the media tries to tell them they should.

Each fat cell in your body has two kinds of receptors, technically known as Alpha-2 Adrenoceptors. Once activated, one kind makes the cell shrink and the other causes it to get bigger and even prevents it from shrinking. The balance between the two determines how fat an individual is. These receptors are not present in even numbers in fat cells throughout the body which explains why some fat deposits are extremely hard to lose.

When you go on a low calorie diet, your insulin level drops and your fat cells shrink. But just when you think you've got a handle on it, Mother comes along and increases the responsiveness of each and every alpha-2 receptor because She thinks you're starving. She approaches it from a prehistoric point of view, i.e. there is no more food on the immediate horizon. So to keep Mother from becoming nervous and cannibalizing your muscle tissue in the bargain, never try to lose more than about a pound of scale weight per week when on a fat loss diet , and a half-pound per week is even better (Body Opus, Duchaine, 1996, page 65).

In most women (and men who tend to have a female body type fat distribution), the problem fat is in the glutes and upper thighs. In most men (and some women), these receptors are located equally throughout the subcutaneous fat that covers the entire body, although there are slightly more in the abdomen and lower back. When people decrease caloric intake they simply shrink these fat cells (you never lose them unless you have them surgically vacuumed). Studies have shown that exercise has no effect whatsoever in shrinking fat cells, with the conclusion being that people only waste time doing endless repetitions with light weight or spending hours performing aerobics, if the goal is to lose fat. Although exercise is needed to keep the metabolism running faster and the body in good condition, fat cells can only be made smaller by taking in fewer calories than are expended. (We really didn't want to hear that, did we?)

Women naturally have more fat, which is regulated by estrogen. If women are given additional amounts of this hormone, many will experience a swelling of their fat cells just where they don't want it to occur. This is why some women on birth control pills gain fat. After menopause, if additional estrogen is not taken, they will slowly lose fat in their glutes because reducing estrogen levels reduces the number of alpha-2 receptors in fat cells. (I'm still waiting for this to happen and I'm growing exceedingly impatient!)

Still, we want to minimize unnecessary catabolism and encourage unnecessary anabolism, i.e. encourage the body not to break down muscle tissue, but rather to build it. This is one reason you don't want to go hungry. When you do not eat for a long period (and it is only a matter of a few hours), your body (and primarily your brain, which is a real nutrient hog) will look to your muscle tissue to provide what it requires, should you be able to locate some "eats." That's why it's a fallacy that you shouldn't ingest a small meal before you go to bed. Just because you're not active in the same manner as during the day, your body is using this time to repair itself. Over the eight or so hours you are sleeping you slowly reach a catabolic state. Although this is normal and Mother has adjusted your metabolism to allow for this, you can get a leg up by minimizing this state as much as possible.

Competitive athletes will often set alarm clocks and rise in the middle of the night to eat in an attempt to limit their bodies' cannibalizing their muscles. For the average person this is not necessary. However, it is very important that you eat breakfast ("break the fast")! There are many reasons for this, but one of the most important for the individual trying to get in good physical shape, is putting your body in an anabolic state as soon as possible after awakening. There is a school of thought that you can lose body fat faster if you perform aerobic exercise after an overnight "fast" and before you eat. This is okay for individuals with no insulin problems, as long as you remember than you only need about 15 minutes of cardio and you make sure you eat immediately afterwards. Breakfast must be a well balanced meal, not just a "see-it-eat-it" affair.

Fact No. 4 - Body fat tests are unreliable. The truth be told, they are as unreliable as promises from a politician! There are several ways to test for body fat levels, the most accurate being hydrostatic weighing. But even this is not all that precise because it's quite rare that someone will be able to totally empty their lungs of air while sitting underwater for the length of time required.

Most personal trainers and commercial gyms use calipers. First, the accuracy depends on the experience of the person doing the testing. Although this looks easy, it is not a simple task. One must have experienced fingers that know what they are pinching. If you pinch some muscle along with the subcutaneous fat and skin, you do not get an accurate reading. Secondly, there are numerous formulas, some of which put more emphasis on fat located in various parts of the body. There is even a book available (the name escapes me) for personal trainers to use with folks of different ethnic groups and different activity levels. Third, age is always factored in. As a friend of mine who was in the process of preparing for a bodybuilding competition once groused, "I was in the process of losing body fat, but the day after my birthday, even though I weighed less and appeared less fat, the caliper formula put me at a greater body fat percentage simply because I was one year older!" Do you think this man was a happy camper?

Another method used, because it is a no-brainer for the person performing the test, is electrical impedance. A rubber disk is placed on your bicep and you answer a bunch of questions. These answers are fed into a little machine. If you say you do cardio 5 days a week rather than 3, your bodyfat level will show as less. Duh?! What's that got to do with the price of cheese?

In my opinion, body fat tests serve no purpose other than to upset people. What possible reason could you have to need to know your percentage of body fat? It's totally irrelevant. If you're fat, you know it. If you want to know just how fat you are, take Corey Everson's recommendation. In an interview in Muscle & Fitness Magazine several years ago, Corey advised removing all one's clothing and jumping up and down in front of a full length mirror. "If it jiggles and it's not a breast or other sex organ, then it's fat!" As long as you don't have an eating disorder or some other psychological body image problem, use the mirror. It never lies, it doesn't charge a high price and it can be done in the privacy of your own home!

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I think a lot of this article makes sense to me. I mean I am not doing this to compete but even if I where IMHO I would surely want to do it and build a physique and make the best of what Mother nature dealt to me. I suspect that if fat gravitates mostly to my hips, then that is a place where also my muscles can be at their best if I work on it too. Kind of a Yin and yang thing. One outbalances the other and because I have sat on my ass and done nothing for a few years, the under use of muscles has caused an over compensation in fat for that area as that is what needs to happen when your immobile to keep your body warm. However, when your moving all the time as I am now--well your body does get leaner but the metabollic rate is such that that in itself raises body temp and burns fat.

I expect to be much fitter and stronger and lloking better than I ever have in just under a year. My motto should be:

Patience is a virtue.

That virtue is the only thing that keeps me hacking at this at the moment.

I think the fat cells on my body do vary in size. I can feel them just beneath the surface and the ones in the hips and thighs are distinctly much larger than say those in the arm area. So it stands to reason that these larger one will take longer to reduce down...hmmm think I will have a little patience and just wait a little longer for this to happen.

It is more complex than just fat cell adrenoceptors and fat call size. There is also the issue of the type of adipose tissue (e.g. visceral, subcutaneous, etc) and the innervation (SNS activity, which is tightly coupled to lipolysis), as well as vascularization (blood flow). In addition to circulating hormones acting upon a given deposit of fat cells, they are also affected by substrates that they and their neighboring cells release (cytokines, growth factors, etc), how much of the released non-esterified fatty acids are carried away from the fat cells they derived from, etc. It's analagous to a state in a country of the world: it has it's own microcosm within a larger macrocosm.

While the typical gynoid (female) pattern of bodyfat deposition is the pear shape, there are many women who have an android (male) pattern (the apple shape). From the research, it appears that this gender pattern is highly associated with insulin sensitivity, and some ethnic subpopulations are more predisposed to atypical gender-related body fat deposition. For instance, African-american and Hispanic (and Hispanic-american) women tend to accumulate more visceral fat (especially in abdominal area) than Caucasian women, who tend to deposit more subq fat in the gluteo-femoral (hip and thighs) region. Studies have demonstrated that this type of pattern is highly associated with reduced insulin sensitivity.

So, you can see that deposition of body fat is tightly regulated, but by many overlapping and conpensatory mechanisms. However, the main point here is that while different areas of body fat respond to varying stimuli differently, generally speaking, 'spot reduction' just doesn't occur. In other words, doing 125 reps of abdominal crunches daily will not give you a 6-pack.

In summary, body fat will increase if your energy balance is positive (i.e. you eat more than you expend), body fat will decrease with a hypocaloric state (i.e. you eat less than you expend), and will neither increase or decrease if your energy balance is 0 (i.e. your dietary intake equals your caloric expenditure) (note: not exactly, but generally speaking).

BTW, cellulite was the French term given to the mattrass pad appearance of body fat on women's thighs and hips, caused primarily by connective tissue and shape of adipocytes.

Ciao.

My girlfriend is interested in using one of the anti-cellulite creams on the market... Which one should she use? If that ? can't be answered, what ingredient am I looking for that helps reduce cellulite?

Thanks in advance.

Androgens seem to be the main thing mediating the differences in connective tissue (and GAG content thereof) in men vs. women.

You could experiment with 19-Nor or maybe DHEA in Gel # 3, though obviously do it in a small area, start with low dosing (could add some water to the area to help spread a small amount out), and watch really closely for thicker hair growth.

The basic way to get rid of cellulite is to reduce subcutaneous fat while strengthening connective tissue at the same time.

In men, the "mattress phenomenon" (cellulite) - which is revealed when the connective tissue is pinched, is frequently associated with a Testosterone deficiency. (C. Scherwitz and O. Braun-Falco, "So called Cellulite," J. Dermatol Surg Oncol 4 (1978): 230-234.)

Both varicose veins and cellulite both are mainly caused by degradation of connective-tissue (corium). 85% of women respond with excellent results to combo's of the herbs discussed below with Centella Ext. being the most scientifically tested and validated overall.

Below are some therapies shown to reduce and prevent cellulite occurence...

Centella asiatica ext: 40 mg of triterpenes 3 times/day.
Aesculus hippocastanum ext: 30 mg of escin 3 times/day
Topical Escin: 1.5% 3 times/day
Topical Cola Vera ext. 1.5% 3 times/day
Topical Fucus vesiculosus: 3 times/day

A. Tenailleau, "On 80 cases of Cellulitis Treated with the Standardized
Extract of Centella asiatica," Gaz Med Fr 82 (1975): 4579-83.

Most researchers would prefer the terms dermo-panniculosis deformans and adiposis edematosa when referring to what we Americans call "cellulite". The corium (connective tissue structure between the dermis and subcutaneous "tissue") is stronger in men than in women.

As women age, the corium progressively becomes thinner and looser, allowing fat cells to migrate to this layer. As connective tissue walls between the fat cell "chambers" also thins, the fat-cell chambers then begin to hypertrophy greatly. Under a microscope, cellulite-like tissue has evidence of distended lymphatic vessels and also decreases in elastic fibers. In theory, there is some "congestion" of lymph fluid coupled with stress on the skin which may lead to the formation of "cellulite".

Im men aged 18-45 years old, the epidermis is thicker, the corium is thicker, the border "zone" of the corium has fewer fat cells, the subcutaneous tissue is thinner with tiny polygonal fat cell chambers along with criss-crossing connective tissue, and finally there is almost no evidence of "Status protrusis cutis" - or the "mattress phenomenon" in men compared to women.

Thiomucase, Nemectron, and Alec Eden-Slendertone all have been shown to be no more effective than a placebo cream when used on the skin long-term.

A trandermal combination of: Esculoside/Centella asiatica extracts, the phosphodiesterase inhibitor- caffeine, and the fatty acid-beta oxidation activator--L-carnitine --has shown some evidence of spot-reduction in human pilot studies recently. More research is needed to confirm these results.

The combo is able to antagonize the alpha(2)-adrenergic receptor that is known to reduce intracellular AMPc content and to down-regulate lipolysis.

J Cosmet Sci. 2002 Jul-Aug;53(4):209-18.

An in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo demonstration of the lipolytic effect of slimming liposomes: An unexpected alpha(2)-adrenergic antagonism.

Tholon L, Neliat G, Chesne C, Saboureau D, Perrier E, Branka JE.

Coletica, 32 rue Saint Jean de Dieu, 69007 Lyon, France.
Most of the slimming products already developed for cosmetic applications did not result from strategies that integrate whole lipolysis-regulating mechanisms. We thus focused our attention on a more complete integration of these mechanisms and we developed slimming liposomes (SLC) containing two micro-circulation activators, i.e., esculoside and Centella asiatica extracts, one phosphodiesterase inhibitor, i.e., caffeine, and one fatty acid-beta oxidation activator, i.e., L-carnitine. The validity of our approach was assessed through (a) in vitro tests demonstrating that SLC induced a dramatic increase in the cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) content in human adipocytes, with a subsequent rise in the nonesterified fatty acids (NEFA) content of human adipocyte incubation medium, and ( in vivo studies showing that SLC could provide an actual potent slimming effect on human volunteers. Moreover, we give here, through binding experiments, the unambiguous demonstration that SLC is able to antagonize the alpha(2)-adrenergic receptor that is known to reduce intracellular AMPc content and, subsequently, to down-regulate lipolysis. This alpha(2)-adrenergic antagonism has never been reported for any component of SLC, and this work is the first demonstration of the alpha(2)-adrenergic antagonism of such a combination of active liposome compounds.

Which is better for cellulite loss in thighs- lipoderm or ab-solved?

Posted by: @Sphinx

Which is better for cellulite loss in thighs- lipoderm or ab-solved?

Lipoderm is definitely better for fat loss in the thigh area, although whether cellulite loss is obtainable without surgery is very debatable. Aminophylline, which I'm pretty sure is present in Lipoderm Ultra, reduces the appearance of cellulite.

Just checked the ingredients, doesn't appear to have aminophylline - I wouldn't doubt that caffeine would have the same effect though, at least to a degree, so lipoderm ultra would still be the way to go.

This would be me here posting as Belle. Just bringing the post up to the top so you know who I am.