A brief nod to Cellulite...

Within Anytime, Anywhere Fitness I encourage members to ask fitness questions they have. Here is one question I had recently.

​Question:
“Hi Lianne. I am starting to get dimples in my arms and belly. Apart from the obvious is there anything else you would recommend? I am going through menopause and a probably drink too much beer. My problem is I start exercise with great intention then either some part of my body starts to bloody hurt so I stop!!!”

There are many parts to answering this question. 

1. Dimples (cellulite)
2. Alcohol (covered in my previous blog here)
3. Exercise hurting

1. Cellulite
Let’s look at cellulite first. Whilst you can reduce the appearance by reducing overall body fat, we can never fully get rid of it. It’s a completely natural thing and one that we as women need to embrace a lot more than we do. Take a look at this picture. Paris Hilton has next to no body fat and still has cellulite. Rock it! We need to all start rocking our cellulite!

If you want to reduce your overall body fat, and therefore the appearance of cellulite (it will never fully go away) is to create a calorie deficit (a negative energy balance).

Calories
Before you read about calories you may want to watch this 4 minute video. It simplifies what calories actually are.

Simplified even further for this brief chat about calories is that in order to lose excess body fat we need to be in a calorie ‘deficit’. We need to be eating below the requirement needed to get through each day. If you have an active job/life you would in general need more calories to get through the day which is why exercise or movement in general is a great way to help you get into a deficit.
 
People with inactive jobs will need less food to survive the day as they’re moving less. For instance, if you have an inactive job and are eating as much as someone with an active job, inevitably you will gain excess body fat. So, moral of the story- work out your daily calorific needs, track what you eat and MOVE lots! Link at the bottom to lots of calculators.

2. Alcohol

A great place to reduce calories is by reducing the amount of alcohol you consume. These are empty calories and have no benefit to our bodies. As well as this alcohol can inhibit fat loss in MANY ways. Please see my previous BLOG about alcohol for more in depth detail about this. 

3. Exercise hurting

If exercise is hurting you, definitely change what you’re doing. Consider a different method. If it’s because your muscles are aching, this is normal to an extent but if it is uncomfortable, find something you enjoy doing to get your movement in. Anything that raises your heart rate a little and moves your body is great. You don’t have to absolutely flog yourself.

Conclusion

• If it’s the dimples you’re concerned about, you may want to look at losing a little excess body weight.
• Creating a calorie deficit here is the only way this will happen.
• Cutting down on the beer would be a good start but if you don’t want to do that, you’ll need to look at moving more and being more rigid with food intake.
• Movement for ANY form of exercise is great, don’t worry about things that are hurting you- these are not needed. Find something you enjoy. My group has many, many different workouts; something for everyone. Weekly, monthly and life membership options available. Website link at the bottom of the page.
• I’m not experienced with chatting about menopause, it’s something I am going to research more as I do get more and more questions on it.
• From what I do know, the above would help your general well-being anyway, and therefore would help when going through the menopause.

 
Any questions and discussion points are AS ALWAYS welcome 😊

LINKS:
Anytime Anywhere Fitness Subscription
Alcohol Blog
Calorie Calculators