Would it shock you to know that there’s no difference at all in the skin of a woman who has cellulite and one who doesn’t – other than its external appearance?
It’s not that one has “bad” skin and the other one doesn’t. It isn’t even that one of them has cellulite and the other doesn’t. They have exactly, exactly the same skin, and they are both equally healthy.
The only difference between these two women? Is the firmness of the muscles beneath the skin
If you’ve never heard of muscle tissue in relation to your cellulite before, that’s not surprising – because most companies trying to scam you with “cures” would rather you know as little as possible about what’s going on beneath the surface of your skin.
Here’s what creates the dimpled and shadowy skin surface we call “cellulite” – and what you really need to do to create a smoother surface.
You have several layers of epidermis. Underneath the skin layers is a coating of fat – which all people have, no matter how thin they appear. This fat layer is critical to protect our insides. Under the fat layer, we have a layer of muscle.
As you can see in the picture, your muscle and skin layers are connected by connective tissue that runs through the fat.
When your muscle tissue isn’t toned and firm, it “sags,” pulling at the connective tissue. That connective tissue can’t stretch as far as your muscle mass can deflate, which means that in order to keep from snapping it has to pull down on the surface of your skin.
Since your fat layer is less dense than your skin, it offers almost no resistance to the pull of the connective tissue. And if you have a high body fat content, your fat layer presses up against your skin, pushing it out further away from your muscle layer.
The connective tissue between your muscle layer and your skin can’t stretch that far, so higher body fat often causes an even more exaggerated dimple. The fat pushes the skin outward, and the deflated muscle tissue pulls downward – which causes resistance two different ways.
This is why the most common advice to reduce cellulite is simply to reduce your body fat overall. It does work to an extent, because less body fat means less pressure on your skin layer, and less distance for your connective tissue to cover.