Protein, low protein diets and cellulite - Part 3
Continued from : Protein, low protein diets and cellulite - Part 2
How much protein do I need?
As a rule of a thumb, most women need about 40-60g of pure protein per day. This is equivalent to 4-5 eggs, a medium lean beef steak (~200g), a large salmon steak (200-300g), 500-600g of boiled lentils or boiled beans (that's a looot of beans and lentils, as mentioned above), or a combination of those or similar foods during any one day.
What if I fast/crash diet?
When you fast or crash diet you deny your body of proteins so you don't just lose fat, you lose protein as well. This is because your body utilises the "beauty proteins" in order to provide your vital organs with essential proteins for survival and to synthesize enzymes for basic bodily functions and digestion.
When you go back onto the "pigging out" phase after the crash diet, all the weight you put back on is fat, thereby replacing firmness with fat with each crash diet/pig out cycle. This will inevitably happen every time you follow a crash diet, unless you do three things:
- Resistance exercise (weights) during the "re-feeding" phase to regain the lost muscle
- Power plate or high impact sports to regain the lost bone mass
- Have vigorous anti-cellulite/skin firming massages to stimulate the rebuilding of the lost skin proteins.
As you can see it's cheap and easy to lose your skin firmness and expensive and difficult to regain it, so the advice is simple: avoid regular crash dieting.
By the way, yoga, pilates, lymphatic massages and other lightweight approaches won't help you replace the lost protein, as they offer minimal protein synthesis stimulation. Firming/anti-cellulite creams and a high intake of antioxidants and flavanols, typically found in vegetables, berry fruits, herbs and cocoa, can also aid in protein synthesis. Activities such as running and swimming also help.
The moral of the story is...
...that if you want to look firm and keep cellulite at bay you'd better exercise vigorously and regularly, avoid crash dieting, eat enough protein, vegetables, berries, herbs and spices and avoid sugar, excessive carbs, saturated fat, trans fats and anything fried. In addition, regularly having anti-cellulite treatments and applying a good cellulite cream will also help fill the gaps in your lifestyle and keep your skin toned and smooth.













