“Hypodermal fat reduction is THE most important target for cellulite reduction. Furthermore, lipolysis is the most important step for ANY fat reduction, so understanding lipolysis holds the key for effective cellulite removal. Below I am presenting the basics of lipolysis as they pertain to cellulite reduction with diet, exercise, treatments and creams.”
Lipolysis is the basis of cellulite fat reduction
Lipolysis: the first step for cellulite reduction
For cellulite reduction, lipolysis is king
Lipolysis with exercise and diet
Lipolysis with treatments
Lipolysis with natural actives
The most powerful natural lipolytics are forskolin and caffeine
Several other natural chemicals are known for their lipolytic action
Forskolin, caffeine, cellulite and cost of active ingredients
Insulin and lipolysis inhibition
Lipolysis and losing weight (and cellulite)
Lipolysis, fat oxidation and weight loss
Cellulite treatments/creams, lipolysis and diet/exercise
A £300 cellulite treatment vs a £3 muffin
LipoTherapeia® Plus: Have a skin tightening/cellulite treatment with London’s cellulite experts
The Cellulite School™: Get advanced training in cellulite reduction and skin tightening
Lipolysis: the first step for cellulite reduction
The most important aspect of cellulite is fat accumulation in the hypodermis (deepest skin layer). Everything else (water retention, skin laxity, fibrosis etc) is also important but secondary.
Consequently hypodermal fat reduction is the most important step in reducing cellulite.
The process by which fat is broken down in fat cells, for release into the bloodstream consequent oxidation (i.e. “fat burning”) in muscles and organs, is called lipolysis.
I cannot emphasise this enough: lipolysis is THE most important aspect of cellulite reduction. When fat is removed from hypodermal adipocytes, cellulite is reduced.
Some people focus too much on the water retention or the fibrosis aspects of cellulite, e.g. with gentle lymphatic drainage or strong, painful massage, respectively.
Sure, if we can work on the other important aspects of cellulite, i.e. if we can also boost circulation and fibrosis breakdown, all the better.
However, cellulite cannot be reduced just by doing all these other secondary bits.
For cellulite reduction, above everything else, hypodermal fat must go and lipolysis must occur. Massage is great, but never enough.
For cellulite reduction, lipolysis is king
Lipolysis can be stimulated by:
Hormones and nutrients in the body
Technology (treatments)
Different natural active ingredients
Lipolysis with exercise and diet
The most powerful lipolytic hormone is noradrenaline (aka norepinephrine). This is the flight or fight hormone. Noradrenaline is secreted when we:
Get angry, anxious or cold
Take stimulants
Exercise or move a lot
The healthiest way to secrete noradrenaline is when we exercise. The unhealthiest way to do so is when we take stimulant drugs or when we are stressed.
Lipolysis also occurs when we are on a negative calorie balance, i.e. when we eat less, either via willpower or with the helps of GLP-1 agonist medication, such as Ozempic, Mounjaro etc (some people can be on a negative calorie balance just with exercise but that requires A LOT of exercise).
Lipolysis with treatments
The best way to stimulate lipolysis with treatments is with deep-acting, high-power radiofrequency and with deep-acting, high-power ultrasound cavitation.
(Contrary to marketing hype, lasers, electrical muscle stimulation, infrared and red and green LEDs and massages do NOT work for lipolysis).
Both RF and ultrasound also stimulate circulation.
Plus, deep-acting, high-power radiofrequency also stimulates skin tightening too.
So we have a double effect with ultrasound cavitation (lipolysis and circulation) and a triple effect with RF (lipolysis, circulation and skin firming).
(Please note that LOW power radiofrequency / ultrasound are not powerful enough to stimulate anything. Furthermore, SUPERFICIALLY acting RF does not even reach the hypodermis, so again not much happens in terms of lipolysis and, consequently, cellulite reduction. So choose carefully, as with low power and/or superficial RF/ultrasound treatments you waste your time.)
Lipolysis with natural actives
Hugh-purity, natural active ingredients, when included in high concentrations in topical creams (cellulite creams), can also stimulate lipolysis - especially if two or more lipolytics are combined.
Again, low-purity, low-concentration natural actives (as in the vast majority of so-called “cellulite creams”) will do nothing.
Also, single natural actives on their own will not be that effective, even if found in high purity and/or high concentrations. For lipolysis, synergy is important.
Again choose carefully, as with low purity / low concentration / single-ingredient cellulite creams you will waste your time.
The most powerful natural lipolytics are forskolin and caffeine
These are the ones proven by multiple studies and even used in laboratory experiments as the golden standard molecules to investigate lipolysis.
Forskolin (an extract of the Coleus forskohlii plant) initiates lipolysis and caffeine (and extract of the Coffea robusta/coffee and Camellia sinensis/tea plants) helps maintain it:
Forskolin is a widely used biochemical tool that activates adenylyl cyclase, thereby increasing intracellular concentration of cAMP and resulting in the activation of the protein kinase A (PKA) signal transduction pathway
Caffeine also stimulates lipolysis via the inhibition of PDE activity and by increasing the cAMP levels in adipocytes
This is the most powerful natural lipolytic duo known today.
Several other natural chemicals are known for their lipolytic action:
Asiatic acid, madecassic acid, asiaticoside and madecassoside, an extract of the gotu kola plant
Curcumin, an extract of the turmeric plant
EGCG, an extract of the green tea plant
Resveratrol, an extract of berries and other fruits
Pine bark extract, an extract of the pinea maritima plant
and several others
However, forskolin and caffeine are the most important and they also happen to reinforce / complement each other’s action:
Forskolin, for example, is used as a standard lipolytic agent in lipolysis experiments in the lab, when noradrenaline or its analogs are not suitable. It is THE natural lipolytic, with plenty of research behind it
And caffeine is equally widely known as a lipolysis enhancer
Forskolin, caffeine, cellulite and cost of active ingredients
Both forskolin and caffeine also happen to boost blood circulation and indirectly help inhibit fibrosis - a triple whammy for cellulite prevention / reduction.
Although caffeine is very well known as a lipolytic ingredient in cellulite creams, forskolin is not.
Why? Well, forskolin is about 10x more expensive than caffeine, and the vast majority of cosmetic companies are in it for maximum profit, not maximum benefit for the consumer.
Marketing hype and cheap ingredients (even in the most expensive creams) is what sells cosmetics, not quality and expensive active ingredients (that’s the sad truth with skincare and cosmetics).
Insulin and lipolysis inhibition
The most powerful ANTI-lipolytic hormone is insulin.
Insulin is secreted when we consume starches and, especially, sugars. Protein consumption also stimulates some insulin secretion.
On the other hand, insulin secretion is inhibited:
During exercise, especially high-intensity exercise
When we do not consume carbs/sugars at all (ketogenic diet)
Or when we do not consume food for prolonged periods of time (e.g. the 16-8 intermittent fasting diet)
Lipolysis and losing weight (and cellulite)
Fats and oils themselves can also inhibit lipolysis directly on fat cells (no insulin needed).
So the safest way to not inhibit lipolysis is to either eat less or exercise or both.
Of course, we cannot not eat all the time (that’s called anorexia and it’s a serious mental disorder) and we cannot exercise all the time (that’s called addiction to exercise and your joints/adrenals will not like it very much after a while).
So healthy weight loss happens gradually when lipolysis stimulation exceeds lipolysis inhibition, on average throughout the day / month / year, by eating a bit less and exercising a bit more.
Lipolysis, fat oxidation and weight loss
It is also important to consider that for weight loss, lipolysis is half the job. Lipolysis just drives fat out of fat cells. Fat oxidation in muscles and organs (and sometimes in fat tissue itself) is essential for fat to be removed from the body.
Otherwise, fat which is released into the bloodstream after lipolysis will get redeposited back into fat tissue again. If that wasn’t the case, you could lose weight just by consuming caffeine or forskolin, without any dieting or exercising - which is evidently not the case.
The good news is that exercise and diet provide both lipolysis stimulation and fat oxidation.
That’s how weight loss with diet and exercise occurs: lipolysis + fat oxidation.
Even the strongest stimulants, such as amphetamines, do not make you lose weight by lipolysis only. They actually stimulate you to eat less and move more, which is in essence diet and exercise.
(OK, stimulants like amphetamine also increase your basal metabolism, so you automatically burn fat during the day regardless of diet or movement, but this is both very unhealthy and very unsustainable.)
Cellulite treatments/creams, lipolysis and diet/exercise
For cellulite reduction, if we combine lipolytic treatments/creams:
With a strict, healthy diet and/or lots of exercise, we achieve maximum results. This is because we have combined lipolytic stimulation from both the cellulite treatment/cream AND from diet/exercise.
With an average, OK diet and not much exercise, we miss out on the lipolysis synergy between diet/exercise and treatments/creams. This provides less impressive results.
With rich food, alcohol and inactivity, we achieve mediocre/zero results. This is because lipolysis inhibition from rich food, alcohol and inactivity completely undermines the lipolysis stimulation from any treatment or cream. If you pit insulin (i.e. rich food and inactivity) against any treatment or cream, insulin will always win, hands down - no question about that.
A £300 cellulite treatment vs a £3 muffin
Moral of the story: do not ruin the effectiveness of a £300 cellulite treatment, or an £120 cellulite cream, with either a £3 muffin or £300 bottle of champagne.
I actually had clients in the past showing up for treatment with a chocolate brownie, which apparently was “OK because you are going to burn it with your machine”. Or clients who came for treatment right after a pizza and half a bottle of wine. Not very smart thinking…
And I had clients showing up for treatment after consuming a bottle and a half of champagne the night before, because actually “It is a good, expensive champagne so it doesn’t cause any side effects like cheap wine does”. Expensive doesn’t make champagne a “diet drink”.
Obviously, these clients will not get the best possible results, even with the best treatment in the world.
When you have a lipolytic cellulite treatment or use a lipolytic cellulite cream, give it a helping hand with some lipolytic healthy diet and some lipolytic exercise, to get the most out of your investment.
LipoTherapeia® Plus: Have a skin tightening/cellulite treatment with London’s cellulite experts
At LipoTherapeia we have specialised 100% in skin tightening and cellulite reduction for more than two decades and 20,000+ sessions.
This is all we study and practise every day and have researched and tried hands-on all the important skin tightening equipment and their manufacturers.
As strong, deep acting radiofrequency and deep-acting, high-power ultrasound cavitation are the technologies of choice for skin tightening and cellulite reduction, we have invested in the best RF/ultrasound technologies in the world.
(Of course, we keep looking for new technologies every day and if/when a better technology materialises we will be the first to provide it. However, we will never follow the latest ineffective gimmick, just because it’s good marketing to offer the latest hyped up - yet ineffective and/or unsafe treatment.)
Furthermore, over the last two decades we have developed advanced RF and cavitation treatment protocols in order to make the most of our technologies, for maximum results, naturally and safely.
And for even better, faster results, we now combine our RF/ultrasound treatments with high-power red/infrared light LED treatment.
Our radiofrequency/ultrasound/LED treatments are comfortable, pain-free, downtime-free, injection-free, 99.5%+ safe and always non-invasive.
(No unsafe and ineffective RF microneedling or HIFU and no safe but ineffective acoustic wave therapy, superficial RF (bipolar/tripolar/multipolar etc), low power RF/cavitation, electrical muscle stimulation, lymphatic massage, cupping, dry brushing and no ridiculous bum bum creams.)
Our focus is on honest, realistic, science-based treatment, combined with caring, professional service, with a smile.
We will be pleased to see you, assess your cellulite, skin laxity or fibrosis, listen to your story, discuss your case and offer you the best possible treatment.
Check prices and book an expert cellulite / skin tightening treatment at our London clinic.
Look Inside Your Skin™ with a Cellulite Ultrasonography™ scan, exclusive to LipoTherapeia in London, and assess your cellulite, skin laxity, post-liposuction fibrosis and more
We are proud to be the first and only cellulite clinic in the world to offer Cellulite Ultrasonography™ to our clients, for accurate assessment, better treatment and enhanced results. Since 2022 we have assessed and provided valuable insights to hundreds of clients to better understand their specific case, see how their skin looks from inside and make informed decisions.
You can now book your Cellulite Ultrasonography™ session and assess your:
Cellulite
Skin laxity
Lipedema
Subcutaneous fat levels
You can also assess the presence and severity of fibrosis and adhesions after:
Liposuction in all its forms, including vaser, smart lipo, bodytite, abdominoplasty/tummy tuck, thigh lift, arm lift, lipedema surgery etc
Cellulite surgery, such as cellulaze, cellutite, cellfina, subcision etc
Face-lift surgery
Non-surgical procedures, such as RF microneedling, extreme intensity HIFU, extreme intensity RF, extreme intensity ultrasound etc
Everything will be shown and explained to you clearly and you can see and understand how the different structures inside your skin affect your appearance.
If there is scar tissue / fibrosis, those will be clearly seen and you can differentiate between fibrosis, water retention or unremoved fat after all types of cosmetic surgery or harsh non-surgical procedures such as RF microneedling, extreme intensity HIFU etc.
(DISCLAIMER: Please note that this service is for your informational purposes only and does not constitute medical diagnosis or advice.)
The 45’ appointment includes full assessment and consultation and optional treatment plan for cellulite reduction and/or skin tightening.
If you do wish to have treatment with us, the ultrasound scan, assessment and consultation will be used to optimise your course of treatments and maximise your results.
The Cellulite School™: Get advanced training in cellulite reduction and skin tightening
Why train with The Cellulite School™?
We all know that training in cellulite reduction and skin tightening is as basic as it gets. It is typically a 4-6 hour training, involving only basic instruction from the manufacturer on how operators can use the machine; lots of myths, erroneous information and misconceptions; and some basic health and safety on how to use the machine.
There is no proper, real training in the science or cellulite, skin tightening, radiofrequency, ultrasound and all related technologies is non-existent - worldwide.
Do you want to deeply understand radiofrequency, ultrasound cavitation, LED phototherapy, cellulite and skin tightening?
Get proper training based on 24-year theory and practical application of cellulite reduction and valuable insights from 23,000+ sessions and 4,100+ clients.
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