Dear Shelly,

I’m tired of having cellulite! I walk on the treadmill almost every day and it’s still there! How can I get rid of this stubborn, ugly stuff?

C.L., Toronto, ON

Dear C.L.,

I hear this complaint so often from women all over the country! So you’re not alone. We women are at a disadvantage because we store more fat than men, usually on our legs, butt and thighs. The dimpled appearance of this fat comes from an overabundance of the stuff pressing through the layers of connective tissues beneath your skin. This is not a physical deformity—it’s simply an issue of having too much fat in certain areas of our bodies. In the 1970s, VOGUE Magazine dubbed this unsightly fat “cellulite,” a term which has stuck like glue, but is not recognized by doctors or medical associations anywhere, mostly because “cellulite” is just plain old fat.

Of course, marketing companies feed on this fearful fat-frenzy by inventing miracle products to “rid” your body of cellulite. In fact, I found 186,000 web-sites for such products in a quick Internet search. But in the real world, there’s no miracle drug, cream, gel, wrap, vibrating machine, or quick fix that will banish fat forever, as some companies would have you believe.

The optimal way to combat cellulite is through strength training, cardiovascular work and healthy nutrition.

First let’s look at strength training. As we age, our bodies slow down metabolically, and women typically gain 15 pounds of fat, per decade, while simultaneously losing about five pounds of muscle. Not only does this corporeal change increase your pants size, it also increases your chance of heart attack, high blood pressure and atherosclerosis. Strength training will help combat this detrimental muscle loss while simultaneously helping fight the fat gain. Building muscle tissue will also increase your metabolic rate, as muscle cells require energy just to exist, thus burning more calories per hour, even when your body is at rest. Fat cells require no energy to exist, and therefore just hang out and look bad.

So what exercises should you do? Logic would dictate that you should work the area where you’d like to be rid of the fat, but, unfortunately, our bodies aren’t that simple. We burn and utilize body fat at an even rate throughout the body, so the places you store the most fat, where you see your cellulite, will likely be the last places you’ll notice it coming off.

So, first and foremost, be patient. Now the good news: you can increase tone of the muscles underneath the fat, so you’ll have nice, shapely limbs to show for your efforts, once you’ve decreased your overall body fat level. Concentrate on incorporating exercises that hit your glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps, adductors and abductors to effectively train these often-troublesome areas. Try performing lunges, walking lunges, squats, step-ups, leg curls and leg extensions, starting with one set of 15 repetitions for each exercise twice a week. Once your muscles, tendons and ligaments become stronger and you feel comfortable with the program, work your way up to three sets of 8 to 10 repetitions, using a weight that challenges you but still allows you to maintain proper form. I also recommend performing an upper body program twice a week to further boost your metabolism, increase your bone density and give you great arms for those summertime tank tops. Be sure to work the chest, back, shoulders, biceps, triceps and abdominal muscles equally to balance out the leg program. No matter which body part you decide to train, always warm up thoroughly by walking or cycling for 10 minutes and stretching both before and after your training session. You’ll recover more quickly, decrease your chance for injury, and become a little more flexible in the process.

Now, as for your cardio program, it sounds like you’re doing plenty of walking, but perhaps it’s time to challenge yourself a bit more. Your body has the amazing ability to adapt to a repeated stimulus, and a walking program that you began three months ago is probably not giving you the same results it did initially. Try playing with your speed, duration, and intensity level during your session. If you’re married to the treadmill, try walking at an incline or test out one of the pre-programmed courses that take you through hills and varying speeds. Also try using different machines or engaging in new activities. If your gym offers group classes, try kickboxing, spinning, or power yoga to get in some variety and kick-start your body into a fat burning mode.

Invest in a heart rate monitor (HRM). They are inexpensive and can give you an accurate reading of how hard you’re working. The heart needs to be trained like any other muscle in the body, and must be challenged in order to improve. An HRM can also help you reduce your body fat level. By training in your target heart rate zone (see chart), you can actually increase the potential of the body to utilize fat as fuel. Any activity performed below this zone is not challenging enough, and any activity above this zone becomes anaerobic—in other words, you’ll no longer be burning fat, but will be using muscle and carbohydrate stores for fuel instead. Wearing your HRM will keep you aware of your zone, and will better enable you to maintain your fat-burning state for the duration of your cardio session. I recommend doing at least 40 to 55 minutes of cardio in this zone three to five times a week for the maximum fat-burning potential.

And once again, we must visit the issue of nutrition. If you’re on a quest for a lean, cellulite-free physique, take a look at your eating habits and evaluate your food choices. Steer away from white flour, white rice, fatty proteins, commercial fruit juices and fruit in the afternoon or evenings. Eat five to six small, balanced meals a day, rich in low-glycemic carbohydrates such as yams or oatmeal, and lean proteins such as fish and chicken. Water is also vital for fat loss, as it aids in the process of digestion and fat metabolism. Drink at least eight cups of water a day, more if possible. If you’re a coffee drinker, be sure to replace the water lost from the diuretic effects of the caffeine with an extra cup of water. Caffeine-free herbal teas also count as part of your water intake for the day, so drink up! Just watch the added sugar or honey in your beverage, as they add significant empty calories to an otherwise healthful beverage. For more information on nutrition, go to www.vistamagonline.com and check out “Cory’s Ultimate Food Guide.”

So C.L., try not to waste time on worrying about cellulite. It can and will disappear with diligent hard work and meticulous attention to your exercise and diet plan. And don’t get hung up what society determines as beautiful, and instead focus on living healthy in body, mind and spirit. Be true to thy self, and love your body, cellulite and all!