or

Nutrition: Cellulite busters
Amanda Ursell explains why the right diet really can fight orange-peel thighs



Cindy Crawford rubs coffee into her cellulite. Hmm. Is this a case of a mad former supermodel waging a fruitless war on nature's great beauty equaliser (even skinny girls get it), or a smart cookie way ahead of the anticellulite game? Remember, Cindy gave up a university scholarship for the catwalk, so don't be surprised that it's the latter. But how does her beauty tip combat orange-peel thighs?

Cellulite is ultimately fat, and fat cells have little doorways on their surface that open and close, so fat globules can go in and out. We want to get the "out" doors, known as beta receptors, to swing into action, enabling fat to be liberated from within. Dr Elisabeth Dancey, the doyenne of cellulite treatment, agrees that caffeine opens these beta receptors and, like the nicotine in patches, can be absorbed through the skin to work directly on fat cells below its surface.

Rubbing in coffee a few times a week is one thing. Taking up residence in Starbucks is quite another. Drinking more than three cups a day restricts blood vessels and thus blood supply, something for which cellulite-affected areas are gasping. This is because, while cellulite is indeed fat, it is fat trapped in a mesh of supporting tissue, which has become inflexible through a poor supply of oxygen and nutrient-rich blood. It is this inflexible mesh, in which fat cells are trapped, that gives cellulite its "lumpy" appearance.

Improving blood supply to this supporting tissue is pretty simple. Getting active is crucial. So, too, is minimising saturated fats to avoid a fatty, cholesterol-rich build-up on blood-vessel walls, which restricts blood flow. So out go junk food, full-fat dairy foods and fatty meats, and in come chickpeas and alfalfa sprouts rich in saponins — these are supernutrients, which, along with fructo-oligosaccharides in asparagus, help lower blood-vessel-clogging cholesterol.

Meanwhile, garlic and vitamin K-rich foods, such as spinach and broccoli, thin the blood slightly, making it flow more freely. Aubergines, cherries, black grapes and berries, all rich in anthocyanins, the antioxidant purple pigment, help to maintain flow through the tiny vessels deep inside the supporting tissues.

Follow Cindy's advice (using ground or instant, but not dissolved) and you could end up reeking of ground Guatemalan rich roast and garlic, but, hey, as the supermodels say: "You're worth it."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8126-1021784,00.html