Cellulite is fat. It’s fat that’s trapped just below your skin between the fibrous connective tissue that keeps your skin in place. So if you want to reduce the unsightly orange-peel effect that cellulite creates on your skin, you need to lose fat. Most people take a straight-line approach to fat reduction: reduce your daily calorie intake until it’s lower than how many calories you burn. It makes sense, and it can work. But it rarely does. Everyone needs to eat and you need a minimum amount of food calories per day to remain healthy. When you start to play around with calorie reduction, it can create havoc with your metabolism and your body’s other systems. The results can be disastrous. Reducing how much you eat also sets you up for failure in your plan to reduce fat and cellulite. Not eating enough food makes you hungry all the time and increases the chance of not just going off the diet, but going off it in a big, unhealthy way. Instead of focusing on how much you eat, work on what you eat and it will help you burn fat while still eating enough to keep you satisfied. Here are five “swaps” you can make in your daily diet that will burn more fat without necessarily reducing how much your eat (as long as you’re not overeating!)  

1. Eat Smaller Meals More Often During the Day

Spreading your daily calorie intake throughout the day helps keep your calorie burning stable and avoids spikes in your blood sugar levels.

2. Eat More Whole Grains

Bread, pasta, rice; when you eat them, make sure they are whole grains and not processed.

3. Drop Sugary Drinks and Foods

You will get almost twice the daily intake of sugar recommended by the World Health Organization from on can of Coke. Try vegetable juice or green tea and snack on nuts, seeds and whole fruits. And drink lots of water.

4. Cut the Fat

You can lose a significant number of calories from meals by trimming the visible fat from meats. On chicken, avoid the skin.

If you want to reduce cellulite and the fat that causes it, what you eat is as important as how much you eat.