Slimming leggings, cellulite, fat reduction and skin looseness

Slimming leggings: they work, but fat “moves” somewhere else…

The very tight compression garments (such as Spanx, Skims etc) do improve the appearance of the body while being worn, so there is not much discussion to be made on this aspect.

Slimming leggings do hide the fat and improve the appearance of the body contours. You put them on, they keep the excess bulge contained and cellulite compressed. Job done.

Furthermore, very tight garments can potentially (NOT always) also diminish fat on the areas where they are worn, IF they are worn for several months or years.

This is because extreme pressure make fat cells in the area it is applied die off (VERY GRADUALLY), via a process called “adipocyte apoptosis”.

However, the fat doesn’t actually disappear from the body - this is not a weight loss method. The excess fat is stopped being deposited and gradually gets removed from the areas under compression and start being deposited and gradually get moved into areas not under compression.

That explains the effect of developing muffin tops when you wear tight compression only on your buttocks. Or the effect of having more belly fat just over the underwear / trouser belt level.

(And no, compressing the whole body under tight compression to become overall slim is not an option and will not work, for multiple reasons 😀)

Very tight compression / slimming leggings and skin looseness

Moreover, extreme compression will cause skin looseness and sometimes even health issues (compression stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, not very good for blood pressure etc). Plus it will inhibit arterial flow, which means less tissue oxygenation - clearly not very good for your skin.

As we mentioned above, slimming leggings take several months to produce results in regard to topical fat reduction. However, several months of wearing slimming leggings definitely leads to skin looseness.

So the whole exercise is futile: you lose some topical fat at the expense of skin firmness.

Very tight compression / slimming leggings and cellulite

• Graduated compression slimming leggings can partially and temporarily help against cellulite, if the cellulite is of the “water retention” type

• However, slimming leggings will actually make the situation worse if the cellulite is of the “loose skin” type

• Non-graduated pressure (constant pressure) slimming leggings will make the situation worse in any case, as they both negatively affect circulation and skin firmness

So slimming leggings (only the graduated compression type) may be OK for cellulite for a while but not forever, as no one wants to replace smoother legs for flabbier legs.

In summary

Slimming leggings and other very tight compression garments “work” but with many caveats:

• skin looseness

• reduced arterial flow

• fat “moving” elsewhere

So using slimming leggings temporarily, e.g. for a night out or a weekend is fine. But long-term use is not such a good idea.

A better solution is the combination of:

• healthy nutrition

• daily physical activity

• exercise

• reducing smoking/vaping/drinking

• localised treatments: deep-acting, high-power radio frequency and deep-acting, high-power ultrasound are the strongest anti-cellulite and skin tightening technologies

• real cellulite creams, i.e. creams with multiple, high-purity anti-cellulite actives in high concentrations