Let’s face it-nobody wants to be pear-shaped, that bulge over the hips and the “Jodhpur thighs” are not exactly appealing. Unfortunately for women this is exactly where fat is most likely to accumulate, often with the “Orange-Peel” effect of cellulite.
Try to incorporate the following tips to lose fat off your thighs
- This needs to be attacked on two fronts, the first being diet and the second being exercises that lengthen and strengthen. When you perform these leg stretches, you should feel it pulled out to its full extent, all the way from the hip socket to the pointed toes.
- If you want to get stronger without gaining much muscle mass, then use a range between 1 to 3 reps where you reach muscular failure in that range. Alternatively, if you use a rep range of 15 or more reps per set, you will build muscular endurance and very little muscle mass.
- Exercises such as squats, lunges, leg curls, stiff-legged deadlifts, leg extensions, and calf raises are all excellent for toning your legs
- Cardiovascular training such as running is very good for keeping the thighs from gaining much muscle while still losing fat. Not too many runners have big legs but most have very lean legs. The same is true of cycling or the stair machine.
Losing fat depends heavily on nutrition, therefore
- Increase your protein intake, e.g. eggs, lean meat, chicken, fish, etc. This helps support your metabolism.
- Cut back on junk food. This will make a huge difference quickly. You don’t have to totally eliminate it, just decrease it greatly.
- Don’t eat anything before a workout. If you do, your body will burn what you just ate rather than fat.
- Eat about an hour after a workout. This allows your fat burning to continue until you eat. Don’t wait much longer than that though, as you need food to recover. Stick to protein and low fat foods.
- Try not to eat late at night. Your body won’t have a chance to use those calories and will store them as fat.
The real problem about losing weight from a specific area, like hips/thighs/butt, is that we tend to blow hot and cold over the ‘problem area’ and don’t stick with our plan long enough to sort it out. We panic or try and starve ourselves and we end up even fatter than before.