How To Burn Hip And Thigh Fat

If you've been trying for what seems like forever to burn the fat off your hips and thighs but aren't seeing any results, you aren't alone. Mother Nature blessed women with feminine hourglass figures, and those curves once helped women survive through famine, but also to be able to feed our young while pregnant and breastfeeding, which takes a huge amount of energy, ie. stored fat.

So the fat around our hips and thighs is thanks to our genes and thick thighs are nothing to be ashamed of. Still, many women want to thin and firm this area.

Spot reducing is a tricky thing. You can't specifically choose where you want your weight loss to come from, but there are things you can do to ensure that a specific area changes in the way you want. Losing weight in your hips and thighs area will take combination of proper nutrition and exercise to ensure you're burning body fat while preserving shapely muscle.

Eat Clean

If you want to reduce fat in a specific area, you need to reduce fat all over your body. In terms of nutrition, this means operating in a calorie deficit, which simply means consuming fewer calories than your body burns in a day. To lose a pound of fat per week, you need to lower your weekly intake by 3,500 calories. You can create this deficit through a combination of eating less and exercising more, but not by choosing just one: you can't out exercise a bad diet, and calorie restriction without exercise burns muscle instead of fat.

There aren't any foods that melt away your body fat, but eating a clean diet full of fresh fruits and veggies, whole grain carbs, lean proteins and healthy fats will vastly change the composition of your body. Technically, you can eat any food you want as long as you're operating within a calorie deficit and still lose weight, but if you don't get your calories from a quality food source, you'll wreak havoc on your hormones, energy levels and cravings, which is a recipe for more hip and thigh fat.

Exercise

Sure, you should do cardio since it's good for your heart and lungs, but it's also the slowest way to burn fat and calories and that isn't going to cut it. If you lose weight from a flabby body, you'll just have a smaller flabby body, which is why strength training should be your main focus to burn hip and thigh fat.

Our sedentary lifestyles set us up for weak hamstrings and glutes. Those translate into a flat butt, giggly thighs and cellulite. Our legs generally work from front to back throughout the day—walking, running, sitting—but the hip joint is a ball joint which means it works at a 360 degree angle. Therefore, to build proper muscle balance and to firm and sculpt the hips and thighs, you must work the legs in all angles with lunges, side lunges, deadlifts and squats. 

Don't fear weights—you'll want to lift heavy. It may seem counterintuitive, as you may be thinking "I want smaller thighs, not bigger!" but the heavier you lift, the more muscle you'll build. More muscle makes the fat on top smoother and leaner, and helps you burn fat around the clock, even when you are at rest.  

Cellulite

Most women have it. (I have it, and I'm a personal trainer with "fitness model" on my resume.) Cellulite is a certain type of fat that gives the skin a lumpy, bumpy appearance. Cellulite is created when fat manages to push its way through tiny holes in your connective tissue, the thick web of fibers that lies just underneath your skin. (Imagine pressing garlic through a garlic press.) Strong, healthy connective tissue forms a tighter web of interwoven fibers, preventing fat from squeezing through compared to weak, unhealthy connective tissue that lets it slide. A whole host of things can weaken your connective tissue, like having higher estrogen levels, poor blood circulation to those areas (read: sitting 10+ hours a day), fluid retention, and good old fashioned stress. 

 

Guess what regulates hormone levels, improves circulation, removes excess fluid and eliminates stress? That's right: a healthy diet and consistent exercise. Fat isn't the cause of cellulite, but if you do have excess fat, losing fat will help the appearance of cellulite diminish a bit.

Thigh Fat Vs. Belly Fat

Though you may hate the fat on your hips and thighs, it could be worse. Research has shown that thigh and hip fat is far less dangerous to your health than abdominal fat, which can easily work its way into your bloodstream, clogging arteries, increasing blood pressure and wreaking havoc on your cardiovascular health. So while thigh and hip fat are a nuisance, belly fat is actually dangerous. Thigh fat is a little more stubborn than belly fat, though, and is why men—who are more likely to have excess belly fat than thigh fat—seem to drop fat in a fraction of the time as women. 

Often times, someone will start out with the goal of slimming their thighs, but once they build muscle, see tone start to develop and smooth out the surface, their confidence soars, and the circumference of their thighs no longer seems to matter. Building strength and gaining more energy to do the things you love to do is the real benefit here, and isn't that what fitness is all about? 

Source: fitnessrepublic.com