The best way to slim big thighs is to decrease the fat in your legs by burning more calories than you consume. Building muscles in your legs with weight training exercises will help slim and tone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that people who lose weight gradually with diet and exercise are more successful at keeping it off. Create a caloric deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories a day to lose 1 lb. to 2 lb. a week with diet, exercise or both.
Reduce Caloric Intake
A ton of diets promise fast results, but losing weight and slimming your legs does not require a specific diet regimen. In fact, “Time” magazine published the results of a study of the effectiveness of four different diets, which showed that each diet was as effective as the next. The most important factor is consuming fewer calories. But the most difficult part is sticking to the reduction of calories and food. This may be because diets that include a larger reduction in calories are not easily followed. Catherine Loria, a co-author of the study, believes that gradually reducing calories until your body adjusts to the calorie deficit will help you stick to the diet. The bottom line: Do not focus on the type of diet, but alter your eating habits so that you consume fewer calories. As you begin to lose weight, you will lose fat on your thighs.
Do Cardio
Cardio exercise is movement that increases your heart rate and burns calories. To slim your big thighs, cardio is an important part of the process. When selecting a cardio routine, choose wisely. Select activities that increase your heart rate as well as work your leg muscles, such as running or biking. According the CDC, both activities can burn about 590 calories an hour at a vigorous intensity. Burning calories and working leg muscles at the same time will help you get skinnier legs sooner. Do interval training for added results. The “New York Times” reports that interval training can significantly increase your body’s ability to burn fat. Intervals are when you work out at a high intensity for a short period of time (one to two minutes), then work out at a lower intensity for an extended amount of time (three to five minutes).
Increase Muscle Mass
You may not know it, but weight training will help you slim your big thighs. Liz Applegate, Ph.D., FACSM, director of sports nutrition at the University of California at Davis, lists altering body composition by adding muscle as a key factor in increasing your metabolism, in an article on the ACSM website. She reports that lean muscle mass uses more calories in a day than fat, and therefore you burn more calories when you increase your overall muscle mass. By adding muscle, you will enable your body to meet your caloric deficit faster.
Target Your Legs
Burning more calories than you consume will help you lose weight, but unfortunately, you cannot choose where the weight will be lost. However, you can perform exercises that target your thighs. Both cardio and strength training exercises will help change the composition of your legs. By adding muscle, you create more lean and toned legs. When you perform exercises for strength, at higher repetition counts and moderate weight, the muscle added will result in a slimming effect. Don’t worry about getting large leg muscles. In order to gain size with muscle, you would need to increase your calories and protein intake as well as use heavy weights with lower repetition counts.
About this Author
Jessica DeLisa graduated from Drexel University in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in communication. To explore her interest in fitness she became a certified personal trainer in 2007. She has been writing for about two years, including for the magazine she started, “Fit In NJ Magazine.”
