How to Lose Leg Fat

Our legs carry us through our day, so it’s no wonder they tend to be quite muscular. But legs are also a problem area for many people because fat tends to accumulate there, particularly on the thighs.

If you’ve been wondering how to lose leg fat in a healthy way, you’re in luck! While there are no magic cures, there are plenty of proven strategies you can use to get slender, sexy legs.

Lose Leg Fat with Exercise

Our legs get a workout whenever we walk, but that’s not enough to burn away all the excess fat. To lose leg fat permanently, you’ll need to start a regular cardio routine and follow it up with some strength training.

Cardio exercise increases the heart rate and speeds up our fat-burning metabolism. Consult an online calculator to find your target heart rate for optimal fat burning, and choose an aerobic activity that keeps you in that zone for at least 20 minutes a day, 3 to 5 times a week.

Which exercise is the best? To target your legs, try swimming, cycling, jogging, or walking through sand or along the bottom of a swimming pool. If none of these options appeal to you, try sports or group exercise classes. The key is to find an activity you enjoy so that you will do it regularly without getting bored or feeling tortured.

It doesn’t hurt to start slowly, especially if you’re not accustomed to regular exercise. Choose a fun activity to do for 15 minutes a day, and work your way up to 30 minute sessions.

Strength training exercises can be done at a gym or at home. If you prefer the gym, use machines designed to give your legs a great workout. If you’d rather stay home, try squats, wall-sits, and lunges.

Lose Leg Fat through Diet

A highly thermogenic diet will help you lose leg fat faster. Thermogenic foods are thought to heat up the body’s core temperature, leading to a faster metabolism. While this idea has its share of skeptics, many swear by it. Some of the most thermogenic foods include tropical fruits, peppers, and green tea.

Fill in the rest of your diet with leafy green vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole eggs, lean meat, and whole grain products. Use sugar and salt sparingly, and opt for unsaturated fats instead of dangerous trans fats.

Lose Leg Fat by Losing Stress

Stress causes weight gain. When our bodies feel threatened (by stress, illness, or too-frequent dieting), they cling to their fat stores and start putting away more calories as fat. That’s because of a primal instinct for survival that helped our ancestors make it through times of famine.

Today, since few of us face the threat of famine, we simply accumulate fat. You can reduce your stress level and your body fat by doing yoga. Yoga relaxes the body and the mind, sending stress hormones packing.

For extra leg toning, look for poses that require you to balance on one foot, poses that require you to stand with bent knees, or floor poses that require you to hold your legs away from your body.

Note that you can’t lose leg fat without losing fat from the rest of your body. Take care of yourself by eating right and exercising, and your legs will shape up fast!

How to Lose Calories

Losing weight is very difficult for many of us, but it ultimately boils down to numbers: Eat fewer calories to lose more pounds. If we could figure out how to lose calories, the pounds would quickly follow.

It’s easy to reduce your calorie intake when you know how to do it right. You don’t have to feel deprived, and you don’t have to starve yourself. In fact, you can cut your calories easily and painlessly. These helpful tips will teach you how to lose calories – and weight – starting now.

Lose Calories with Healthy Substitutions

You don’t have to give up your favorite flavors, you just have to make healthier substitutions. Let’s say you’re having a craving for something rich and chocolaty. If you satisfy your craving by downing a pint of chocolate ice cream, you will have added several hundred calories to your daily intake.

But if you pick up a healthier alternative, like a sugar-free fudge pop or some reduced fat chocolate pudding, you will get the chocolate flavor you crave at a low caloric cost.

Other good substitutions include low-fat dairy products instead of whole milk products; lean cuts of meat instead of fattier cuts; air-popped popcorn or rice cakes instead of chips; trans-fat-free margarine instead of butter; and whole fruit instead of fruit juice.

Lose Calories by Eating More

Yes, you read that right! When you consider how to lose calories, eating more isn’t the first strategy that comes to mind. But studies have shown time and again that you can control your appetite by eating smaller, more frequent meals.

This approach reduces your calories in two ways. First, it keeps you from getting too hungry. Excess hunger is the number one reason why people stop dieting, and it is also a leading cause of binging. When you control your hunger, you can control your calorie intake.

Second, small meals keep your metabolism active. You will lose calories as your body burns through them faster. This is a near-effortless way to reduce the number of calories you eat, and burn the rest!

Lose Calories with Daily Tasks

Ever wondered how to lose calories while being productive? Many of us don’t have time to devote to long workouts, but you can burn off extra calories while you run errands and do chores.

Lawn work and gardening burn a surprising number of calories each hour. Depending on what you do and how much you weigh, you could burn up to 700 calories an hour just by working in your yard.

If you have kids or pets, take them to the park! An hour of swinging, sliding, and Frisbee catching will get rid of 300 calories or more.

When you run errands, use the stairs instead of the elevator. Park at the far end of the parking lot when you visit stores. These are small changes that add up to big rewards.

Lose Calories with Yoga

Yoga is a great exercise for beginners. It builds strength, increases flexibility, and helps prevent heart and metabolic diseases.

Yoga is also a fantastic stress reducer. It encourages our bodies to stop hanging on to excess calories in the form of fat. If you make yoga a part of your daily routine, you will notice physical and emotional benefits right away.

Start by doing 15 – 30 minutes of yoga each day. Search online to find a good yoga sequence for beginners. Don’t let the more advanced poses scare you off; even yoga masters had to start somewhere!

Now that you’ve learned how to lose calories without depriving yourself, it’s time to put these ideas into practice. Try to make one small change per week until you’ve grown accustomed to your new lifestyle. After a few weeks, losing calories will be a piece of (low-fat) cake!

How to Get Rid of Love Handles

“Love handles” is a cute name for a serious problem: fatty deposits on the back and sides of the waist. They’re not just unsightly, they’re unhealthy, too. Fortunately, you can get rid of love handles once and for all by making some small changes to your lifestyle.

Lose Fat All Over

Love handles are a sign of excess abdominal fat. This is a stubborn and dangerous type of fat that can lead to metabolic disorders and even serious heart disease. Reducing the fat around your waistline can decrease your chance of becoming diabetic or suffering a heart attack.

If you’ve considered targeting your abdominal fat and nothing else, don’t bother; there’s no such thing as spot reduction. If there were, none of us would have problem areas and we would all be perfectly proportioned! But in reality, if you want to get rid of love handles, you have to get rid of fat everywhere else, too.

Cardio exercise will help you burn fat faster. Strength training will increase your lean muscle mass, which in turn will make you burn calories faster. Eating at a slight calorie deficit will keep you from storing extra calories as fat. The best way to get rid of love handles is to do all three.

Build Stronger Obliques

The obliques are the muscles that run down both sides of your abdomen. They frame the group of muscles commonly called the 6-pack. Obliques give us the strength to twist and turn when we need to. Unfortunately, they are sometimes hidden by love handles.

Building stronger obliques will help you burn more calories, and will give you tight abdominal muscles to show off after the love handles are gone.

You can get rid of love handles faster by doing exercises that were found by the American Council on Exercise to be the very best ones for working your obliques: Bicycle crunches, captain’s chair leg raises, and vertical leg crunches.

Bicycle crunches involve lying down on your back and doing crunch-twists while pedaling your legs as if you were riding a bicycle. Captain’s chair leg raises require the use of a captain’s chair, which is a common fixture in most gyms. Vertical leg crunches are performed like regular crunches, but with your legs raised perpendicular to the ground.

Do a search for these exercises to find helpful step-by-step guides with photos.

Eat Fat-Burning Foods

Some foods, especially those high in sugar and sodium, add inches to the waistline. To get rid of love handles, you’ll need to eat more foods that fight belly fat. Doctors recommend heart-healthy fats, like those found in olive oil, nuts, and salmon; 3 servings of calcium from green, leafy vegetables or dairy products; and plenty of fiber from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

These foods are digested slowly, so they leave you feeling satisfied longer. Add some green tea to your diet for an extra fat-burning boost. Three cups a day will speed up your metabolism and ward off diseases.

Check Your Clothes

One last quick and dirty trick to get rid of love handles: Make sure your clothes fit properly. Tight clothing can create the illusion of love handles, even on thin folks. If you’ve worked hard to lose your love handles, don’t ruin the effect by squeezing into jeans that leave you overflowing!

Fat Burning Foods

Are there really fat burning foods that can speed up your metabolism? Yes! By eating the right foods, you can trick your body into burning through its extra fat.

Here are some of the tastiest and most convenient fat burning foods you can find:

Citrus and Ginger

When you were young and you felt a cold coming on, your mother probably told you to take lots of vitamin C. Vitamin C is a popular immunity booster, but it has a secret talent as well: It helps you burn fat faster!

Vitamin C boosts your fat-burning power in two ways. First, it speeds up the process of fat metabolism. It also seems to have an effect on fat storage. The citric acid breaks down fat molecules, making them less likely to accumulate and more likely to be flushed from the body.

Due to their Vitamin C content, citrus fruits rank highly among fat burning foods. Try adding a variety of citrus fruits to your diet, such as oranges, tangerines, lemons and limes. It’s better to eat the whole fruit than to drink the juice, because the fruit contains fiber – another fat-fighter. Don’t fancy fruit? Tomatoes are also fat burning foods. Use fresh tomatoes in your homemade sauces for metabolic boost.

Ginger is another tangy fat-burner. It is also a vasodilator, which means that it opens up the blood vessels and improves blood circulation. This can result in a significant boost to the metabolism. In fact, studies suggest that people who eat ginger may lose as much as 20% more fat than their peers.

Ginger and citrus flavors complement each other well, especially in Asian dishes. Experiment with this exotic blend, and you can lose weight without ever feeling deprived.

Oatmeal and Whole Grains

Nothing starts your day off right like a warm bowl of oatmeal. That’s because oatmeal is high in fiber, which stabilizes blood glucose levels and prevents crashes and fatigue. Oatmeal is thick and satisfying, and you can add non-fat milk for an even bigger fat-burning advantage. (Calcium and fiber are proven fat burning foods.)

The carbs in oatmeal provide a quick rise in energy to help you wake up faster. But the carbs are complex and get digested slowly, which keeps your energy up and your appetite low for hours after breakfast. As an added bonus, oatmeal lowers cholesterol, too!

Nuts and Beans

Nuts and beans are nutritious fat burning foods that also keep your appetite in check for long stretches. Like oatmeal, nuts and beans contain fiber that kick-starts your metabolism. Unlike oatmeal, they also contain a significant amount of protein. Protein is vital for building lean muscle mass, which burns calories faster than fat tissue.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Olive oil has long been recommended by doctors for its heart health benefits. Olive oil contains unsaturated fat that increases the number of high-density lipids in the bloodstream. These lipids, also known as “good cholesterol”, or HDL, sweep bad cholesterol from the arteries. By substituting olive oil for butter and margarine, you can actually lower your bad cholesterol and increase your metabolism.

Fat burnings foods can help you reach your weight loss goal faster. Add some fun cardio exercise and plenty of hydration, and you’ll have a recipe for success!

3 Miracle Foods that Burn Fat

Are there really foods that burn fat? It may sound too good to be true, but scientific studies have found that people who consume certain foods end up losing more weight than those who don’t eat the foods – even when all other factors are the same!

Let’s take a look at three of the most popular foods that burn fat, according to science:

Beans

Beans are a preferred protein source for dieters everywhere. They contain a healthy mix of protein and carbohydrates. Beans are challenging to digest, so it takes your body longer to process them. This is a good thing, because it keeps your blood sugar stable and helps you stay full longer.

But the real magic of beans lies in their fiber content. Fiber is like a workout for your digestive system. It keeps things running smoothly, and prevents your blood glucose from spiking too high. Plain beans are the best choice. Sugary baked beans or fatty refried beans can sabotage your weight loss efforts by supplying too many calories and simple carbs.

Skim Milk

Of all the foods that burn fat, calcium is perhaps the most popular proven metabolism booster. In fact, studies have proven that calcium causes weight loss. Two groups of test subjects were studied. The groups did everything the same, except that one group received several servings of calcium each day. Surprisingly, that group lost almost three times as much weight as the group who did not receive extra calcium.

You can get calcium from vegetables like broccoli, but dairy products remain the most popular choice. Choose products made from 2%, 1%, or fat-free milk. They deliver the greatest amount of calcium in the lowest amount of calories.

Green Tea

Green tea has been touted as a dieter’s miracle product for years. It contains powerful antioxidants that reduce the number of potentially cancerous free radicals in the body. Its modest caffeine content is enough to perk up your heart rate and metabolism without putting undue stress on your body. It is also a mild diuretic, which can be helpful for getting rid of retained fluid.

Green tea has also been studied as a fat-burner, and the results have been encouraging. People who drink 4 – 6 cups of green tea per day enjoy faster weight loss than those who don’t drink green tea.

Honorable Mention: Water

Okay, it doesn’t contain nutrition, but water would still rank highly on any list of foods that burn fat. It dilutes sodium to beat bloating, pushes retained fluid from our bodies, promotes healing, and satisfies the appetite. But did you know that water can also keep your metabolism running at maximum efficiency?

It’s true: Our kidneys are our primary filtration system. They help pass toxins and waste fluids out of our bodies. But they need plenty of hydration to keep functioning well. When they are deprived of water, the kidneys call on the liver for back-up.

While the liver can serve as a secondary filtration system, that is not its best use. It is designed for, and excels at, turning stored fat into usable energy. But when it has to support the kidneys, the liver cannot metabolize fat as quickly as it used to. You can bring your metabolism back up to speed by drinking plenty of water each day.

For a quick and productive diet overhaul, start eating foods that burn fat. Add 64 ounces of pure drinking water each day, and you will be on your way to successful and permanent weight loss.