First of all, women store more fat in the hip and thigh area because it’s how our bodies are designed. Our bodies are made to carry babies and having more fat here is beneficial for pregnancy. Unfortunately we aren’t pregnant for much of our life, if at all. But it’s important to know that our hormones dictate how our body stores fat. 

WALKING

When it comes to inner thighs, the best exercise to lose fat here is walking. Lots and lots of walking. I mean at least 10,000 steps per day, but the more the better. And consistently too, so at least 5 days per week. 

The reason that walking works so well for getting rid of inner thigh fat and fat from your legs in general is because walking is a low intensity aerobic exercise, and that means it uses stored fat as the main fuel for your workout. High intensity workouts use carbs otherwise known as glycogen as the main fuel. So the more walking you do, the better your results will be.

Another reason it works so well is because we can store a lot of fluid / lymph in our in our thighs. Unlike your cardiovascular system, your lymphatic system doesn't have a pump. So the fluid only moves when you more your body. Walking is one of the best exercises to move fluid from your legs.

You should see your inner thigh area slim down relatively quickly with a lot of walking. But remember, you do need to be consistent. If you have issues with hormones, it may take a little longer.

I just want to quickly mention a thigh gap because lots of women want this. Reducing your inner thigh fat through walking can help you achieve this. But getting a thigh gap is also dependent on your body shape. Women with wider hips will generally have more of a thigh gap. But you can’t change the width of your hips, this is genetic. 

RESISTANCE TRAINING

Something that a lot of women do in an effort to slim down their inner thighs and get a thigh gap is inner thigh workouts. This goes back to the theory of spot reducing. You can’t slim down your inner thighs by doing inner thigh workouts. And actually doing these types of workouts will build muscle in your inner thighs and can actually make them bigger instead.

Resistance training can help you slim down your inner thigh area, but the workouts need to focus on opening your hips and lifting your booty. And it's best to focus on whole body workouts to avoid over training your legs.

But for your inner thighs specifically, resistance training will only make a very small difference compared to walking. Walking will get you the best results. 

CELLULITE

To reduce cellulite from your thighs, you need to do resistance training. This will build muscle and that will smooth out cellulite and give you a toned look. Just make sure that you do the correct type of resistance training that will tone your legs without making them bulky. All of the workouts in our Femme Nativa programs follow this method of training. So if you stick with our workouts, you won’t get bulky legs. 

We often get questions about whether you can just skip resistance training and do walking instead. We would not recommend it. If you avoid resistance training:

1. You will never get rid of cellulite,
2. You won’t look toned - you need muscle definition to look toned,
3. You may look skinny fat, which is where you look small when you’re wearing clothes, but you have a higher percentage of body fat and look flabby underneath, and
4. You will have a harder time losing weight overall, because muscle increases your metabolism, and this makes a huge difference for weight loss.

So please make sure you do resistance training as well.

DIET

When it comes to diet, eating at a calorie deficit is not 100% necessary. You can slim them down without eating at a calorie deficit, as long as you’re not eating at a calorie surplus, or more than your body needs. If you eat more than your body needs, you’ll gain weight and most of this weight will likely go to your hips and thighs. So I would recommend eating at maintenance level, or if you’re trying to lose weight, you can eat at a deficit.

SUMMARY

To lose fat and cellulite from your thighs and inner thighs, you need to:

1. Do lots and lots of walking. At least 10,000 steps per day, 5 days per week.
2. Do resistance training to help reduce cellulite and give your legs a toned appearance.
3. Focus on resistance training that will tone up your legs without making them bulky, such as our workouts.
4. For inner thighs, focus on resistance training that will open your hips and lift your booty, rather than inner thigh workouts
5. Eat healthy and at maintenance level or if you want to lose weight overall, eat at a slight calorie deficit

This may seem like an unusual area to want to slim down, but it’s actually a super common trouble spot for a lot of women. And having a lot of fat around your knees can make your thighs look bigger in general. 

Fat around your knees can be caused by 3 things - 

1. A higher percentage on fat on your legs
2. Poor lymphatic drainage, which causes the fluid to pool at your knees.
3. Muscular quadriceps or the muscles at the front of your thigh. A lot of women think they have fat knees when it is in fact muscle. 

So let’s talk about these 3 things in detail.

First of all, reducing fat on your legs. As you know by now, walking is the best exercise for getting rid of fat from your legs. This is because it is a low intensity aerobic exercise, so it uses fat as the main fuel source for energy. And it's also great for lymphatic drainage. The more walking you can do, the better your results will be.

You can’t choose exactly where from your legs the fat will slim down from, but generally, the area that has the most fat will slim down the most. So if your biggest trouble spot is knees, it’s likely that walking alone will help reduce fat here and give them a slimmer appearance.

Poor lymphatic drainage in your legs will cause the fluid to pool at your knees, because it has nowhere else to go. As mentioned, improving your gut and liver health and opening up your drainage pathways will help with overall lymphatic flow. You can also add rebounding, dry brushing or lymphatic drainage massages.

And the final thing that can affect your knees is muscular quadriceps, or the muscle at the front of your thighs. As I mentioned, a lot of women think they have fat knees when it is in fact muscle. 

To reduce this muscle, you need to stop doing the exercises that are making them bigger. The most common exercises are squats and lunges, but also HIIT exercises such as burpees and box jumps can make your quads bigger. Just give your body time for the muscle to decrease because it takes time to lose muscle.

I don’t recommend avoiding resistance training altogether. Resistance training helps with your metabolism, weight loss, reducing cellulite, and it is also what makes you look toned.

I would recommend doing workouts that focus more on your glutes and not as heavily on your quad muscles. You should be safe with all of the workouts in our Femme Nativa Programs :)

SUMMARY

To slim down your knees, you need to - 

1. Do lots of walking. This is the key exercise for reducing fat from your legs in general.
2. Address poor lymphatic drainage.
3. Reduce muscular quads by avoiding exercises that make them bigger, and instead focusing workouts that target your glutes, and not your quads.

This area is often referred to as the “muffin top”. 

Remember that it’s super common for women to store fat here due to our hormones and genetic makeup. But with the right diet, exercise and lifestyle, you can definitely slim this area down.

Let’s start by talking about what causes fat storage in this area. It’s caused by 3 things.

1. A higher percentage of body fat overall.
2. High cortisol levels.
3. Insulin resistance.

I’ll now cover each of these in detail.

BODY FAT

If you have weight to lose, then you have a higher percentage of body fat. And by losing weight overall, this area will naturally slim down.

To lose weight, you don’t need to do anything drastic. You just need to eat at a calorie deficit, eat healthy and exercise.

In terms of exercise, do a combination of cardio and resistance training. The best type of cardio is walking because it’s low impact and is amazing at slimming down your legs at the same time.

High intensity cardio such as running is also really great for slimming down your lower belly and hips because it burns so many calories. BUT proceed with caution because if your muffin top is due to high cortisol, you do NOT want to do high intensity exercise such as running and HIIT.

For resistance training, it is safest to focus on low intensity resistance training since HIIT can cause further cortisol issues.

When it comes to diet, you should eat at a calorie deficit or less than your body needs. And make sure you’re focusing on healthy foods, so lean protein, healthy fats, fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds. And limiting sugar, refined carbs and alcohol. 

CORTISOL

Some women can be slim and still have a muffin top. If this is the case for you, then this is likely caused by high cortisol.

High cortisol causes your body to store fat in these exact areas. If you have chronically high levels of cortisol, you will find it impossible to lose weight and to reduce your muffin top. So this needs to be addressed first. 

High cortisol is caused by high stress. High stress isn’t just the typical “work stress” that we often think about. Other things such as gut health issues, inflammation, lack of sleep, overtraining, poor diet, travel, being constantly busy and relationship stress are huge stressors on your body and will cause high cortisol levels.

So make sure you look at your lifestyle as a whole and work on ways to improve your overall stress levels. Your body will thank you for it.

INSULIN RESISTANCE

Insulin resistance, like cortisol, will cause fat storage in this area. And often these 2 hormonal imbalances will go hand in hand.

Chronically high insulin also worsens cortisol. Insulin and cortisol interact and can amplify each other's effects on ab fat specifically.

So what causes insulin resistance?

• High carb diets and eating a lot of sugar
• Chronic stress
• Poor sleep
• Low muscle mass
• High body fat

The best way to heal your insulin resistance is build muscle, eat healthy, reduce stress and get good sleep.

SUMMARY

To reduce fat from your lower belly and hips, you need to do 3 things - 

1. Reduce overall body fat by focusing on a healthy diet and eating at a calorie deficit. The best types of exercises are walking and resistance training.
2. Reduce cortisol levels by reducing your overall stress levels, and
3. Improve insulin resistance by focusing on building muscle, eating healthy, reducing stress and getting good quality sleep.

We also get lots of questions regarding the mommy pooch so thought it deserved a special mention.

All of these same principles apply to reducing the mommy pooch - reducing overall body fat, reducing stress, and improving the hormones cortisol and insulin.

However childbirth and C sections can also affect your lower belly. 

If you have ab separation and/or a weak pelvic floor, then both of these will affect your belly, and they need to be fixed. The correct postpartum program and pelvic floor exercises can fix these issues. 

When it comes to C sections, when this area has healed, you should massage this area. You can use bio oil or any other type of oil and massage above the scar in small circles. However please know that C sections can affect the fat distribution in this area and while you can make improvements, it may never be completely flat.