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Diets & Exercises to Lose Weight in the Thighs

Fat thighs can be a problem when you're buying a pair of skinny-leg jeans, but they can be toned in a total fitness plan that combines diet and exercise. A low-fat diet helps with the weight. Cardiovascular exercise, coupled with weight training, sculpts and tones the thighs.

  1. Exercises

    • Make thigh reduction and toning part of a fitness regimen that includes solid weight training, cardiovascular exercise and dieting. Aim at losing a pound per week and reducing body fat by 20 to 27 percent. This will include the thighs. Measure your current body fat and the girth of your thighs. Use cardiovascular exercise to burn fat. The stepper is an excellent way to work on the thighs, because it targets the butt muscles. The glutes are the body's largest muscle group and will burn the most calories. To train the back of the legs, hop onto the elliptical trainer, which engages the hamstrings in the back of the thighs. Both of these machines will work on the butt and thighs. Do not overexert, especially in the beginning. Keeping within a range of 60 to 70 percent of the maximum heart rate will allow the body to draw its energy from fat cells. More than that, and the body is getting its fuel from sugar and protein.
      Sculpt your thighs by using weigh training. Weight training should cover all of the muscle groups in the thighs to avoid muscular imbalance and injury. Barbell squats and leg presses target the quads. Do hamstring curls on a seated curl machine or lie down on the machine. Either way, point your toes downward to fully engage the hamstring. Use a seated abductor machine to tone the outside of the thighs. Use the adductor machine and squats with dumbbells in both hands to firm the inner thighs. A bonus is that the muscled thighs will power you forward when you're running. More speed and endurance mean longer and faster running. Do about three sets of each exercise, with 12 to 20 repetitions in each. Add weights if you're doing more than 20 reps.

    Low-Fat Diet Tips

    • Plan a good diet to go along with the exercise. Stick with a low-fat diet. Use low-fat ingredients in your cooking; consider purchasing pre-packaged diet meals with the calories already counted. Food can be flavored with small quantities of high-fat foods such as cheese and bacon. Dairy products, such as yogurt and milk, should be low in fat.

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