Evil Thighs - exercise tips?

gabrielle_eliza

Hey everyone,
I've had MFP for a while now, but only really started getting into it the past 3 weeks. I haven't weighed myself in the past 3 weeks (I'm at school, there are no scales ANYWHERE) but I have definitely noticed a weight loss everywhere on my body - EXCEPT THIGHS.

For the record, I am 5'8 and 159 pounds
My goal weight is 135 pounds by July 21st (I'm going on a cruise then!!)
I am following the 1200 calorie/day plan
I work out twice a day - 30 minutes of cardio followed by 15 minutes of lifting during each work out. I also switch up the machines I use (On my diary it all says "elliptical" but that's because I'm too lazy to look for the other machines)

My thighs are definitely more muscular...but all this muscle is still hiding beneath fat. The worst parts are my inner thighs and the back of my thighs near my butt.

Are there any particular exercises you all have done that help to target these areas? Everyone has been saying just to do more cardio...but I really haven't seen that helping.

And on a side note, if anyone needs any motivation or just a friend for support, I'm your girl! This is the most motivated I've ever been to lose weight and I'd love to help give others that motivation as well.

Thanks


** Forgot to add - I had Osgood-Schlatters, which though gone now has left my knees in pretty terrible shape. Any strain on them (such as squatting) hurts A LOT and I'm always afraid I'm going to tear something..

mk9562

Are you doing squats or leg lunges?

neandermagnon

lift weights, very heavy ones

squats
deadlifts
lunges

that kind of thing

it may sound contradictory... but it works because it helps to lower your body fat percentage. Your muscles will not bulk up unless you're taking steroids. Your muscles will get firm and strong and your legs will get lean. Your muscles will stay the same size but get firmer, while if you are eating at a moderate deficit (e.g. 10% less than you burn off) then you lose the fat slowly, revealing fit, lean legs.

also, at 5'8" and 159 lbs, 1200 calories is unlikely to be enough for you, espeically working out twice a day...!! I hope you're eating back exercise calories at least... if your calorie deficit is too big, this can cause problems, e.g. losing muscle mass along with the fat, so you end up lighter and thinner, but your body fat percentage stays the same.

contingencyplan

You're not getting any benefit from your strength training doing it twice a day, everyday. Use free weights, heavy ones, doing deadlifts, squats, and other compounds 3x a week. Eat more calories.

carrieous

stairs, stairs and more stairs.

gabrielle_eliza

Are you doing squats or leg lunges?

Nope, I haven't been. I was told before that cardio was enough - clearly that was bad advice!

iulia_maddie

Evil huh? I reccomend an exorcism.

mk9562

Definitely weights with squats and lunges

JoanB5

Cardio is great for overall conditioning, heart, stamina, and getting a person moving. Don't discount it. But, if you want to get into body shaping, lifting your own body weight or some weights is indispensable. I personally want both. You just have to adjust your diet for each, and try to balance it so that you don't sabotage efforts either way.

gabrielle_eliza

lift weights, very heavy ones

squats
deadlifts
lunges

that kind of thing

it may sound contradictory... but it works because it helps to lower your body fat percentage. Your muscles will not bulk up unless you're taking steroids. Your muscles will get firm and strong and your legs will get lean. Your muscles will stay the same size but get firmer, while if you are eating at a moderate deficit (e.g. 10% less than you burn off) then you lose the fat slowly, revealing fit, lean legs.

also, at 5'8" and 159 lbs, 1200 calories is unlikely to be enough for you, espeically working out twice a day...!! I hope you're eating back exercise calories at least... if your calorie deficit is too big, this can cause problems, e.g. losing muscle mass along with the fat, so you end up lighter and thinner, but your body fat percentage stays the same.

I'll definitely start the lunges/squats thing. It's just tough because I have really bad knees - I had Osgood- Schlatter growing up so I can't do a lot of bending at the knees or squating with weights for fear of ripping ligament or something.

I'm really torn with the eating back calories thing! My uncle who is a fitness trainer said NOT to eat them back...everyone else says to eat them back....ugh!

gabrielle_eliza

Evil huh? I reccomend an exorcism.

Hmm not a bad idea

TrevessaT

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/workout/thighs/exercises/top-thigh-exercises/

mk9562

Well fitness pal likes to set most women at 1200, which isn't always the right number. You need to take into account your BMR and TDEE. How many calories are you burning daily?

contingencyplan

lift weights, very heavy ones

squats
deadlifts
lunges

that kind of thing

it may sound contradictory... but it works because it helps to lower your body fat percentage. Your muscles will not bulk up unless you're taking steroids. Your muscles will get firm and strong and your legs will get lean. Your muscles will stay the same size but get firmer, while if you are eating at a moderate deficit (e.g. 10% less than you burn off) then you lose the fat slowly, revealing fit, lean legs.

also, at 5'8" and 159 lbs, 1200 calories is unlikely to be enough for you, espeically working out twice a day...!! I hope you're eating back exercise calories at least... if your calorie deficit is too big, this can cause problems, e.g. losing muscle mass along with the fat, so you end up lighter and thinner, but your body fat percentage stays the same.

I'll definitely start the lunges/squats thing. It's just tough because I have really bad knees - I had Osgood- Schlatter growing up so I can't do a lot of bending at the knees or squating with weights for fear of ripping ligament or something.

I'm really torn with the eating back calories thing! My uncle who is a fitness trainer said NOT to eat them back...everyone else says to eat them back....ugh!

Whether or not you eat exercise calories back depends on what system you use. The system this website is built around doesn't take into account exercise when it determines your daily calorie requirements, so you need to take the calorie burn of your individual workouts into account when determining your nutrition requirements for the day. It's a flawed system though because it really only works for people who are either sedentary or get in only moderate intensity exercise. For people engaging in anything higher intensity, it would be better to go with a TDEE-based system which factors a rough approximation of calories burned for your average workouts into daily calorie goals. The reason your uncle is discouraging you from eating back exercise calories is because he more than likely is assuming you are using a system such as that one to determine your daily calorie goals, which is a better choice if your workouts are fairly high in intensity. If you go with the site's recommendations, though, you'll only be eating enough to satisfy the nutritional requirements of a sedentary person, which is why you should eat exercise calories back.

WaxMama

You could try taping your knees (I use KT tape) and running. Running has made the biggest difference in my ginormous thighs! Haha! Then I do 30DS and the squats/lunges help, but I know you can't do that. I have had success with these cups I heard about here on the forums.They're called Bellabaci cups and they're specifically for cellulite, but I bought a set and they seem to help with firming my legs, too! Might want to research it and see if they're right for you (I'm not selling anything here!)

FaithfulToIt

Cute

neandermagnon

lift weights, very heavy ones

squats
deadlifts
lunges

that kind of thing

it may sound contradictory... but it works because it helps to lower your body fat percentage. Your muscles will not bulk up unless you're taking steroids. Your muscles will get firm and strong and your legs will get lean. Your muscles will stay the same size but get firmer, while if you are eating at a moderate deficit (e.g. 10% less than you burn off) then you lose the fat slowly, revealing fit, lean legs.

also, at 5'8" and 159 lbs, 1200 calories is unlikely to be enough for you, espeically working out twice a day...!! I hope you're eating back exercise calories at least... if your calorie deficit is too big, this can cause problems, e.g. losing muscle mass along with the fat, so you end up lighter and thinner, but your body fat percentage stays the same.

I'll definitely start the lunges/squats thing. It's just tough because I have really bad knees - I had Osgood- Schlatter growing up so I can't do a lot of bending at the knees or squating with weights for fear of ripping ligament or something.

I'm really torn with the eating back calories thing! My uncle who is a fitness trainer said NOT to eat them back...everyone else says to eat them back....ugh!

re your knees, if you have medical issues, get advice from a doctor or physio before doing heavy lifting... one that's pro heavy lifting though (some doctors will just tell everyone not to lift because they want to be on the safe side, rather than finding out what's going on and making a judgement based on the situation)

regarding eating calories back, it goes like this:

- if you use the MFP default settings, then you should eat them back, because that's how MFP is set up. the calorie number is still a deficit even if you do nothing in terms of exercise. So if you exercise and don't eat them back, then you will make the deficit too big and you'll have problems from it.

- there's a different method where you set a custom goal, and this is based on calculating the total number of calories you burn in a day, including exercise. You get a calorie goal that's 10 or 20% less than this, and you eat that, and you don't eat back your exercise calories because you already counted them in the original number. If you do, you're basically eating your exercise calories twice.

Either way you are eating them back, just with the 2nd method you already included them in your calorie goal, the first method you didn't.

contingencyplan

lift weights, very heavy ones

squats
deadlifts
lunges

that kind of thing

it may sound contradictory... but it works because it helps to lower your body fat percentage. Your muscles will not bulk up unless you're taking steroids. Your muscles will get firm and strong and your legs will get lean. Your muscles will stay the same size but get firmer, while if you are eating at a moderate deficit (e.g. 10% less than you burn off) then you lose the fat slowly, revealing fit, lean legs.

also, at 5'8" and 159 lbs, 1200 calories is unlikely to be enough for you, espeically working out twice a day...!! I hope you're eating back exercise calories at least... if your calorie deficit is too big, this can cause problems, e.g. losing muscle mass along with the fat, so you end up lighter and thinner, but your body fat percentage stays the same.

I'll definitely start the lunges/squats thing. It's just tough because I have really bad knees - I had Osgood- Schlatter growing up so I can't do a lot of bending at the knees or squating with weights for fear of ripping ligament or something.

I'm really torn with the eating back calories thing! My uncle who is a fitness trainer said NOT to eat them back...everyone else says to eat them back....ugh!

re your knees, if you have medical issues, get advice from a doctor or physio before doing heavy lifting... one that's pro heavy lifting though (some doctors will just tell everyone not to lift because they want to be on the safe side, rather than finding out what's going on and making a judgement based on the situation)

regarding eating calories back, it goes like this:

- if you use the MFP default settings, then you should eat them back, because that's how MFP is set up. the calorie number is still a deficit even if you do nothing in terms of exercise. So if you exercise and don't eat them back, then you will make the deficit too big and you'll have problems from it.

- there's a different method where you set a custom goal, and this is based on calculating the total number of calories you burn in a day, including exercise. You get a calorie goal that's 10 or 20% less than this, and you eat that, and you don't eat back your exercise calories because you already counted them in the original number. If you do, you're basically eating your exercise calories twice.

Either way you are eating them back, just with the 2nd method you already included them in your calorie goal, the first method you didn't.

I definitely concur with the idea of finding a doctor who is very much into fitness & lifting themselves. This is an area where the schooling/training doctors generally receive does not provide them with sufficient information to be able to advise people on the subject, so the only advice you can really trust concerning what types of exercises are safe for you are going to come from a medical professional who makes an active effort to keep informed about the medicine aspect of fitness as well.