Whether you’d like to feel more confident in your sexy tight shorts, your extremely skin-tight pants or your super tight sexy short skirt several sizes too small for you to reveal your long lean legs, or are just simply aiming to improve your overall body condition, you may be looking for ways to lose you leg fat and tone your legs.

There is no express treatment or rapid spot that can specifically target our legs. The idea of spot-reducing or losing fat from specific parts of our body is a myth. That’s because losing fat happens all over as we lose weight. We don’t have any control over where or when it happens first. We can reduce our overall body fat by eating healthy and exercising, but our bodies don’t know where they are burning fat. Wherever there is fat on our bodies, it will come off. And we have fat all over our bodies. Research has shown that fat tends to accumulate in the thigh area for women more than for men. However, the good news is that we can develop a routine that gets rid of overall excess body fat.

Choosing exercises that help to tone our leg muscles can make them appear more fit too. In one recent study, participants exercised just one of their legs, performing a whopping one thousand leg presses per workout session over a period of twelve weeks. If slimming down an individual body part were possible, this kind of targeted exercise would certainly do the trick. But that study reached the same conclusion as all its predecessors. The body will shed fat in response to a caloric deficit, the kind achieved through diet and exercise, but it is impossible to control where that fat comes from. In the leg press study, participants lost about 10.2 percent of fat in their upper extremities, suggesting that a high-rep training regimen (like a barre workout, for example) is a good bet for those who want to burn fat and build muscle. But the body part being worked out, in this case, their legs, retained more or less the same composition as when they started, with no significant difference between the trained leg and the control leg.

In short, if you want slimmer and sexier legs, you may have to lose a significant amount of weight from other parts of your body before the fat stores in your hips, thighs or calves get their turn.

Where do fats come from?

Contrary to popular believes, it is normal and healthy to have moderate body fat. Men of average weight have about 18 to 25 percent body fat while women of average  weight have 25 to 32 percent body fat. Body fat is often distributed evenly but there may be more fat in certain parts of our bodies than other parts. This is usually due to our genes and we all do tend to fatten up with age.

There are interesting differences based on age and gender. Hormones drive the deposition of fat around the pelvis, buttocks and thighs of women and the bellies of men. For women, the so-called sex-specific fat appears to be physiologically advantageous, at least during pregnancies. But it has a cosmetic down-side as well in the form of cellulite. The potbelly, on the other hand, is a typical male form of obesity that has no known advantage and can be life threatening.

Leg fat may be comprised of different types of fat cells including

• Subcutaneous fat : most common in the thighs and located right beneath the skin
• Intramuscular fat: fat dispersed within the muscle itself, much like the marbling seen in meat.

The majority of leg fat is subcutaneous, which does not pose any threat to our health.

How can we reduce body fat and help tone our legs?

Here are 3 ways to reduce body fat and help tone our legs.

1. Exercising regularly

The most important step to burn overall body fat is to do aerobic exercises. Aerobic exercise, which is sometimes known as “cardio” exercise, requires the pumping of oxygenated blood by the heart to deliver oxygen to working muscles. It stimulates the heart rate and breathing rate to increase in a way that can be sustained for the exercise session. It is recommended that we should do at least 150 minutes exercises each week. It is important to choose a type of exercises you can complete at a moderate intensity to get our heart rates up and maximize calorie burn. These exercises may include walking, jogging, swimming or cycling. One of the best exercises for the legs is cycling. The low intensity is especially helpful for beginners and it does not strain your knees. Cycling also increases muscle endurance on the following areas of the body:

• calves
• hamstrings
• glutes (gluteal muscles)
• quadriceps

Where possible, we should try to cycle outdoors where we can get some stress-blasting fresh air. Otherwise if you live in an environment that is not suitable for cycling, you may consider investing in a home exercise bike.

2. Develop muscular strength

Losing fat alone can leave us with less toned legs, so we will need to invest some time in strengthening our muscles. Weights and rowing machines are effective tools for leg-strengthening exercises, but we can work on leg muscles just as effectively without any special equipment. Lunges are among the most comprehensive leg workouts, as they tone the quads and hamstrings, the inner thighs and buttocks. For more information.

3. Watch our diet

No matter what type of diet we follow, to tone our legs, we need to burn more calories than we take in each day. Cutting about 500 calories a day is a good place to start if we are overweight. By reducing our calorie intake, our bodies will naturally utilize excess fat as its next energy source. We should regard calories we eat as our budget and try to stay within or under our budget most days of the week.

Here are some ways where we can have a healthy diet and cut back our calories.

Eating lots of vegetables and fruits

This is one of the most important diet habits. Vegetables and fruits are packed with nutrients (antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and fibre) and help us maintain a healthy weight by keeping us full longer.

Choosing whole grain foods

Whole grain foods include whole grain bread and crackers, brown or wild rice, quinoa, oatmeal and hulled barley. They are prepared using the entire grain. Whole grain foods have fibre, protein and B vitamins to help us stay healthy and full longer.

Eating protein foods

These foods include legumes, nuts, seeds, tofu, fortified soy beverage, fish, shellfish, eggs, poultry, lean red meats including wild game, lower fat milk, lower fat yoghurts, lower fat kefir and cheeses lower in fat and sodium. Protein helps build and maintain bones, muscles and skin. Try to eat at least two servings of fish each week and choose plant-based foods more often. Dairy products are a great source of protein.

Conclusion

So if you want to squeeze yourself into that super tight sexy skirt or an extremely tiny shorts to flaunt your dream legs, get up and start taking actions as mentioned in this article. However, be aware that leg transformation takes time. Many diet companies and exercise moguls promise quick leg transformations with their paid programs. As with any weight loss endeavor, getting your desired pair of legs requires time, consistency and persistence. Losing body fat in general and focusing on exercises that tone your legs can make them look slimmer.