Mend Your Diet

How do you lose hip and abdominal weight with dieting and exercise?

Hi! I am 5'1" and weigh 110 lbs. which isn't horrible. However, I am a cheerleader (a flyer to be exact) and most of my weight is centered around my hips and stomach. I'm not looking to lose a lot of weight, but my hips and abdomen are disproportional to my body. I've tried dieting and exercising to no avail. I don't think I'm doing it right...another thing, I'm not looking for diet pills because they scare me :) Please let me know if you have any suggestions!

Public Comments

1. run and eat healthy, do crunches and sit ups
2. i would do low cardio excersies im 15 and 250+ lbs so i dont know if you wanna take my advise i would suggest about 50-100 crunches in the moring and maybe take the stairs a little more (if you work on the 10th floor walk to the 11th and then back down and anckle weights help a lot)
3. The best exercise to do to tone and slim your hips is to put a weight that is within your range (you want to tone, not bulk) in one hand and stand feet shoulder width apart. Drop your shoulder on the side you are holding the weight; you will feel it working in your opposite side, as that is the side you are stretching and toning. Repeat about 20 times on each side every day. Spot training doesn’t usually work, but I found this exercise shown to me by my trainer really gave results.
4. It depends how exactly you are dieting and exercising. There is no specific exercise that will burn fat from your mid section and hips. But, by lower your bodyfat you will burn all fat...thus you will more than likely see the results in your fattiest of areas most. Email me for more specifics if you like.
5. It is a sad fact, but you cannot target specific areas for weight loss/ storage of adipose tissue; that is determined by your somatotype or body type. If you do a slimming or reduction diet, then you will lose fat and your weight might slip out of the normal healthy region that you are presently in: 50kg and 1.55m gives a BMI of 50kg /(1.55m x 1.55m) = 50kg/2.4025 sqm = 20.8kg/sqm. Normal weight = 18.5-24.9kg/sqm Overweight = 25-29.9kg/sqm Obesity = BMI of 30kg/sqm or greater You are right -- it's not "horrible", but you say you are looking to lose a LOT of weight -- why? I can only guess that it is your tummy and hips that makes you want to lose weight. You are right, diet has by far the biggest effect on weight control -- far more than exercise (you should see how much work you have to do to equal the calories in a candy bar)! But the body itself decides the areas where the weight loss will come from -- so your hips and tum might be stubborn -- even with pills (you are so right to be scared of them)! Cardio-vascular exercise makes you feel better and improves mood as well as general health, but you sound like you are getting enough by being a cheerleader, so forget doing more! Yoga and stretching type exercises (according to some) are more effective in shaping and toning -- especially with things like the Alexander Technique that increases height, and pulls in the tummy, while adding grace and poise (i.e. you LOOK slimmer). Gym exercises can "tone" by beefing up the muscles, and could pull and realign things better for you -- but you still have to watch out as muscle weighs more than fat (you could put on weight), and it could emphasise the fat deposits by bulking up the muscle directly below the fatty tissue if you do the wrong type of exercise. Anyway, a flaccid muscle near fat merely adds to your problems! Toning and bulking have to be maintained for life, so make sure you are committed, or you will make your body shape worse! But then, you already found pretty much all of this out for yourself, haven't you? Seriously though, apart from liposuction, the only thing I can recommend in all honesty is the dreaded crunches -- they ought to tone the stomach, pulling the fat in, if you do them wrong, it can push the muscle out, so make sure you are doing them correctly. There's nothing to be done about the hips, I am afraid. Sorry to be the bearer of such bad news!