HOW TO LOSE HIPS? TWO ESSENTIAL KEYS

 Hormones, small dietary excesses... There are many reasons why women, as well as men, wonder about fat storage. How to lose hips? We explain to you why losing 10 cm of hips in 10 days is utopian, and how to lose hip fat for sculpted legs. With the help of Guillaume Canesson, a sports coach from Farm Gym France, we discover the two essential keys to leaving behind that superfluous fat that sometimes encumbers us. 

FIRST KEY: HOW TO LOSE HIPS THROUGH DIET

Guillaume says it: "The difference is in the plate! And you will see that the role of nutrition is very serious.

Aiming for weight loss

If you still believe in it, our coach is clear: "There is no such thing as targeted fat loss and the hips are the hardest part for a woman to eliminate.

Guillaume is a coach with a holistic approach, who cultivates his garden as well as his body, respecting nature.

A little anatomical reminder: the size of a woman's pelvis varies with age and widens around the age of 25 when fertility peaks and the possibility of pregnancy arises. "The percentage of fat mass should be higher than 20% (ideally between 20% and 30%) in women, while men are ideally below 20%.

This natural storage of fat in the pelvis exists so that in the event of pregnancy, a woman can provide the cosy nest essential for the future cherub. Aiming for excessive thinness carries risks: "A lower body fat percentage can lead to a risk of amenorrhoea, which is regularly seen in top marathon runners, for example.

But don't be jealous! Men also tend to store fat easily in the stomach area and, similarly, this is the last place where fat is stored.

No reason to give up though! What you need to remember is that to slim down your hips, you should favour a good diet combined with pelvic extension movements, buttocks and anything that will mobilise your legs. Because thanks to this large muscle mass involved in physical activity, we will increase our energy expenditure. And Guillaume tells us: "To reduce body fat, you need a caloric deficit, which means that you need to spend more than you consume.

Integrate physical activity into your diet

We agree that we should eat less than we spend, but what we really want to do is eat better! Taking physical activity into account in our diet means giving our muscle cells the right nutrients to function.

The Public Health Information Service, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Health, offers simple and effective recommendations for combining nutrition and physical activity:

1.  We increase our portions of fruit and vegetables (hello the 5 fruits and vegetables a day benchmark!);
2.  We should go for wholemeal starchy foods, fish, oils such as rapeseed, walnut or olive, and dairy products;
3.  Reduce alcohol, sugary drinks, all fatty, salty and ultra-processed foods, as well as salt, cold cuts and meat.
4.  Reduce the amount of time spent sitting. 

I can already see some people huffing and puffing when they talk about depriving themselves of good things... Good news for the epicureans! No food is forbidden and in the same way, there is no miracle food. This is the definition of a balanced diet. It is built up over a week rather than over one meal. As a result, you can enjoy it if you compensate with a lighter meal afterwards.

It's all about dosage and listening to your body. Yes, because you have to slow down your consumption and listen to the feeling of satiety rather than the little voice that tickles your sweet tooth with an extra portion.

However, a balanced meal can be copious with:

• - A starter, preferably in the form of raw or cooked vegetables, or even fruit;
• - the main course, where meat, fish or eggs are not the dominant elements but are accompanied by vegetables, starchy foods or pulses (lentils, chickpeas, etc.);
• - A dessert, where dairy products and fruit are kings.

That doesn't stop you from indulging once a week in a nice chocolate éclair 😉

Banning diets for weight loss

In 2010, the French National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (better known as ANSES) showed that one of the major drawbacks of dieting is weight gain! Its scientific expertise has revealed that diets lead to calorie restrictions and dietary imbalances. As a result, changes in energy metabolism and a decrease in lean (but not fat) mass occur.

For people in situations that require weight loss, it is advisable to be accompanied by a health professional. The latter will analyse the context of the weight gain, and the consequences and will determine the action plan to be followed. The proposed approach aims at an adapted and planned weight reduction and stabilisation with appropriate means.

The study conducted by ANSES has shown that the devastating effects of the 15 most popular slimming diets are not harmless. On the bones, the heart, and the kidneys, not to mention the psychological effects and eating disorders, miracle diets are harmful to our bodies.

When you lose weight, your muscles melt. Muscles produce heat and if they produce less heat, the body tends to store more. This type of profound change in energy metabolism is at the origin of the vicious circle of weight regain, the famous yo-yo effect. So the more you diet, the easier it is to regain weight!

SECOND KEY TO LOSING HIP FAT: EXERCISE

If a physical activity seems logical to lose weight and refine your figure, especially after what we have just read, you still need to know what to do and how. Here's a look at what our sports coaching expert, Guillaume Canesson from Farm Gym France, has to say.

Endurance sports or weight training to lose weight around the hips? 

Both!

Yet I was the first to think that running and a healthy diet would be enough to slim down. Guillaume, our holistic sports coach, reminds me of my memories as a sports student: "Endurance will increase energy expenditure. But the body adapts. It is intelligent. In endurance, the more you train, the more energy the body saves to do the same exercise. That's the principle of endurance training.

That is, if you do two 10km races at the same speed with a year in between, the calorie expenditure will be lower in the second year, for the same physical effort. Endurance will make the body more thrifty and once its ceiling is reached, weight loss will decrease, even if you are overweight.

It is therefore the combination of endurance sports with weight training that will increase the basic metabolism. The Metab... What?

The importance of basal metabolic rate for energy expenditure

The basal metabolic rate is defined as the basic energy expenditure of the body to ensure its vital functions. The higher it is, the more energy we will expend at rest without doing anything. Nice, isn't it?

And what Guillaume tells us is that thanks to weight training, we can consume more energy at rest. "In weight loss and physical transformation, muscle strengthening is essential to increase the basic metabolism. It accounts for about 70% of our daily energy expenditure. This means that our daily activity only represents 20% to 25% of what we spend, the rest being dedicated to thermoregulation and postprandial thermogenesis (digestion!).

To understand how weight training affects the basal metabolic rate, you need to know that muscles are big consumers of energy to function. So the more muscle you have, the more energy your body needs to run at rest. "What we want to do is create muscle mass to expend more energy at rest and change the body composition. You decrease fat mass by increasing muscle mass.

To sum up, endurance sports are useful to increase energy expenditure and to have fun, while muscle strengthening acts on increasing resting energy expenditure. For Guillaume, whose approach is rooted in nature, "The basis of everything is strength. Without strength, there is no movement. And movement is life.

The key role of breathing is to activate your muscles

Nutrition and breathing are closely linked in physical activity. And for good reason: the cells of the human body all use nutrients and oxygen to carry out their functions:

• - produce energy for a muscle;
• - process nerve messages for nerve cells
• - Producing digestive enzymes for pancreas cells.

Nutrients come from food that is processed during digestion. Food is broken down into simple nutrients in the small intestine during digestion. They then pass into the bloodstream to be carried to all the organs.

Oxygen, on the other hand, comes from breathing. When we breathe in, it leaves the air and enters the bloodstream in the lungs. And conversely, when we breathe out, we release carbon dioxide into the air to make room for oxygen. As with nutrients, oxygen is carried by the blood throughout the body.

This is how nutrients and oxygen are transported to your muscle cells, the ones that allow your muscles to move. And it is because oxygen enters your cells that they use the nutrients to produce the energy your muscle needs to function.

So you can't have one without the other. For our muscles to produce energy, they need the breakdown of nutrients coupled with the supply of oxygen. When we tell you that you have to breathe during physical effort...!

WHAT ARE THE BEST EXERCISES FOR SLIMMING THE HIPS?

Here is a series of exercises to mobilise the pelvis in an extension movement that will engage the whole body and work the hips. 

Squats

Highly effective for building up the legs, the squat consists of bending the knees (which then go forward) and stretching the legs again to achieve an extension of the hips.

To carry out it:

• - Starting position: stand with your feet slightly wider than the width of your pelvis and your toes pointing outwards (10:10). Arms at your side or on the barbell at your neck, for those who wish to add a load.
• - Gradually bend the knees until they are fully bent, keeping the back straight and the neck in line with the spine. Ensure that the knees are in line with the hips and ankles. They are allowed to be in front of the knees. 
• - Remember to keep the heels off the floor.
• - Gradually push back up on the heels.

To find out how to do a squat effectively, read our full article on the subject.

Lunges

There are many ways to add variety to your squats. Here are 4 of them, in the form of lunges to help eliminate the famous saddlebags:

The split squat with one leg in front of the other at the start, heels on the ground. The principle is that of Prince Charming: come to kneel by taking off the heel of the back leg and going down until the tibia makes a parallel line with the floor mat.

The Bulgarian squat starts almost like the split squat, but with the difference that the rear foot is placed on a chair or sofa.

The back cross lunge involves taking a sideways step backwards until the back knee almost touches the floor.

Walking lunges also have the advantage of working on balance. They start like a split squat, but require you to push off the front heel to come up and alternate the movement as you move forward.

To perform your lunges, remember to :

• - Keep your back straight;
• - Engage the abdominal muscles to avoid arching the lower back;
• - Keep the knee above the ankle, bent at 90°;
• - Spread your feet to gain stability;
• - Breathe and look straight ahead.

Deadlifts

Also known as the deadlift, the deadlift involves lifting a load off the ground with your arms straight.

The advantage of this exercise is that it engages the whole body (especially the legs and lumbar area) and corrects the daily heavy lifting, preserving your back with proper posture.

The disadvantage is that it can be a source of disc pain if not done properly.

To perform it effectively:

• Start with your feet hip-width apart, toes forward and legs bent so that your hands catch the barbell on the floor in front of your shins;
• - Hold the bar with your hands on the outside of your knees;
• - Bend the hips to tilt the pelvis back without bending the knees too much;
• - Push with your feet on the floor, keeping your arms straight and contract your glutes to push your pelvis forward;
• - Slowly lower the bar to the floor without letting go.

Hip thrust 

This is the most popular exercise of the moment. And we understand why: the hip thrust is ideal for sculpting your thighs and buttocks. Also known as the pelvic rise, this movement has the advantage of being done without risk at all levels. It can be done at the gym or at home and is easy to do with different adaptations.

The principle of the hip thrust consists in carrying out a bridge with the pelvis on which we will place weights to increase the workload as we progress in the practice.

The basic exercise consists of lying on your back, feet apart by the width of your pelvis and toes forward. The heels remain firmly on the ground and the knees are bent to 90° without going above ankle level. The aim is to roll up and raise the pelvis until a knee-pelvis-shoulder axis is formed by pushing on the heels.

Losing hips: a sample menu

Watching what you eat is essential for slimming your hips and losing your love handles. As soon as you wake up, it's important to do the right thing. Start by drinking a glass of water with a little fresh mint.

Breakfast

At breakfast, there's nothing like a draining drink like green tea! It is known to boost basic metabolism. For energy, try a boiled egg. Finish with a green shake made from two kiwis and a green apple mixed with 20 cl of almond milk and 2 tablespoons of oatmeal.

Lunch

Enjoy a tomato stuffed with green peppers for lunch. To do this, you will need:

One large tomato ;

Half a green pepper;

A little cottage cheese;

Half an egg white;

Half a clove of garlic;

Basil;

Lemon;

Parsley.

Preparation steps:

Roast the pepper in the oven for 25 minutes to easily recover the flesh and purée it;

Remove the head of the tomato, then remove the seeds;

Beat the egg white until stiff and fold it into the cheese;

Mix the mixture with the pepper puree;

Garnish the tomato with this mixture and enjoy!

Dinner

Whether you are on a diet or not, you should choose easily digestible foods for dinner. 

In a bowl, pour 2 handfuls of baby spinach;

Add a handful of mesclun and some cherry tomatoes;

Add a little rapeseed oil and wine vinegar for seasoning.

Don't forget the protein and starch options

In any case, remember that a balanced diet and regular exercise, go hand in hand to lose belly fat and say goodbye to your saddlebags.