Here’s the truth: losing fat from thighs is a battle. It’s a long-term goal that doesn’t happen within a month. We can lose fat visibly within a couple of weeks from arms or belly, but the thigh fat is still there, sitting stubbornly as a mule. But with motivation, discipline, and the right diet, you can get to first visible results within three months. Being almost four months deep in the leg slimming journey, I’m sharing with you my diet for slim legs and some tips.
The formula that helped me lose thigh fat
Not being able to lose fat from my thighs in the past attempts, I forced myself to do extensive online research. Call it genetics, but I call it the wrong fat loss diet. As I found out, I made multiple mistakes. During my previous leg slimming crazes, I didn’t count my calorie intake. I ate the wrong foods. I opted for the wrong training style. Here’s my formula a.k.a what I did to finally start losing fat from my thighs.
Calories in vs. calories out
Important facts first: you will lose fat overall, not just your thighs. According to science, there’s no such thing as losing fat in one place. To lose fat, you have to be in a calorie deficit. That means you burn more calories than consume. The larger the calorie deficit, the quicker you lose weight, but be careful! Losing weight too quickly is bad for you. I set my calorie deficit to lose about 1.5 pounds a week (a little more than half a kilo).
Click on this link to calculate your calorie intake
TIP: After you lose a couple of pounds, hit the calculator again with your current weight to update the calorie intake number.
How I curbed my calories
I’m a coffee addict, but can’t stand plain coffee without milk. I ditched coffee from Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Mcdonald’s, and convenience stores. Their coffees contain too many calories from sugar and fat. Furthermore, convenience stores offer only whole milk or half and half in their machines. Did you ever check how many calories the whole milk contains per cup? 149. Half and half? 315.
Instead, I bought myself a Dolce Gusto coffee machine. My favorite coffee is cappuccino, and I found capsules with skim milk. They are 50 calories per coffee. With this move, I cut out 450-500 calories from my daily intake. If you’re a fan of filter coffee, just use low-fat or fat-free milk. In most large grocery stores, they sell organic fat-free milk from grass-fed cows, that tastes like milk, instead of white-colored water.
Coffee was one of the everyday habits I changed. However, not the only one. Below I’m providing you with a list:
- Don’t add sugar to coffee and tea. Squeeze a lemon in a tea instead.
- A candy bar or chocolate chip cookie once in two weeks. If you crave sweets, choose dates or high-quality dark chocolate. In moderation!
- Generally, stay away from potato chips, Doritos, and popcorn. I had a few days in a row when I craved salty foods – I had hard workouts and I lacked electrolytes and potassium, so naturally, I craved potato chips. So I had a tiny bag of chips. But it happens only once in three weeks.
- Cook without butter. A spoon of olive oil is enough.
- Replace soda with sugar-free vitamin water.
- Stay away from dressings and marinades, because they contain tons of sugar and fat. There are healthier sugar-free options tho if you can’t help it.
- Reduce red meat for two reasons. First, sadly most beef contains a chemical that helps maintain its fresh red color. One of the effects of this chemical on your body is slowing down your metabolism. Second – hormones. Unless you know what that cow ate.
- Eat broth-based soup for lunch, it fills you up. Watch out for beans in soups – they are caloric.
- Ditch flour. Personally, eating bread once a week and having pasta once a week curbed my cravings, and help me continue in my weight loss.
- No alcohol. Once a month max. Seltzers count as well, no matter the 2g carbs on the label.
Water retention
PMS, too much salt, too many carbs, alcohol, not drinking enough water, or sitting too long promotes water retention. In the past, I struggled with drinking water, I just wasn’t thirsty. I need some flavor in the water. So I drank more lemon water (although it can get boring), vitamin water, and herbal tea.
Finally, my diet for slim legs
As you probably have a clue by now, I mostly keep myself on a low-carb diet. I allow myself to have two normal food days – Saturday and Sunday. These days I have a burger, or sandwich, or pasta. Maybe a cookie. Or a donut for breakfast. Or going out to a restaurant. But I try to stay active for most of the day – vacuuming the house, doing laundry, house cleaning, gardening, etc. And I never overeat.
Sounding difficult, but low carb diet is simple to follow. It doesn’t mean you don’t eat carbs at all; you just replace rice with cauliflower rice. Eat more kale, cucumbers, watermelon, asparagus, broccoli, red peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, and greens. Foods with high water content.
Okay, I get it, it was a lot even for me. Do you know what I did? I went to the grocery store’s frozen food section. Brands like Atkins, Lean Cuisine, and Healthy Choice offer low-carb and high-protein frozen meals. My favorites are the Power Bowls from Healthy Choice. They were an ideal solution because I knew exactly how many calories I ate. It was helpful because back then I had no idea what to cook, and what the ratio of carbs, proteins, and fats should be. Frankly, the first two weeks were torture, I was hungry.
Being on the frozen food for the third month, it’s getting boring. As of now, I’m making a transition to cooking my low-carb food. The system I plan to follow is to prep my food a week in advance, and pull it out of the freezer every day. Thanks to the frozen food I learned the portion size and amount of macros I need to eat.
Eating as I wrote above, makes my meals look like this:
- breakfast: eggs, yogurt with berries, or a protein shake
- lunch: a large bowl of broth-based soup with a lot of meat and veggies
- dinner: frozen food
- snacks: carrot, celery stalk, apple, pear, watermelon, sometimes prosciutto.
I’m taking vitamin supplements to have enough vitamin D, iron, and other nutrients. Diet is just a slice of success, workouts are very important. For that reason, read my post about workout routines that helped me lose thigh fat will tell you more about my strategy to target stubborn thigh fat.
Would you like to know what workout routine helped me lose thigh fat? Read more in my blog post “Workouts For Slim Legs”.