A Pear Shaped Body
Well, if you have a pear-shaped body and carry most of your weight in the lower half of your body, I don’t have to tell you that the last thing you want to do is focus your exercise efforts on the lower body.
The first priority for slimming a pear-shaped body is to reduce body fat around the hips, butt and thighs. Contrary to what you might think though, no single butt exercise or thigh exercise will help you do this.
To reduce body fat, you must first take a good, long, hard look at what you eat. Knowing what to eat, when to eat and calculating how many calories are needed to lose weight isn’t easy. The sheer number of diet books promising to make dieting easy is proof of that.
What you need to realize is, if you are to be a slim, toned, healthy person, you must know how to eat like one. The time you spend doing this will reward you for many, many years. If you’d like some help, you can download a free copy of my e-book titled, TAKING IT OFF! by becoming a subscriber to this website. It’s free and you can unsubscribe at any time. (By the way, the sign-up box is on the rigt-hand side of this page at the top.)
Now to the exercise.
Body-Shaping Exercises For Pears
With a pear-shaped body, you should choose exercises that will…
a) Burn as many calories as possible to help with fat loss.
b) Focus on the muscles of the upper body to balance out your physique.
The best weight training exercises for burning a lot of calories are called compound exercises. Compound exercises use more than one muscle group and involve more than one joint. Examples of compound exercises include…
- Squats
- Romanian deadlifts
- Push-ups
- Bent-over rows
- Shoulder presses
Even with a pear-shaped body, you want to make sure you still exercise your legs, but you don’t need to spend as much time developing them as you do with the upper body. Since one pound of muscle takes up approximately one-third the space of fat, as long as you are losing body fat, adding a couple of pounds of muscle to your legs won’t make them look bigger.
You Can’t Take Just One Bite Out Of A Pear-Shaped Body
One mistake many people make is doing a bunch of inner thigh exercises and outer thigh exercises, thinking it will help slim down their legs. The truth is no single exercise can burn fat from any specific point on your body.
A combination of a balanced diet, hard work and time will result in the desired fat loss. Doing isolation exercises, in most cases leaves you feeling frustrated.
Now while you don’t want to put too much focus on the legs, what you can do to balance the look of your body is to do shoulder exercises like the shoulder press. By adding muscle to the shoulders, you will give your upper body a wider look, making you look less pear-like.
In addition to strength training exercises, another great exercise for a pear-shaped body is moderate- to high-intensity cardiovascular exercise.
Just as your car uses more gas when driving in the city – constantly stopping and starting, you can burn more calories by speeding up and slowing down the pace at which your workout.
What’s The BEST Cardio Exericse For A Pear-Shaped Body?
When I was a personal trainer, one of the most frequently asked questions was “Which cardio exercise is best for losing weight?” The short answer is…
The best exercise is the one you’ll stick with.
Some people say riding an exercise bike doesn’t burn a lot of calories. Yet, I love my bike and will use it way more than I would a treadmill – the machine of choice for many.
So, I would ask, which burns more calories…
A bike I’ll use or a treadmill I won’t?
Whichever form of exercise you choose is irrelevant. Just be consistent and make sure you work hard at it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the higher the intensity of your workout, the more calories you’ll burn. Don’t overdo it. But make sure you don’t short-change yourself by not working out hard enough either.
If you’re new to exercise, the best thing you can do is enlist the help of a professional to help design a fitness and exercise program you’ll stick with and that will deliver the results you’re looking for.
Hiring a good, qualified personal trainer can be the fastest way to your goals. But for many people, it can cost you $60 an hour or more to hire a skilled fitness professional. That’s why I highly recommend Global Fitness. They’re an online group of fitness professionals that can help you achieve your fitness and weight loss goals.
If you’re a self-starter, you may find an inexpensive e-book to be helpful. If that’s the case, consider purchasing Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle by Tom Venuto. As far as I’ve seen, it’s the most comprehensive guide on burning fat and building a lean, strong body. And because it’s sold through ClickBank, it comes with a 60-day guarantee. You get 60 days to “test-drive” Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle and if you don’t like it, you can simply request your money back.
Burn the fat Feed the muscle changed my life… I also recommend that very much…
BFFM is indeed a great e-book. The only challenge with it is its sheer volume. It’s enormous and packed full of goodness. Some people may not take the time to read it all…
And that’s a shame.
Hello!
How are you?i am anu i have pear shape figure plz can you tell best exercise.
Hello Anu,
I’ve outlined the best exercises in the article. But focus on compound exercises like push-ups, chest press, seated or dumbbell rows, squats, deadlifts and shoulder presses. Sticking with those, you can’t go wrong.
if I am a overweight pear shape (which I am) would jumping on a trampoleen be benificial for me?, and what about those new walking in sand simulating shoes?
it is very helpful thanks
@Chanchal… You’re welcome. Hope it helps.
@ Katie… Anything that gets you moving and burning calories will help. The MOST important thing you can ask yourself when it comes to exercise is, “Will I stick with it? Is it something I enjoy doing?”
Personally, I think trampolines are great exercise. I take diving lessons with my daughter – the kind where you jump off of diving boards, not the kind that requires flippers.
For dryland training, we work on large trampolines. And I can tell you, after just 5 minutes of jumping around, I’m huffing and puffing.
So whether it’s a trampoline or special shoes, do what you enjoy and do it as much as possible.
Hi, if I follow this regimen, will I automatically lose my breast size?It seems that pear shapes lose our chest before our hips&i really like my current chest size
Hi Liz,
Since breast tissue is mostly fat, you can expect a reduction in breast size any time you take part in a weight loss or fat loss program. But by doing chest exercises, like dumbbell chest presses, you can help firm up your chest and make it appear fuller.
This is just what I was looking for thanks for the info.
Been searching for awhile for something like this great info very useful.
I workout 5 days a week. Three of those days I run 4-5 miles and then go to the gym and lift for about 30 followed by stretching, on the days I do not run I do about 30-40 min of cardio followed by lifting. I have 10 lbs to go until I reach my goal weight (I use to weigh 230 at 5′3″) of 130. I feel like I have plateaued. I follow the Eat Clean diet and stick with it. I just cant get the rest of the weight to budge. I am a pear shape do you have any suggestions? Thank you.
what is a good diet for pear shaped people i need to lose 20 lbs and my husband is apple shaped and on the low carb diet it that good for me to?
This is my body type and it sucks. To really get where you want you’ll need both a better diet and more exercise.
I’ve found that I prefer an eliptical machine over treadmill or bike.
Hi Tracee, First congratulations on your weight loss success. When you hit a plateau, you sometimes have to mix things up. Change the pace of your running; change the weight training routine you follow and even try eating a few more calories for a couple of days.
Hi Angel, I’m partial to The Zone diet or The Formula 40/30/30. I have found that I react best, both from a weight maintenance point of view and from an emotional point of view, when I follow a diet moderate in carbs, higher in protein and higher in fat.
Also, keep in mind that your trouble spots will always be the last place you see the fat go. Try not to focus on your “trouble spots” but rather focus on becoming healthier overall.
Take care.
Can cycling uphills or simply cycling beneficial to pears?
Beneficial in what way? Reducing the pear shape? Becoming healthier? Improving cardiovascular fitness?
Cycling can help to reduce overall body fat levels, making you a smaller pear. But being a predominantly lower body exercise, cycling can also increase leg muscle mass. You may find the muscles in you butt and thighs getting bigger, which can add to the pear shape.
I am 5′9″ and 140 pounds people always guess me to be about 10-20 pounds lighter than my actual weight. I really I am the perfect weight for my height. If i lost wieght I would look anorexic. I just want to get rid of my saddle bags but i like the size of my thighs and love my butt. What can I do to just get rid of the saddle bags? I am really warming up to the idea of strength training for my upper body to balance out everything but am afraid of having muscular arms. Also how do I maintain my dip at the waist with ab excercises? I noticed that women who work their abs have flat defined abs but do not dip in at the sides of their waists. They look like this: http://www.musclesprod.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/women-abs.jpg
but i want to continue to look like this http://thetruthaboutcorestrength.com/image/pilates-ant1.jpg
Well, I’m a teenager and I’ve been jumping rope consistently for more than 2 years.. I do it daily for a half hour atleast. Besides making my legs look more muscular, it hasn’t really helped me look lean. Suggestions?
I’m 5′5 and weigh 54 kg by the way.
Without knowing a great deal about you, my first recommendation is to look at what you eat. Start by tracking your meals. Plug them into a software program that will show you how many calories you’re eating. Then you can see where you may need to improve.
IM A PEAR ONLY 23 yrs and weigh 90 KG.HOW DO I LOSE D FAT
The best thing you can do to lose fat is learn how to eat. I would recommend going to my new site… http:/www.pearshapedbody.net and sign up to receive info specifically designed to help you lose excess fat.