How come my legs aren't getting any smaller?

[peace-love-couture]

Since about a month before prom(so April) I began long distance running. When I first began, I was eating like 1200 calories a day. At the same time, I also did Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred once a day but stopped.

Up until I finished summer one classes I continued long distance running but without a diet. When I finished classes, I was able to track my eating habits more than before

Now I'm eating very little, still running long distance and I'm not seeing any results. I don't get what's wrong with me or my body

My legs are literally like this. They're too muscular and too big and I want to make them skinny-fattish, so soft and thin link

I enjoy running cause it's free and convenient for me. I know I've already been suggested the Tracy Anderson Method, but I guess I'm trying to avoid buying more dvds and stuff

I DO go to the gym using my friends one month guest pass ha

Any suggestions?

My goal is from muscular to skinny-fat and thin

:p

[WeaponZero]

There is no safe way to lose muscle mass unless you have an abnormally high amount, meaning you built it up through bodybuilding style activities. The only way your muscles will begin to wear away is if you let your malnutrition get to the point where you begin suffering other health related problems as well, symptoms akin to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. You have to let yourself get down to the level those people are at in order to actually lose muscle mass, and at that point you're pretty much on a quick road to the E.R.

[TheDigitalSaint]

Good lord, if only more girls had legs like those! Peace, you are being way too harsh on yourself. Those legs look fabulous. Muscle fiber doesn't just disappear overnight, it takes a while to vanish, and usually then only after you've starved yourself to a considerable degree, which isn't a good idea. In short, there's not much you can do safely, not to mention, I HONESTLY do not think you need to do so.

[peace-love-couture]

No, I'm not being harsh. It's my body and I'm unhappy with what my legs look like. Why shouldn't I change them if it'll make me happy and content with myself?

And I know it won't happen overnight but I've been doing this since April and it's starting to annoy me

[TheDigitalSaint]

That's because muscle doesn't just vanish. Muscle is built by constant tearing and growth of fibers. When you build up all that muscle, it is because you've really enforced your legs like concrete. Concrete is tough as heck to bust up. The only thing your really can do to loose muscle fast is to curtail your calories to a bare minimum and starve your body. The muscle isn't going anywhere any time quickly unless you really eat next to nothing.

[peace-love-couture]

I only eat one small meal a day though

That's why it's getting annoying

I'm basically living off of water and green tea and then my small dinner

[TheDigitalSaint]

Like I said, muscles don't just vanish once built up. Your body has a low fat percentage to begin with from all the exercise and your metabolism sounds like it is in good working order. The problem is that you've been healthy and active, if you consider that a problem. I'm being completely honest with you, there's not much you can do without further reducing your calories, not that I recommend that. You can fatten up a bit by eating junk food, but that's not going to shed the muscles.

[peace-love-couture]

ok, the most I can do is eat nothing. great

[TheDigitalSaint]

Hey, I'm not one to give out false hope. Once someone builds up some serious muscle, that muscle can last a year or more before it starts breaking down with normal dieting and minimal exercise. I studied this a lot when I was a gym manager. Girls who did track, basketball, etc. all had big legs and when they tried to loose it quickly, I gave them a bit of harsh honesty. My main goal was to make sure they didn't get an eating disorder over body shape.

[peace-love-couture]

well I need some way to make them smaller but whatever

maybe someone else can recommend something

[TheDigitalSaint]

You can try compression underwear to slim the legs down a bit when you wear the dress, but they are uncomfortable.

[peace-love-couture]

I want them to actually be small

I want small, thin legs. Not to wear spanx or compression shorts/underwear

[TheDigitalSaint]

I'm just throwing it all out there. Short of the process of time (if you aren't going to starve yourself), muscles shrink slowly, especially after they are very well built up. As you don't have forever, the only other option if you don't want to go the compression route is eating even less. Dense muscle fiber is a stubborn thing to lose.

[TheDigitalSaint]

Oh, and completely stop running. Do some mild cardio, but don't go hardcore regularly. Cut down on both the duration and intensity of your running. Sorry, I didn't notice that you mentioned that earlier in your question.

[peace-love-couture]

ok, well people on here told me to do long distance running or long steady cardio

[TheDigitalSaint]

Absolutely not. No leg presses, no resistance training of any sort and greatly reduce the cardio as well. Cardio, while burning fat is great, but it will also build some muscle in your legs. Do a mild session at a slow speed once or twice a week to keep from getting stiff and lacking mobility. You can even cut it out completely and do stretches. Whoever gave you the advice to run was COMPLETELY wrong.

[TheDigitalSaint]

Think about it. Every time you run, you lift your leg and press off the ground. That pressing action is like lifting weights with your legs, just that your body weight IS THE WEIGHT. Less to no exercise is what you want, not more, even of cardio.

[TheDigitalSaint]

Peace, as part of being a gym manager I received ISSA certification, which is a personal training professional organization. If you have any fitness questions, please, feel free to private message me or send me a link to your question.

[peace-love-couture]

I think they said that because 1) they suck and the users who tell me that only like fat legs and 2) they may have been basing it off of what marathon runners look like...thin & without muscle

[TheDigitalSaint]

Once again, if someone doesn't have professional experience working people out, knowledge how the body works in general or no certification in personal training or medicine in general, you should seriously consider their health advice suspect. At best, they may be spitting out nonsense in good faith, at worse, they could give you really bad and counterproductive advice like what happened here. Ditch all cardio/resistance and just stretch to stay limber.

[peace-love-couture]

ok

No more working out then :p

They either did it on purpose or they're truly clueless

But I think it's the clueless thing

Dunno

[TheDigitalSaint]

Enjoy a little bit of downtime. With less running, you're burning less calories, so you can keep your eating the same without feeling like you are hungry all the time. If you can go less now that you aren't burning the calories running, you can do that too. As long as you aren't feeling dizzy or have really low blood pressure or sugar, then you're fine.

[peace-love-couture]

I'm already eating less than 400 or so calories a day

[TheDigitalSaint]

Say what? That's nothing. Certainly don't reduce it any further then. Just skip the exercise.

[peace-love-couture]

how long should it take to see results?

My goal is probably along these lines: link

link

link

about how long? I know it won't happen overnight but I'm curious

[TheDigitalSaint]

It depends a lot on genetics. Not knowing what your genes are like, I can't honestly give you very accurate prediction. A few months should see at least some shrinkage. Muscle shrinkage isn't something you really plot out time wise like fat loss. I wish I could give you a more detailed answer, but genes are going to be the ultimate judge of how much muscle you'll loose over time.

[peace-love-couture]

god I hate my body

[TheDigitalSaint]

Hey, easy does it. Your body is healthy, lets be thankful for that, right? Give it time.

[peace-love-couture]

I don't really care about health or being healthy.

maybe there's surgery I can look into

I hate that my body is prone to muscle and I hate that I allowed my legs to get this gross

anyways, thanks

[TheDigitalSaint]

You'v been running like crazy, of course your legs are going to be big. Removing muscle fiber via surgery is a really bad idea, as you can damage the remaining fibers which can totally F your body up when you get older and need those muscles after they start deteriorating due to the aging process.

[peace-love-couture]

I'd rather be happy while young and unhappy while old

I just hate that my legs got this disgusting.

[TheDigitalSaint]

All this debating about a healthy body is killing me. I find this conversation mentally and emotionally taxing. lol

[peace-love-couture]

thank you ^.^

[TheDigitalSaint]

Thanks for BA. I hope you learn to love your body in time. You remind me of another girl on here that needs a little encouragement but shall remain nameless. :)

[peace-love-couture]

I think I know who you're talking about and I agree with her needing to love her body and herself, but for me it's not about loving my body, it's about changing it so I can be content with it

[TheDigitalSaint]

You can change to a degree, just being patient is the hard part. :)

[loveisbeautiful]

It just dawned on me yesterday, the reason people work out, is to lose body fat. But, if what

you're trying to do, is lose muscle. Then by running and working out, you're only gaining

more muscle. See you can lose body fat, but you can't lose muscle. You can only gain it,

so you're probably only going to get more muscular, not less!

Hey, if you don't believe me, look it up!

[justagirl42]

it's just your genetics to have legs like that learn to love them...some girl is rolling her eyes at you for even complaining about this LOL

I guess you could try doing pilates they tend to give that long lean look to muscle

[xoxoxoxo]

hostly.. girls that have "skinny-fattish" legs have them because they don't work out as much as you do. they don't run that much. if they do they usually do more sprints than anything..

[EverythingReal]

Well long distance running is a good way to build up muscle...not lose it...

I would suggest YouTube videos.

[SeaGlass]

wow if your legs look like that why do you want to change? they are perfect.

[wertsdfg]

I feel like I've seen this question before somewhere.

[peace-love-couture]

...I've asked similar

if it helps, I did ask a Q today about legs lol but it was in the sexuality section

[wertsdfg]

Have you asked this question in other forums? You might have luck somewhere else if you aren't getting much help around here. I just notice that you ask a lot of questions about your legs and then seem peeved when you don't get any helpful answers.

[peace-love-couture]

No, I haven't

There are people on here who know how to answer my question(s) but they choose not to and instead lecture me on how I should feel about my own body

So yes, I get annoyed

And I'm not sure why you would contribute to my being annoyed by not even answering

[wertsdfg]

I did answer by suggesting that you ask this question elsewhere. This isn't exactly a community of experts on all varieties of things.

[peace-love-couture]

That's not an answer

bye

[wertsdfg]

You seriously don't think that's good advice? I don't know the answer to your question. Most people don't, because I don't think there's a healthy way to achieve what you want to achieve. Instead of being silent, I tried to point you towards the help you seek.

Use Google instead of GAG. It's a much more useful site sometimes.

[peace-love-couture]

Already got my answer down below

[Morningglory3]

Tracy does have stuff on YouTube.

[jay6994]

lol. wow that's hot. please don't change