Many people want to lose fat around their legs. Focusing on exercises that tone the leg muscles, and making lifestyle changes to lose weight, can help people achieve this.

Everyone has some leg fat, and how much a person has varies among individuals. It is, however, more common for females to store fat in their legs than males.

While it is not possible to reduce weight loss in one specific area of the body, people can achieve toned legs by doing exercises that target and strengthen key leg muscles, while reducing body fat overall.

In this article, we look at ways to tone the leg muscles and reduce body fat. Using a combination of the following techniques will be most effective.

According to sports research, it is not possible to target weight loss to just one area of the body. If a person starts losing weight, they tend to do so across their entire body. This means that any weight loss techniques can work for reducing leg fat.

In one small-scale study, researchers asked volunteers to do 960 to 1200 leg press repetitions for 12 weeks using just one leg. The results indicated that the training was effective in reducing fat mass all over the body and not only in the trained leg.

Exercise is one of the best ways to reduce body fat, including leg fat. When developing an exercise program, the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends using both strength training and aerobic exercise.

Strength training involves performing exercises against resistance to build strength and muscular endurance. Forms of strength training include using dumbbells, resistance bands, and bodyweight exercises. Strength training builds lean body mass and may help decrease body fat.

The American College of Sports Medicine recommend performing 810 multi-joint exercises 23 times a week. Multi-joint exercises work various muscles at the same time, which burns more calories and encourages weight loss.

Strength training, multi-joint exercises that can help tone and define the leg muscles include:

Aerobic exercise is cardiovascular training that increases the heart rate and breathing rate. It includes activities such as:

Aerobic exercise can consist of working at a steady pace or doing intervals, which involves alternating between high and lower intensity. Aerobic exercise burns calories, which may promote overall fat loss.

Regular aerobic exercise also makes your heart and lungs stronger.

One small-scale study assessed the effectiveness of sprint interval running on decreasing fat mass in women. They reported that 15 women who ran sprints 3 times a week for 6 weeks reduced their body fat by 8%.

There is no one specific diet that aids in losing leg fat. In general, a person will lose weight if they use up more calories than they take in. Healthful foods usually have fewer calories, such as fruits and vegetables. The best diet for an individual is one that they can stick with.

For a healthful diet, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommend eating:

Eating plenty of high fiber foods can help with weight loss. The body takes longer to digest high fiber foods, so they make a person feel fuller for longer.

Many people turn to low carbohydrate diets, which involve restricting carbs and eating foods high in protein and healthful fats. Studies show mixed results on whether these diets work better than others, but some research suggests low carb diets are effective for weight loss.

One randomized control trial, for example, reported that people following a low carbohydrate diet saw a more significant reduction in weight than those on a low fat diet.

When people lose weight, they tend to do so all over their body. Some people lose fat in certain areas before others, and this varies between people. Eating a healthful diet will have many health benefits alongside weight loss.

Read more about the benefits of healthful eating here.

Alcohol intake can contribute to weight gain. Alcohol often contains a high number of calories and does not provide nutritional value. Drinking too much can contribute to excessive increases in body fat.

In addition to the calories from alcohol, drinking large amounts of alcohol may also lead to poor nutritional choices, such as overeating. Avoiding overconsumption of alcohol may help reduce weight gain and the development of leg fat.

High stress levels can have adverse effects on a person's health, and that may include excessive weight gain. Stress may lead to changes in appetite and overeating. Chronic stress also affects hormone production, which contributes to weight gain and an increase in fat across the body.

One 2017 study reported that people with higher levels of baseline stress gained more weight over 6 months than those with lower stress levels.

Finding ways to relax, such as meditation, deep breathing, box breathing, and relaxation exercises may help combat chronic stress.

Not getting enough sleep may increase a person's chances of gaining weight, including leg fat. Sleep plays a part in the regulation of various hormones, including those that may affect hunger. For example, the hormones leptin and ghrelin, which help regulate appetite, are both affected by lack of sleep.

Sleep deprivation causes an increase in ghrelin, which stimulates the appetite. At the same time, lack of sleep decreases the production of leptin, which reduces hunger. The change in hormone production can lead to overeating and weight gain, resulting in more leg fat.

Getting enough sleep, which the National Sleep Foundation recommend to be 79 hours a night, helps regulate hormone production.

It is not possible to reduce fat on the legs alone. However, reducing body weight, in general, can also help decrease leg fat. The best way to lose leg fat is by combining exercise, diet, and a healthful lifestyle. Exercise should include both aerobic exercise and strength training.

Read about more tips for successful weight loss.

Decreasing the number of calories consumed also promotes fat loss. There is a variety of diet approaches available. Individuals concerned about their overall body fat or leg fat should talk with their doctor to determine the best options for losing weight.

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How to lose leg fat: Exercises and other methods - Medical News Today

As we enter the holiday season, Americans are abandoning their attempts to be healthy and half will break their diet to give into the temptation of holiday food, according to new research.

The survey of 2,000 Americans who celebrate a winter holiday found that 47 percent have given into the lure of their favorite treats and ended up quitting their diet as a result.

But theyre not alone in making unhealthy decisions at the end of the year results of the second annual Writing Off the End of the Year survey found that 41 percent use the holidays as an excuse to postpone being healthy, compared to 47 percent the previous year.

Commissioned by Herbalife Nutrition and conducted by OnePoll, the survey found that for those taking a start again in January approach, a third start postponing their healthy habits by mid-November.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said it was hardest to stay healthy during the winter holiday season, and food is a major reason why.

Forty-four percent admit to having eaten more than one dessert at a meal, while 36 percent have eaten more than one holiday dinner in a day and 30 percent say theyve had to undo a button on their pants because of eating too much.

In fact, the average person expects to gain six pounds during the holiday season, according to both the 2018 and this years survey.

The biggest food temptations were found to be cookies (53 percent), pies or cakes (53 percent) and home-cooked holiday meals (44 percent).

And the survey found that three in 10 actually plan to eat more during the holidays specifically because their New Years resolution is to be healthier.

In addition to overindulging, not getting enough exercise was another reason respondents might be piling on the pounds during the holidays.

Twenty-seven percent of respondents say they exercise less during the holidays and of those, the average time spent working out each week was two hours less than usual.

Interestingly, this years survey showed that respondents are less optimistic about their ability to stay healthy in the new year (45 percent), as compared to 2018 in which 54 percent believed their efforts would be successful.

Enjoying the holidays doesnt mean you have to completely abandon your attempts to be healthy and make healthy choices, says Dr. John Agwunobi, co-president and chief health and nutrition officer at Herbalife Nutrition.

Healthy snacking is a useful tool in combating overindulgence. Consuming protein-rich snacks before heading out to a holiday feast can help make you feel full, so that you dont overindulge.

But with January comes a new year, new me attitude and results found that 33 percent are planning to make a New Years resolution compared to 34 percent last year.

The top resolution for the second consecutive year is to exercise more, but it ranked higher among last years respondents (71 percent vs. 59 percent).

For those looking ahead to 2020, this was followed by eating healthier (59 percent) and saving more money (53 percent).

Staying on track can be hard especially if you are tackling it on your own. Developing a support system of people who know your goals, strengths and weaknesses can be extremely beneficial in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, especially during the challenging times of the year, Dr. Agwunobi added.

More here:
The top tempting holiday treats Americans abandon their diets for - New York Post

Not many people can get excited about plaque, but Christina Warinner loves the stuff.

The recently appointed assistant professor of anthropology in FAS and Sally Starling Seaver Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute, Warinner was among the first researchers to realize that calcified plaque, otherwise known as dental calculus, could shed new light on everything from ancient diet and disease to the spread of dairying and the roles of women in society.

Its like a time capsule, she said. Its the single richest source of ancient DNA in the archaeological record. There are so many things we can learn from it everything from pollution in the environment to peoples occupations to aspects of health. Its all in there.

And it was a discovery, Warinner said, that happened almost entirely by accident.

After receiving her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in the Anthropology Departments archaeology program, the Kansas native took a postdoc at the University of Zurich in what was then the new Center for Evolutionary Medicine. There she set out to investigate whether it would be possible to identify pathogens in the archaeological record to study the evolution of diseases. She chose dental caries, or cavities, as a case study, because they are visible amid skeletal remains and abundant in the archaeological record. She set out to examine whether the bacteria that caused caries in ancient teeth could be identified genetically.

I started to notice all this dental calculus, which is very common on teeth, and was always getting in the way, she said. Most people would just take it off and throw it away, but I thought it could be interesting, so I turned that thought around and looked at it from a different angle.

As a side project, I started applying genomic and proteomic techniques to it, which hadnt been done before, she continued. Its not perfect, and not everything preserves but it turns out we can say an awful lot about the past through calculus.

Applying genomic tools has allowed Warinner to get the clearest picture yet of not only ancient genomes, but ancient microbiomes as well.

We have a project running now on the evolution of the oral microbiome where we are comparing looking at New World monkeys, gorillas, chimpanzees, Neanderthals, and a diverse range of humans, she said. Were looking to see if there are shifts in oral microbial communities through time, and whether functional shifts might indicate changes in diet or other adaptations.

[Plaque is] like a time capsule. Its the single richest source of ancient DNA in the archaeological record. There are so many things we can learn from it everything from pollution in the environment to peoples occupations to aspects of health. Its all in there.

Christina Warinner

She also investigates paleofeces, and another project in her lab focuses on understanding recent evolution in the gut microbiome. A number of studies have shown that the gut microbiome of traditional societies around the world is very differently structured than that of industrialized populations. We can tell that it is the industrialized gut microbiome that has changed, but the question is: Over what time scale? Is it 100 years? A thousand years? Ten thousand years? What caused it to shift? Was it agriculture? Was it industrialization?

Answering those questions, Warinner said, is important from a public health perspective as well as a historical one.

The thing that characterizes, more than anything else, the industrialized gut microbiome is a lack of diversity, she said. Microbial loss may lead to reduced resiliency and a higher susceptibility to disease. Conditions like Crohns disease, IBD [inflammatory bowel disease], and many gastrointestinal disorders share, as a common feature, reduced or altered microbial diversity, and it may be that theres something about our current, industrialized diet that is driving this pattern.

In addition to modern ailments, Warinners work has also shed light on one of the most mysterious puzzles in medical history the cause of a 16th-century epidemic that decimated the indigenous populations of colonial Mexico and Central America, and that was known only as cocoliztli, the Aztec word for pestilence.

Most people know that when the Spanish came to the Americas they introduced a number of diseases, she said. In the 16th century alone, there were 11 documented epidemics, including an outbreak of smallpox in 1520 that contributed to the fall of the Aztec Empire. However, the worst epidemic the one considered to be the single greatest killer in terms of loss of life occurred two decades later in 1545, and neither the Spanish nor the Aztecs knew what it was.

Though researchers had debated the exact nature of the epidemic for more than four centuries, with hypotheses ranging from influenza to plague to hemorrhagic fever, there was scant evidence to support any one theory.

In 2006, Warinner, then a grad student, was part of a team of archaeologists who stumbled onto a mass burial site for cocoliztli victims, but it wasnt until 2018 that she and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute finally were able to identify a rare strain of Salmonella enterica that they believe was responsible for the epidemic.

Warinner has also used the study of dental calculus to shed light on cultural practices, including the production of medieval books.

Several years ago, we started a study on periodontal disease and as part of that study we analyzed the teeth of individuals buried at a small medieval monastery in Germany. Quite unexpectedly, we found that one womans dental calculus was full of blue crystals we later determined to be pigment from lapis lazuli, she said. At the time, that was one of the rarest and most expensive mineral pigments in Europe, and the only explanation that made sense was that she must have used the pigment, likely as an illustrator. Only a very skilled artist would have been entrusted with such a valuable substance, and here it was on the teeth of a woman buried at a rural womens religious community. So this discovery revealed new information about trade routes and the more extensive use of this pigment during this early time period, as well as the involvement of women in art.

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Researcher looks at plaque to gain insight about the past - Harvard Gazette

High blood pressure naturally fluctuates throughout the day and this is normal, but when it remains consistently high, even when resting, this can spell trouble. It means that your heart has to work harder to pump blood around your body, and, while this process may seem harmless, over time it can cause hike the risk of developing deadly diseases like heart attack or stroke. To prevent the condition from escalating, it is important to make healthy lifestyle changes to lower your blood pressure.

Eating a heart-healthy diet plays a key role in lowering blood pressure and studies have found an association between drinking certain beverages and lowering blood pressure.

Here are three blood-pressure friendly drinks:

In a study published in Food Science & Nutrition, drinking unsalted tomato juice lowered blood pressure and LDL cholesterol in Japanese adults at risk of cardiovascular disease.

LDL cholesterol is a waxy substance found in your blood and having high levels of LDL cholesterol in your blood poses the same risk as having high blood pressure, such as heart disease and stroke.

In the study, 184 male and 297 female participants were provided with as much unsalted tomato juice as they wanted throughout one year.

READ MORE:High blood pressure: Three natural supplements proven to lower your reading

Beetroot juice may help lower your blood pressure, according to one study, which found that people who drank eight ounces of beetroot juice daily lowered both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

Nitrates, compounds in beetroot juice that convert into nitric acid in the blood and help widen and relax blood vessels, are thought to be the cause.

Furthermore, another study found that participants who drank 17.6 ounces of beet juice had a lowered systolic blood pressure within hours of drinking it, suggesting it has an immediate impact.

Hibiscus tea, an herbal tea that's made by steeping parts of the hibiscus plant in boiling water, have also been shown to lower blood pressure in several studies.

In one study, 65 people with high blood pressure were given hibiscus tea or a placebo. After six weeks, those who drank hibiscus tea had a significant decrease in systolic blood pressure, compared to the placebo.

Echoing the findings, a 2015 review of five studies found that hibiscus tea decreased both systolic and diastolic blood pressure by an average of 7.58 mmHg and 3.53 mmHg, respectively.

High salt intake remains the biggest culprit of high blood pressure so cutting the amount of salt you eat is one of the quickest ways to lower your blood pressure.

According to Blood Pressure UK, an adult should eat no more than six grams of salt a day, but most people eat much more than this.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that salt is often hidden in processed foods such as bread, biscuits and breakfast cereals, and prepared ready meals or takeaways, so it is best to eat foods that are low in salt and stop using salt when cooking or at the table, advises the health site.

Originally posted here:
High blood pressure: Include these three drinks in your diet to lower your reading - Express

Hi! My name is Briana Shaffer (@brianakfitness), 25, and I'm from Carlsbad, California. I'm the CEO and owner of a fitness apparel corporation (check it out at @brianakcollection). A personal tragedy led to a period of weight gain for me, but after a wakeup call moment I decided to change my lifestyle and lost 70 pounds in the process.

After my best friend died in a car accident, it turned my world upside down. I gained 70 pounds and became depressed. My doctor told me if I didnt make a lifestyle change, I could end up having even more serious health issues down the line.

So I finally said enough was enough. And in September of 2015, I start logging everything that I was eating, a suggestion from my doctor. I was 190 pounds at only 5-feet, 4-inches when my weight-loss journey began.

I started meal prepping and followed the 80/20 rule with my diet: 80 percent of my diet was nutritious, healthy foods, and 20 percent was treats. The 80/20 style of eating has worked best for me because I am able to still enjoy the treats I love here and there, rather than only eating healthy all day every day, which isn't always sustainable. What didnt work was trying to eat chicken and broccoli every single day.

The 80/20 rule has also helped keep me from binging over the weekend. If I let myself have a cookie or a decadent, special meal during the week, I'm not looking ahead at the weekend like this rare time I have to go crazy. It's all about balance.

The 80/20 diet (although you really don't even have to think of it as a diet at all!) is also more maintainable for my lifestyle. I am still able to go out with family and friends without feeling anxious about what to eat.

Eventually, I got a gym membership and started lifting weights five times a week. Strength training helped me cope with the death of my best friend, and after every single workout, I felt stronger, happier, and more confident.

My workout schedule is currently: two full-body days, two leg days, and one arm day. I also decided that its not best for me to weigh myself. Im all about non-scale victories. Instead, I go off progress photos and how my clothes fit.

Fitness is so overwhelming, and I think people complicate it. Ive always taken it one step at a time with working out and my diet. I didn't just wake up one day able to work out five days a weekit took time and practice.

I also had to learn to let go of guilt. If you slack off one day, dont beat yourself up. Start fresh the next day. Feeling guilty will only hurt you and your progress. It's important to be kind to yourself and appreciate even those small accomplishments. You should be doing this because you love your body and want to put it first. Be proud of those baby steps that will eventually add up to the bigger goal.

You dont need supplements, weight loss teas, and pills. You dont have to give up food that you love or miss out on functions. Its all about finding that balance.

It took me two years to lose the weight. Starting my health and fitness journey changed my whole life. It helped my self-confidence in addition to my physical health. It has also helped me build a solid foundation to continue working out long term. And honestly. the biggest change has been on my mental health.

Fitness gave me a platform to help other women achieve the same self love that I now have. Fitness also opened up the doors to me now running my own company and doing what I love every single day.

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'I Lived By The 80-20 Rule And Took Up Strength TrainingAnd I Lost 70 Pounds' - Women's Health