# How to get rid of leg muscle?



## Vividly (Aug 11, 2014)

My girlfriend wanted to lose weight, so someone recommended her to do tons of leg squats/workouts.

After around 2-3 months, her legs got really big - and it was the exact opposite of what she wanted. So basically, she'd like to bring all that muscle mass away from her legs/thighs (not fat, but literally 'muscle') and slim down it a lotttt.

I recommended her to do a ton of cardio, alongside having a proper diet. :/

So does anyone have any tips/recommendations on slimming down your legs after too much leg workouts?


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## Dehabilitated (May 31, 2015)

this makes me sad. I wish she'd keep the muscle. She shouldn't try to make herself less healthy for some bizarre standard of beauty. Unless she was taking testosterone during that time, her legs wouldn't even be that big anyway.


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## scooby (Jun 24, 2009)

The way to lose muscle is to not use those muscles, and not eat much. So you'll need to carry her around, or get her a wheelchair.


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## BeingofFlesh (May 14, 2015)

scooby said:


> The way to lose muscle is to not use those muscles, and not eat much. So you'll need to carry her around, or get her a wheelchair.


Lmao at the wheelchair option 

Fast track to skinny legs, that's clever haha


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## Grog (Sep 13, 2013)

Do f all , eat f all , take up smoking both crack and ciggies . 
Be skinny in no time at all 

Lol

This is really bad advice 

Lol

But it would most probably work 

Lol


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## SofaKing (May 9, 2014)

What she needs to do is stretching exercises to see if she can elongate the muscles she's developed. Yoga would be good for her.

Getting rid of the muscle? Bad.


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## HanSolo (Jul 5, 2013)

I knew a former fat girl and so she had big calves and didn't like them. I don't know how little they would have to be used to start shrinking, but a really long time I think. Especially if the person is active walking/standing any amount.

I haven't been doing much at all for my biceps (or anything thing else) this past +1 years, and day to day I lift nothing heavy, and I've been on a semi- to real diet without enough protein really.....I can see the difference in size and strength I've lost, but yeah its pretty dam slow.

Tell her to forget about it, it will takes years


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## RelinquishedHell (Apr 10, 2012)

Lots of squats means a nice tight a**. What's the problem?


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## sajs (Jan 3, 2015)

Vividly said:


> My girlfriend wanted to lose weight, so someone recommended her to do tons of leg squats/workouts.
> 
> After around 2-3 months, her legs got really big - and it was the exact opposite of what she wanted. So basically, she'd like to bring all that muscle mass away from her legs/thighs (not fat, but literally 'muscle') and slim down it a lotttt.
> 
> ...


ok, anyone saying doing cardio will help, I don't think it is a logical answer. First of all, al cardio excercises involve heavy use of the legs; walking, running, and especially jumping. So that will inevitably TRAIN her LEGS.

I think she needs to stick with no excercises at all, just a healthy diet provided if possible by a nutritionist.


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## Vividly (Aug 11, 2014)

LOL, thanks for most of the serious messages.

I'm not going to focus on changing her, this is all her decision and i've already argued with her on multiple accounts about this. I'll let her do whatever she pleases, even if its all for 'beauty' standards. 
So far, her and I are extremely self concious - so we promised eachother each and every Saturday that we'd take 'progress' pictures every week we work out to try and get ourselves out there. She has been doing yoga on an average of 3 days a week and doing around 30 minutes to an hour depending on how tired she is from working around 3-4 times a week, aswell. 

Now for another tips might i ask you guys - in losing 'cellulite' in her stomach, does doing ab workouts help? She does have a little bit of fat and wrinkles on her tummy, but i'm afraid to tell her to do ab workouts because it make make her gain more mass than lose. So, following more in tips and tricks for losing muscle in her legs - does anyone have any advice on both of these subjects? I keep hearing different things. Running makes her gain muscle in her legs, but i often always thought that it makes her lose the muscle after she loses all the meat surrounding it. Same goes with doing ab workouts. I know diet is like 70-80% of this, but i really just need help with the work out portion.

Thanks guys in advanced. Been really helpful! ^.^


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## sajs (Jan 3, 2015)

Vividly said:


> LOL, thanks for most of the serious messages.
> 
> I'm not going to focus on changing her, this is all her decision and i've already argued with her on multiple accounts about this. I'll let her do whatever she pleases, even if its all for 'beauty' standards.
> So far, her and I are extremely self concious - so we promised eachother each and every Saturday that we'd take 'progress' pictures every week we work out to try and get ourselves out there. She has been doing yoga on an average of 3 days a week and doing around 30 minutes to an hour depending on how tired she is from working around 3-4 times a week, aswell.
> ...


I think no, it is the same for men, if we train abs and we have some fat, we dont lose it, in fact, then it is more harder to lose. The solution to that will be cardio, which already is a problem for her since that will reinforce the muscles on her legs. So I guess ... 1 step at a time, focus on losing the leg muscles by going on a healthy diet and NO cardio and if she gets lucky, by the diet alone she will lose the muscles and weight.


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## Bondi (Jun 17, 2015)

Honestly, if she wants to lose weight - then don't eat, its that simple. There is absolutely no need to workout. I bulked up for a while and got too fat - so I counted calories and calculated for a 2.5lb fat loss per week (around 1200 calories a day) and held this for 2-months straight losing the 20lbs of fat; I did not workout at all during this period. Btw 3500 calories = 1 lb of fat, its that simple! Of course you need self control...

As far as purposely losing muscle, the best way is to NOT eat healthy, you want to starve yourself like maybe 900 calories a day or something for example and force the muscles to go catabolic. When your body enters starvation mode it will begin to prioritize and keep fat reserves for future use (prepare for worst), meaning it will go catabolic and begin to eat muscle first - not all fat. If you don't go catabolic and eat a comfortable amount, even on a light diet, then your body will not prioritize and will likely want to burn all fat first before turning to the muscles. 

Of course simply not working out legs with weights over the next 12-20 months should eliminate the leg muscle gains she made too; light walking running should be okay, but will slow degradation a little.


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## Bondi (Jun 17, 2015)

sajs said:


> I think no, it is the same for men, if we train abs and we have some fat, we dont lose it, in fact, then it is more harder to lose.


^^^This, you can't target fat loss - your genetics determine fat distribution, all you can do is lose weight until you look good - your genetics will determine where that fat is lost. So the goal needs to be overall weight loss, the whole idea of working out abs to lose stomach fat is perhaps the biggest scam ever haha.


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## cat001 (Nov 1, 2010)

Long distance jogging will encourage lean muscle (slow twitch muscle), sprinting encourages bulk muscle (fast twitch muscle) so as long as she doesn't do sprints she could develop leaner leg muscles through steady jogging (and healthy diet combo obviously) and decrease the fast twitch muscle over time. Look at the difference between distance runners and sprinters, there's a stark difference in muscle composition.


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## Vividly (Aug 11, 2014)

Bondi said:


> Honestly, if she wants to lose weight - then don't eat, its that simple. There is absolutely no need to workout. I bulked up for a while and got too fat - so I counted calories and calculated for a 2.5lb fat loss per week (around 1200 calories a day) and held this for 2-months straight losing the 20lbs of fat; I did not workout at all during this period. Btw 3500 calories = 1 lb of fat, its that simple! Of course you need self control...
> 
> As far as purposely losing muscle, the best way is to NOT eat healthy, you want to starve yourself like maybe 900 calories a day or something for example and force the muscles to go catabolic. When your body enters starvation mode it will begin to prioritize and keep fat reserves for future use (prepare for worst), meaning it will go catabolic and begin to eat muscle first - not all fat. If you don't go catabolic and eat a comfortable amount, even on a light diet, then your body will not prioritize and will likely want to burn all fat first before turning to the muscles.
> 
> Of course simply not working out legs with weights over the next 12-20 months should eliminate the leg muscle gains she made too; light walking running should be okay, but will slow degradation a little.


Thanks for the honesty!
I had no idea, that means i've been telling her the wrong things... which is completely my bad. I had thought starving yourself contributes to more fat in the long run due to binge eating. It's weird, because back around a year ago - she was the exact same weight and ate quite a bit more, but she looks a lot more 'unhealthy' now for the lack of negativity (if you understand what i'm trying to say). If i can remember, i heard that if you don't have a steady eating schedule/habit - your metabolism actually slows down because it has nothing to break down, thus when you do eventually eat - it takes a longer time to break down, and it stores more of it in your body. Correct me if i'm wrong. I have a bad habit of convincing myself of what seems to be logical in my mind (stubborness) XD. But what you're saying does make sense. So should i enforce her to go back to her old eating habits of eating like once a day?

As for muscle displacement, i heard that yoga stretches your muscles out which is why she's doing yoga. For her cardio workouts, she usually does long distance running on the treadmill along with stairs. Is this also wrong? Should i tell her to just stick with the treadmill for around an hour instead?

Again, thanks thanks thanks! Sorry for making this more complicated than it needs to be. I'm just genuinely wanting the best for her along with me learning along the way. I actually have the opposite problem. I cannot seem to gain weight and i eat a lot - and the only way for me to plausibly do it is to simply work out... so you can kind of see why i'm so distraught and confused about the entire innuendo.


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## cat001 (Nov 1, 2010)

I personally wouldn’t recommend starvation tactics and would urge you to look at diet and nutrition more holistically as food does not just effect fat and muscle but also fully effects every other aspect of your biology and physiology. Nerve impulses, brain activity, vision, organ function, cell function cardiovascular health etc…and not just the physical but also mental…sleep patterns, mood, memory, analytical ability etc. I can certainly say my sleep pattern has changed from averaging 3am sleep 12pm wake changing to 11pm sleep 7am wake without me even trying to change my sleeping patterns. Remember fat is only 1 nutrient in foods, there's a further 50+ nutrients your body will utilise.

My friends attempt to lose weight through starvation tactics, usually only eating one meal a day and often going a few days without eating. This often gets tiresome so they wind up binge eating eventually causing their weight to yoyo up and down constantly. My tactic varies in that I have a consistent eating routine, three meals a day incorporating foods such as eggs, soup, butternut squash, courgettes, asparagus, bell peppers, salmon, spinach, kale, salads, tomatoes, brown rice, couscous, lentils, seeds and nuts etc (basically mindful healthy eating) and routine exercise. I cycle a lot, go gym twice a week and go to bootcamp too. My weight has been very stable in comparison, steadily going down. One other benefit to my tactic…my friends have been completely focused on the weight and ‘looking good’ aspect whereas I’ve grown more concerned about the health aspect and allowed that to overtake my want to look good, thereby allowing me to drop that bag of personal demons off by the door. My friends also suffer with poor sleeping patterns and are often rather tired, their personal health is abysmal. Don't think the quickest results are the best, keep it paced, you two have all the time in the world.

That’s my little bit of advice anyway


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## Bondi (Jun 17, 2015)

Vividly said:


> Thanks for the honesty!
> I had no idea, that means i've been telling her the wrong things... which is completely my bad. I had thought starving yourself contributes to more fat in the long run due to binge eating. It's weird, because back around a year ago - she was the exact same weight and ate quite a bit more, but she looks a lot more 'unhealthy' now for the lack of negativity (if you understand what i'm trying to say). If i can remember, i heard that if you don't have a steady eating schedule/habit - your metabolism actually slows down because it has nothing to break down, thus when you do eventually eat - it takes a longer time to break down, and it stores more of it in your body. Correct me if i'm wrong. I have a bad habit of convincing myself of what seems to be logical in my mind (stubborness) XD. But what you're saying does make sense. So should i enforce her to go back to her old eating habits of eating like once a day?
> 
> As for muscle displacement, i heard that yoga stretches your muscles out which is why she's doing yoga. For her cardio workouts, she usually does long distance running on the treadmill along with stairs. Is this also wrong? Should i tell her to just stick with the treadmill for around an hour instead?
> ...


Hey, so I was really talking more in a clinical sense; you and cat001 are correct about binge eating being a problem in most people; I am a fan of survivor where many lose like 40 pounds, but so many of them gain it all back within months after the show! So for most people, a hardcore diet does not last due to lack of self control or dedication. If she wants to lose stomach fat or overall fat her best bet may be just a moderate calorie counting diet and her yoga or cardio (if she enjoys that, but its not necessary for fat loss, but there is no harm, its good for your heart and mind etc); then like I said if she doesn't lift weights the leg muscle gains from squats should go away in like a year.

If she's into the calorie counting idea, here is a really good calculator - it will give her a "moderate" calorie amount and an extreme one, my suggestion to avoid the above issues is to try the moderate calorie amount and see if she can stick with that, she'll want to buy a food scale, count little things like even salad dressing etc, you have to be pretty anal, but this is perhaps the most sensible way to lose weight;

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

As far as eating habits, eating once a day is absolutely fine, calories are calories it doesn't matter if you spread them out during the day or have them all at once, just do whatever you enjoy. What you are talking about may be true to a very small extent, but I wouldn't focus on backdoor ways to lose weight and such like Intermediate Fasting (leangains.com) which you are sort of hitting on, instead its probably easier for her to just to count calories for now.

As far as yourself, you sound like an ectomorph; if thats the case then I would avoid heavy cardio and just focus on lifting heavy weights and eating, maybe buy bulking powder from GNC. You can also google "ectomorph workouts" and nutrition info to get some tips, its completely possible to put on weight, you just need to lift weights and have proper protein.


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## AngelClare (Jul 10, 2012)

So, she looks like this now?










Anyway, if she diets she will lose both fat and a little muscle. Plus if she stops working out her legs she should lose whatever she gains in a few months.

To lose weight all you really need to do is stick to a low calorie diet. I mean really strict like 1000 calories per day.


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## Surly Wurly (May 9, 2015)

just dont exercise those muscles anymore.


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## WanderingSoul (Apr 22, 2012)

I haven't really done heavy squats in like 2 or 3 years, and my quads are still the same size. I don't even eat that much, either. The strength is probably gone, but the size is still there.


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