As you workout, you gain more muscle that will ultimately replace your fat. There will be a period of time where your body has both this newly formed muscle AND fat. This is basically like a transition period for your body. Hence, your thighs are a little bigger until the fat is burned away.
You won't get big legs if you walk
And yet, many people believe that this exercise can make your leg muscles bigger. But unlike the general perception, larger legs are caused due to stored fat rather than muscle.
Include lower-body exercises such as lunges, wall sits, inner/outer thigh lifts, and step-ups with just your body weight. The key to strengthening the legs without bulking up is to keep the reps high (at least 15 reps per set).
The main culprit behind weight gain in your thighs is estrogen. This hormone drives the increase in fat cells in females, causing deposits to form most commonly around the buttocks and thighs.
If your workouts are making your legs bigger, this is most likely due to increasing muscle size. This will not go away and if you continue to exercise in the same way, your muscle will either stay the same or continue to grow. Getting bigger can also be related to diet.
Bump up your cardio: Regular extended bouts of cardio, mixed in with sessions of short, intense cardio (HIIT, for example) can help lead to slimmer legs. Cardio will help you burn calories and work off excess body fat overall (i.e. belly fat, love handles, etc) and this will also lead to less bulky legs.
The answer is swelling in the muscle compartment that results from an influx of white blood cells, prostaglandins (which are anti-inflammatory), and other nutrients and fluids that flow to the muscles to repair the "damage" after a tough workout.
Walking Benefits for Legs
Muscle tissue burns four times as many calories as fat, so the muscle you get from walking can also help you lose more weight. This means that you can realistically trim some of the fat from your legs and tone them within a month or two by walking briskly every day for 60 minutes per session.
Walking tones your leg and abdominal muscles – and even arm muscles if you pump them as you walk. This increases your range of motion, shifting the pressure and weight from your joints to your muscles.
The scientists examined if exceeding the recommended count of 10,000 steps per day would minimise weight and fat gain in the college students, the study noted. According to the study, the students gained weight even if they walked more than 15,000 steps.
What you can do is firm up your flabby thighs by reducing the amount of body fat from your whole body — which will include the fat on your thighs — and toning your leg muscles. Combining cardiovascular exercise with targeted thigh resistance training will change the appearance of your legs.
WILL SQUATS MAKE YOUR THIGHS SMALLER: SUMMARY
Squats increase the size of your leg muscles (especially quads, hamstrings and glutes) and don't do much to decrease the fat, so overall your legs will look bigger. If you're trying to decrease the muscles in your legs, you need to stop squatting.
When you are on your feet a lot, gravity pulls blood into the veins of your legs, and some of the water in the blood enters the tissues of your legs and feet, causing them to swell. But there are also some conditions that can cause similar swelling because they affect the movement of fluids within the body.
You will start to lose that initial water weight gain (of roughly one to three pounds) a few weeks or a month after starting an exercise program, he says.
As you continue to exercise, your muscles generate heat that makes your system push blood to the vessels closest to the surface of your body, to dissipate heat. This response triggers perspiration and may also contribute to hand swelling.
Rachael said one of the main reasons why you're not losing weight on your legs is because you're doing the wrong type of workouts. 'I see lots of girls that do workouts that focus solely on squats and lunges when trying to get slimmer legs,' Rachael said.
When you're working out intensely and were regular for a month, after that time period, you will notice microtear in the muscle tissues. To reduce any permanent and severe damage, the body automatically generates extra fluid to those muscles, and thus your body can start looking fatter after a month's workout.
Penny Weston, fitness expert and founder of wellness centre Made, told Live Science that if you want to strengthen the muscles in your legs to make them look more toned, walking and stationary cycling are both ideal. "Walking across different terrains such as hills is particularly effective at doing this.
Short answer is yes, walking for exercise burns fat. So if you walk “everywhere” then why don't you look as lean as Chris Hemsworth? Don't miss out on exclusive content.