[MalibuBeachBound]

This is my struggle. I am a runner. I LOVE to run. I am pretty much satisfied with my upper body. I am fairly toned, well defined bone structure etc. My waist is a 31 inches and I could lose more from there, but in my opinion it doesn't look bad. I also have small boobs :P (34 B) Then my hips are a little bigger, but I definitely wouldn't call my shape pear. My problem is my thighs!!! My legs are muscular and toned (from running) until you get mid way up the thigh. From that point on they just jut out! I am very self conscious about them. I look ok in shorts but HORRIBLE in a bathing suit. Each thigh is just under 25" at the largest part... for a grand total around 50". It is ridiculous.

Some say to do squats, but I wasn't sure if this was the way to go considering that I build muscle VERY easily and also store fat quite well there. I run so there is a lot of muscle mass under the fat. I'm looking for suggestions.

[Miltrez]

I delt with this alot when I was younger and ran 5 miles 3 to 4 times a week. I had very muscular legs that were huge and worse yet I had a very small waist from all the running. The longer you keep up with your running program your waist will get smaller and your legs a little bigger. As you gain muscle in your thighs it pushes the fat to the outside where it sticks out until finally it is all gone. Don't loose hope though. What I did was a lot of stretches after every single run and did a evening stretch program. I also did some Yoga but I wasn't so good at balancing. The stretching makes your muscles longer instead of thicker. I didn't start the massive amounts of stretching until I had been a long time runner so my legs were really bad but I can say the sonner you start the better.At one point I weighed 120 and wore a size 10 because of my legs. I looked silly in jeans because the waist was soooo big and yet tight in my thighs. I wore alot of skirts because they hide the difference better than anything else. Also when you wear shorter skirts people can see your leg muscles and it is much more attractive.

Hope this helps.

[MalibuBeachBound]

It is SO good to know that this is a common problem with runners. For a while I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. Thanks for the response! I have taken yoga classes but stopped because I felt that it wasn't intense enough to benefit me and therefore was a wasted 60 minutes where I could be... well... running and burning more fat. I realize from your post that I had the wrong goal in mind.

[grneyegrl]

Stick with it, after running for probably 3-4 years my sister-in-law completely transformed her legs, never saw anything like it.