Walking Lunges is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: Booty, exercises, workout at home, workout routine

In a post about the booty, I mentioned that a lot of women are holding onto a “big booty,” saying they don’t want to work out for fear of losing it, only to ignore the other issues that can come paired with it – like a large tummy or saddlebags.

But, as I was asked, what are saddlebags?

It can get confusing, but saddlebags are a very specific issue, and you know it when you see it.

Saddlebags appear on the thighs. They are not curves, in the sense of the coke-bottle shape. If hips – and you know what I mean by hips – are curves, then saddlebags are more like sharp angles.

The photo to the direct left shows “saddlebags.” These adorable little fat deposits get their name from the fact that people who have them apparently resemble horses with – yep, you guessed it – saddlebags on the back of a horse. The thick pink line shows the natural shape of this person’s body, while the black circles show what can be classified as saddlebags.

There is such a thing as simply having hips, but at the point where they protrude out like this, it’s saddlebags. Some also refer to it as “square booty.” Lots of women have fat on their outer thighs, but that’s just “outer thigh fat” and if you actually like the look it provides you, that’s okay. “Saddlebags” are a very specific kind of look, and if you want to change it, I have some advice.

It can come from a few things, the most important of which being when, as pictured, your booty rests on your thighs – notice the crease between the booty and the thigh – thereby pushing the fat that would rest in that space where your booty is outward toward your hips. It can alter the pattern of fat deposits on your body, thereby spreading it even higher up.

I had major saddlebags at my first start. I didn’t think anything of it – just thought it meant I had hips – but it wasn’t the same thing. I didn’t look the way I thought I’d looked. Now, with the tips I’m about to share, my thighs are much more shapely. Sure, there’s fat there, but I don’t mind it as long as I look the way I want it to look.

Now, I’ve seen explanations of saddlebags that said everything from “muscular displacement” to disorder, but my experiences were very different. Mine were, simply, fat.

I still have faint remnants of my old saddlebags, but three things are making a huge difference in their removal.

The first, is cardio. The reality of saddlebags is that, for most people, they’re fat accumulated along the sides of the body. Cardio, a beneficial component of fat loss, will help rid the body of them. The lower body won’t be the first place targeted for fat burn – depending upon how much fat you have to lose, it may start in the upper body first and work its way down – but once the body starts to burn in a more proportionate fashion, you can expect to see pretty awesome results after some dedication.

The second…is changing the way you eat. Something in your daily intake is contributing to that fat sticking to your thighs, so you have to be committed to changing how you eat in order to change that for good. Be willing to play around with that and find out what works best. (Here’s a tip – for me, I had to skip some of the refined carbs.)

The third and final tip? If saddlebags come from having a booty that rests a bit too comfortably on the thighs, then weight lifting will help to lift that booty up, up and awaaaaaaaay, thereby allowing the displaced fat to go back where it wanted. Squats, lunges, good mornings, dead lifts… all are exercises born to lift the booty and make you a happy camper. That’s also the fastest way to develop a “fit booty,” since a muscular booty – not one that is predominately fat – has less of a chance of “deflating,” going back to resting heavily on the thighs and pushing that fat outward again. Test it out yourself – look in a mirror, turn to the side. “Pick up” your booty cheek, now turn forward. Does the shape of the thigh change? Then go get your squat on!

Saddlebags are common in women who, as they age, the shape of their bodies change due to lack of activity. In other words, a thin woman with a “round booty” can wind up with saddlebags as she ages (the woman in the photo is actually rather petite) because of a lack of muscle and activity as well as a poor diet. They also appear in women who are simply accumulating a sizeable amount of fat. It happens.

If you’re not comfortable with it, it doesn’t have to stay that way. Try these tips and see how they help you!

Q&A Wednesday: What Are Saddlebags? And, If I Have Them, How Do I Get Rid Of Them? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Booty, booty lifting, butt, exercise, lower body, saddlebags, working out

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Post tags: Booty, exercises, Legs, workout at home, workout routine

I started this one doing 10 of them back to back in three different sets. Give it a shot! Great for the booty, too!

The Reverse Crunch is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: Abs, Booty, exercises, Legs, workout at home, workout routine, workout tips

Standing Oblique Twists is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: Booty, exercise, workout at home, workout at the office

Pay very close attention to his explanation and execution, and then give it a shot yourself!

Squats is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: Booty, exercise, Legs

Good Mornings is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Back, Booty, exercise, workout at home, workout at the office

Pay close attention to how he does the exercise, and give yourself a challenge!

8 Count Lunge and Squat is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Booty, exercise

…but nothing is better than The Photoshop Diet. Allow me to explain.

While I was losing the bulk of the 150lbs I lost, I often wondered what my body would look like once I’d arrived at my “final destination.” Really, I wondered what my “final destination” would truly be, to be honest.

Serena Williams – one of my fit idols, with or without The Photoshop Diet: even at the height of fitness, she had her face “made up,” her tummy tucked, her booty lifted and shaped as well as cellulite (and muscle!?) airbrushed out.

And then, I started to question why my final destination was what I’d set it out to be. I mean, make no mistake about it – my body is a temple that I have the distinct honor and opportunity to rebuild, and that’s how I approach it. But the decisions I make in regard to what it looks like once the rebuilding process winds down to its final moments also become a set of standards to which I hold myself. I can’t have an 18-inch waist (which is actually what my toddler measures right now… yes.) and a 40-inch booty. It just… it just ain’t sensible.

…but that’s what we’re fed every day. Every single day. Women with insanely tiny waists and much larger hips. We’re fed “curves” – women with extremely low body fat percentages whose waists are so much smaller than their hips, that you can’t help but wonder what diet they’re on.

I’m here to tell you. They’re on The Damn Photoshop Diet.

Skin… nipped and tucked. Booties… lifted. Make-up… applied with the brush tool. Apparently… we’re so disgusted by the human body that we need altered views of it in order to survive every day. Why does Serena not have a stomach?

Apparently… we’re so disgusted by a woman’s body directly after she gives birth to her first-born, that we haphazardly just drag that “erase tool” across her post-pregnancy belly… like no one would notice that giant space in between her left arm and her baby (in the after pic), and no one would recognize that her post-baby belly used to rest there. No first-time mother would hold her child like that.

Retouch notes: forehead filled out, hair thickened, cheeks lifted, chin lifted, breasts enlarged and filled, arms made more muscular, stomach shrunk, lower back/upper booty area toned, butt cheeks lifted, calf shaped, ankles on left leg toned. From heiesuke.com; click to view larger comparison.

See, a while back, I had a conversation with a magazine columnist and we had a long, hard talk about magazines and their habit of not showcasing enough of reality on their pages… and I cannot lie. What I was told was profound, frustrating and realistic:

If magazines sold you reality, they’d never make money. You go to magazines for fantasy – beautiful clothes, beautiful shoes, stories that are so amazing that you wish they were you, beautiful scenery and, unfortunately, bodies that are enviable. People are just more likely to buy something that’ll inspire them than they are to buy something that they can – and do – see every day.

Though I paraphrased it a bit, the nuts and bolts of what she said is still there. If the only image I’ve ever seen of the body I want to have is in the magazines and that’s what I’m aspiring toward, am I literally focusing my efforts on a fantasy?

Back fat removed, cellulite erased, booty lifted, face cleaned up, thighs CREATED OUT OF THIN AIR. No, LOOK at them - they look like two blocks of straight brown pillars.

See, it’s easy to allow myself to get caught up in the foolishness of “thinspiration” and “thickspiration,” but what about “fitspiration?” That’s not something you’re going to see in the magazines… because that requires work. Work isn’t “fantasy-like” enough for all that.

I’m not going to allow myself to be caught up in the swirl of imagery of women who’ve had 4 kids and 40lbs erased from their bodies. If magazines and media are meant to sell me a fantasy, and they genuinely believe that’s what it takes to get my money… why would I aspire toward looking like a fantasy? Something that is so rare, apparently, that the only way that even their own models can achieve that look is through The Photoshop Diet?

I’m over it. The strangest thing about it, though? I’ve said before:

The amount of stock we put in this is crazy to me. I’ll even fire a few shots – some of the booties that I’ve seen women claim to want to protect… could use a lot of work. No one seems to notice that the booties belonging to these video and magazine girls don’t have creases… or dimples… or clumps of fat. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to denigrate anyone, here. I’m trying to understand why we would cling to a misconception of what a “great booty” truly is, to use as an excuse to not put in work. Three particular things can actually enhance the booty we all have: 1) decreasing the “spare tire effect” around the tummy actually increases the slope from the back to the booty; 2) decreasing the thigh fat increases the curve in the booty; 3) squatting, lunching and hopping for your life actually picks up your cheeks. But for some reason, we’d rather believe that proper booty shaping comes from being cornfed and allergic to the gym. I mean, I could assume that it’s simply because we don’t want to put in work… but that’s nothing new.

Excerpted from Black Women, Our Bodies & Perceptions of Beauty: The Booty | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

How does this affect our body image? How does this affect the way we look at ourselves? How does this affect the way we treat ourselves? Not even the women we see in the magazines have these ideal bodies… they have the same problems we have. If we’re clinging to these bodies (and booties) in the hopes that we’ll someday look like women who don’t even look like this… all the while, health problems are piling on? It’s a lose-lose situation.

Look how many booty lifts took place on seemingly normal women with figures we see every day. Serena, even in all her fit glory, even had to be “modified.” Look how much cellulite had to be erased from thighs. Look at the arm adjustments, breast lifts, forehead and face adjustments… maybe its time to let these fantasies go.

When we tell each other that we’re beautiful, that’s true. It might not be the kind of beautiful that attracts everyone, but as long as you have a happy and healthy perception of yourself, what difference does that make? Besides, there’s no better feeling than loving and being happy with yourself (and being strong enough to make changes for yourself in order to make yourself better). It’s a feeling that emanates and causes you to glow… and that glow is far more attractive than any booty could ever be. For real.

Retouching, Body Image and The Photoshop Diet is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 27 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: airbrushing, body fat percentages, Body Image, Booty, curves, decisions, diet, diets, fitness, grapefruit, hips, inch waist, mistake, photoshop, regard, retouching, serena williams, single day

The Superman is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: Abs, Booty, exercises, Legs, workout at home, workout routine

Frog Hop Squats is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: Booty, exercise, Legs

I know, I know. For some reason, it seems like you can never escape booty talk.

“I need to do something with this booty.”

Not even just her hips, but her thighs - that's hard work!

“My booty is perfect – I don’t want exercise to ruin that.”

Listen for long enough, and you’ll eventually hear “I need to get off my booty and do something.”

No matter what, this topic always comes up. And while I can’t help but be tickled, I’m also a little saddened by it.

More often now, I wind up having fitness-based conversations with people who “knew” me before and “know” me now, only because they’re trying to poke and prod at my understanding of what I want for myself. Much like the people who insisted that I “should be trying to get a man” instead of focusing on myself, I get people who want to talk to me about my booty.

Let me explain – I had a “giant booty.” I mean, giant. I was a size 28 – I didn’t have much choice except to have… a “giant booty.” And while in some circles a booty that large is “just wrong,” in other circles a “giant booty” is something similar to carrying a pot of gold on your back down the street. Everyone’s looking, wondering if you’ve got more in yours than they’ve got in theirs, if yours is better than theirs, wondering if they can get what you’ve got. And depending upon who you’re talking to, it might be worth just as much AS a pot of gold, for crying out loud. I’m sure you know what circles I made sure I stayed in, then – the ones that made me feel better about me and my,well.. giant booty.

As a woman, my weight is supposed to concentrate closer to my hips and thighs – it’s supposed to help protect our reproductive system. The extra fat keeps your eggs and various other goodies warm. (This is where the notion that “women with larger hips are better child birthers” or whatever comes from.) And while I cannot completely share the history of every bloodline in existence and how their bodies adapted to their environments… I can certainly share mine.

As a woman of color, I was blessed with being predisposed to a curvaceous, well-built figure. Meaning, if I treat my body right, the curves have no choice but to come. As my ancestors come from a place where countless generations built their muscle in certain places to help their bodies do what they needed to do to tend to their villages, my bloodline adapted – full hips and an ample busom to help me deliver and care for my children; strong calf, booty and thigh muscles; powerful neck and shoulder muscles. As a woman, I was built to be… well, built. Well built, to be exact.

And in a society where everyone makes money off of making life easier, I have to go out of my way to maintain that… build. I don’t have to work as hard as my ancestors in order to accomplish basic daily tasks.

January, '10

Somewhere along the line, any “giant booty” became acceptable. And as women, I often wonder if we ignored the fact that our frames were increasing because we were getting compliments on our derrierres. I mean, we were still getting complimented – we must be doing something right, right?

Let me mention a few important things that have to be a part of any resolution to be healthier:

First, just as being skinny is not an indicator of good health, neither is being or having fat. There’s no way around that – there is very little in the way of physical appearance that can gauge a person’s health. While we can talk about anorexics and the “super obese” as exceptions, the vast majority of us don’t fall on either end of the spectrum – we sit closer to the middle. So no, “getting a bigger booty” doesn’t mean “you’re doing something right.” It means you’re doing something, but “right?” I can’t call it.

Secondly, again – we have to stop basing our judgments of ourselves on what other people say or think. Thinking that I don’t have to “do anything” because other people like “how I am” is just an excuse to not consciously think about “how I am.” Almost like it’s putting the responsibility of “thinking about me” onto other people. Can I really trust other people to think about me in a way that’s best for me? If I could, I might’ve never been so overweight in the first place. Ownership. Gotta take it.

I had a lot of thinking to do. When I think about myself, am I happy with what I have? Regardless of your weight, I hope you are. You are you, and you should be happy regardless of what you have. But take it a step further – am I healthy? If not, am I willing to risk “what I have” to claim my health?

Lastly, and this is most important – our bodies are complex. With as many muscle groups as there are… you think you can’t build and rebuild and rebuild what you’ve got? You can do just about anything with your body if you commit to it AND commit to you.

Let me talk about my booty for a minute. When I started losing weight, the very first thing I lost WAS in my gut and booty region. I was so happy about the gut that I didn’t recognize that my booty was slipping away. Not until I started weight lifting that I realized it was deflated! Gone. Vanished. The case of the disappearing booty. I was gonna have to hire a PI and put out an APB for it.

So.. I had to do something. I mean, some serious body mapping. I had too much fat in my thighs to have an actual curve to my booty at the point where it met my thigh. I had a spare tire that was hiding the slope from my back to my booty. I needed to actually build a booty of muscle… which meant no more crease between my booty and my thigh, causing those saddle bags. I had work to do.

Since I was already burning the fat, I needed to work on rebuilding. Booty and thigh exercises on deck. And please believe, the squats are necessary. It is absolutely possible to rebuild yourself a fit booty – one that sits high, curves just right, and doesn’t cause skin to fold and protrude at the hips. If the fat was going to melt away, it needed something to conform to, in my mind. So, off I went muscle building. It’s working well for me.

All of this is to say… I need to make sure that I don’t cling to someone else’s perception of what I “should” look like, especially when that perception would bind me to an unhealthy lifestyle. I need to not believe that I can’t rebuild something like a booty in a much healthier way than cornbread and sweet potato pie. I need to resolve to be comfortable with who I am, and understand that wanting something else for my body doesn’t mean that I believe something is wrong with who I am. And lastly… a fit booty is a thousand times better than a booty I got through unhealthy means.. ’cause I worked for it, earned it and deserved it.

Who else out there is working on their fit booty? Let’s hear it!

(You might also want to check out my post on belly fat!)

How To Build A Fit Booty is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

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2. Q&A Wednesday: Does Sex Really Make Your Booty Big[ger]?
3. Victoria’s Secret Models, Runway Walking and Booty Paint

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2010. | Permalink | 57 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blackness, Booty, mentality, weight loss, workout tips

Leg Swings is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: Booty, exercises, Legs, workout at home, workout routine

Vertical Jumping Jacks is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Abs, Arms, Booty, exercises, workout at home, workout routine

I know that my biggest thing was getting over how silly I felt I might look trying to workout at home. As a friend said, “Some people need to go to a gym to feel as though they’ve accomplished anything.” I can’t necessarily say that this was how I felt, but I know that whatever it was was costing me my health in the process, and I needed to get it together!

The first of our exercises is something that will help with stretches as much as they will help with the booty area (yes, we will be giving the booty extra special attention!) as well as the upper thighs. Check out this hip extensions clip brought to us by the folks at expertvillage.com!

Building A Home Workout Routine: Hip Extensions is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. The Importance of Building A Home Workout Routine
2. Building a Home Workout Routine: Trunk Rotations
3. Building A Home Workout Routine: Reverse Crunches

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Abs, Booty, exercises, fat loss, Legs, workout at home, workout routine, workout tips