How to Get Curves

Last Updated: November 6, 2022 References Approved

Getting an hourglass figure means you will need to reduce total body fat and improve muscle tone in the thighs, hips, back, chest, shoulders, and abdominal muscles. While you can't get bigger breasts or hips from exercise and diet, you can add some shapeliness to your figure. Adding a few fashion tricks to your routine can also help give you the illusion of curves.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Changing The Way You Eat

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Consider reducing your daily calorie intake. If you have weight loss goals, a combination of diet and exercise is the best way to shed fat and get more flattering curves. Try reducing your calorie intake by around 500 to 700 calories a day to lose roughly 1-2 lbs. a week.
- Note that it is not advisable to eat any less than 1,200 calories a day. Anything lower could be harmful to your health.
2
Eat for your increased exercise while still cutting calories. Making diet changes can be tough, especially if you have started an exercise routine. Start by making smart choices for your 1200-1400 calories. Reduce the amount of sugar you eat. Processed sugar and high fructose corn syrup can negatively affect weight loss. Also avoid eating processed foods. Stick with natural, unprocessed foods.
- Eat more fruits and vegetables. Try to snack on things like avocados, kale chips, carrot sticks, hummus, berries, and other produce that provides the essential micronutrients, complex carbohydrates, health fats, and proteins your system while curbing your appetite.
- Add in low-fat dairy. Eat high protein Greek yogurt, skim milk, and low-fat cheese as part of your normal calorie intake. The dairy can help build muscles and make you feel fuller longer.
- Eating a dessert or some fries may be part of your daily menu, but make these occasional, "treat" foods, instead of your normal routine. Remember that treat foods aren't to be eaten every day, or even every week.
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3
Increase the fiber in your diet. Most people should be aiming for between 25 and 35 g per day, but most people get around 10 g. Studies have shown that viscous fiber can make you feel full and reduce your appetite.
- To add more of the good, weight-loss friendly fiber into your diet, such as beans (legumes), asparagus, brussel sprouts, and oatmeal. Whole grains, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates are rich in good fiber.
- Introduce increased fiber into your diet slowly. Too much fiber too quickly can cause stomach aches, nausea, and diarrhea.
4
Increase the amount of water you drink. When you start your fitness routine, you should be drinking at least 84 oz. per day. That's 10.5 8 oz. glasses of water. Exercising increases your need to replace your fluid. Drink more water before, during and after you work out.^{[1]
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Trustworthy Source
Mayo Clinic
Educational website from one of the world's leading hospitals
Go to source}
5
Drink less alcohol. Alcohol can add unwanted calories to your diet, slow down your metabolism, and cause more stress on your body. Reduce the days you consume alcohol, as well as the amounts.

Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Changing Your Body to Get Curves

1
Prepare your body for muscle building and fat loss. Making significant, positive body changes is both physical and mental. Make sure your body is at top shape so you see the best results.
- Schedule time for sleep. People who get fewer than 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night are more likely to carry weight in their mid-section.^{[2]
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  Research source} This will keep you from your goals. Try to set aside the hour before you go to bed to turn off electronics and relax from the day, so that you can get restful sleep.
- Add a stress reducing activity to your day. When your body feels stress because of work or your personal life, it releases cortisol, which can tell you to pack on pounds on your waist.^{[3]
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  Research source} Try deep breathing, yoga, meditation, or ambient music to reduce anxiety.
2
Increase your cardio workouts. To increase the loss of body fat and tone your muscles, increase the amount of aerobic/cardio workouts you do. To burn fat, you need to work out 5-6 days a week, and increase your cardio workouts to at least 45 minutes each.^{[4]
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Research source} Switching from 30 minute workouts to 1 hour workouts can improve your tone and fat loss greatly. Your curves will get more pronounced faster.
- If you don't have time to do 45-60 minutes at once, break up the time into 2 30-minute workouts. Do a 30 minute workout at the gym and do a speed walking session after dinner. Make sure to have at least 1 workout that is 30 minutes to reap the benefits.
3
Do interval training. High-intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is where you do short bursts of intense work followed by less intense activity or rest. This kind of workout is great for blasting fat away. To do this, warm up, then switch between low/moderate and high intensity for 2 to 4 minutes at a time.
- For example, try running for as fast as you can for 1 minute (or 15 or 30 seconds to start if you can't run for a minute). Walk for twice that time (2 minutes for 1 minute of running; 1 minute for 30 seconds; 30 seconds for 15 seconds). Repeat 5 times for a fat blasting 15 minute workout.^{[5]
  X
  Expert Source
  
  Nevrize Aydogan
  Professional Personal Trainer
  Expert Interview. 26 February 2021} As your fitness improves, run for longer durations, run faster, jog instead of walk to rest, and increase to 30 and 45 minutes.
4
Try muscle confusion. For a curvy body, you want to make sure to balance upper body workouts with lower body workouts.^{[6]
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Research source} Make each of your workouts different to work different muscle groups for all-around tone and keep your metabolism running high.
- Try a class, such as spinning, barre, cardio burn, flow yoga, or boot camp once per week.
- Workout on a machine, like an elliptical, treadmill, or stair stepper 1 day. You can set these machines for interval workouts.
- Try other activities like swimming, hiking hills, speed walking, or biking to further break up the routine.
- Use 30-minute or longer strength training sessions as both cardio and strength training workouts. Use weight machines or hand weights and add them to a 30-minute machine workout. Decrease the time that you rest between sets to keep your heart rate up and your body sweating.
5
Tone the curves around your hips, thighs, waist and breasts by strength training. To get and maintain a curvy figure, pay attention to your legs and arms while strengthening your core.^{[7]
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Research source} Another thing to do while strengthening your curves is not to forget the back of your body.^{[8]
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Research source} Strength train 3 to 4 times per week - basically every other day. Once your cardio exercise burns off excess fat, these exercises will provide hourglass curves.
- Do squats to target your glutes and thighs. Always keep your stomach flexed and your spine neutral. Add hand weights for added resistance.
- Try step ups to improve your glutes, hips, and thighs. Place a bench in front of you that is at knee height or higher. Place your right foot on the bench. Then, step up onto the bench with your left foot. Lower your left foot and your right foot. Repeat 12 times with each foot leading. Do side steps to improve hips and the outside of the thighs.
- Do planks. Start out with a half-plank on your knees if you are beginning. When your strength increases, advance to a full body plank. Go for side planks to work your oblique muscles.
- Do Serratus pushups. This will work the shoulders and chest areas to better support curves in your upper body. Get on your hands and knees. Lower your arms so that you are resting on your elbows. Flex your stomach muscles in and get into a low plank position with your legs out. Squeeze your shoulder blades together for 2 to 5 seconds, then let them go apart. Do this in 2 sets of 10 while breathing slowly in and out.
- Target your outer thighs with clam shells. Get on your side, resting on your elbow. Place your knees in front of you as you would when you sit in a chair. Open your knees while keeping your heels together. Pause and lower your knees with control until they meet. Do 20 clam shells, and make sure your hips stay stacked so all of the work remains in your thighs.

Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Dressing to Create Curves

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Wear horizontal stripes. Horizontal stripes help make your body seem rounder instead of long and lean. They accentuate your largest parts and curves, which is a good thing when trying to create curves.^{[9]
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- Try a wide stripe to help give you some roundness.
2
Avoid wearing all black. Black is a slimming color and can emphasize your thin frame, or diminish the curves you do have. Instead, wear bright colors, or even better, patterns that give some texture to your body.
- If you have a curvy bottom half, but not a curvy top half, then wear a darker color on bottom and a lighter color on top to balance out your shapes.
3
Cinch the waist. To create an hourglass shape despite your body type, go for styles that cinch at the waist. Make sure to cinch at the thinnest part of your waist. This gives the illusion of more pronounced curves by drawing attention to the smaller waist.^{[10]
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Research source}
- Try a peplum top or dress. This style of dress can help emphasize a curvy silhouette despite your body type. Peplums flare at the hips, and narrow at the waist.
- Wear a belt. Like a peplum, belts help give the illusion of an hourglass figure by helping to narrow the waist and letting the material flare at the hips.^{[11]
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4
Wear clothes with volume. Instead of tight fighting cuts, go for loose, flowing garments. These garments, like cinching the waist, make your waist appear smaller while making the rest of your look curvy. Try shirts with sleeves that add volume, like ruffle sleeves or puffy sleeves. Another great look for an hourglass effect is a wrap shirt.
- Try maxi dresses, mermaid skirts, tulip skirts, pleated skirts, and skirts with layers to help give the illusion of curves. Also try harem pants and dolman sleeves, or ruffles along the front.
5
Try wide leg or skinny jeans. Either of these styles work well for increasing curves. Skinny jeans will hug your natural curves no matter how large or small they are, and wide leg jeans provide some width and shape to your lower half.

Expert Q&A

Question

How can I make my hips fuller?

Nevrize Aydogan
Professional Personal Trainer
Nevrize Aydogan is a Professional Personal Trainer at Seattle Personal Fitness. With over 15 years of personal training experience, she specializes in nutrition, custom fitness plans, and increasing stamina and muscle tone. She has a Bachelor's degree in Physical Education from Ege University. Dedicated to building custom fitness plans to fit individual client needs, Nevrize is experienced and well versed in sports-based exercise and has also appeared on TV for fitness and exercise programming.

Nevrize Aydogan

Professional Personal Trainer

Expert Answer

Try doing hip thrusters or deadlifts to help strengthen and tone your hips.
Question

If I am geneticly a curveless person can this stuff make a difference?

Michele Dolan
Certified Fitness Trainer
Michele Dolan is a BCRPA certified Personal Trainer in British Columbia. She has been a personal trainer and fitness instructor since 2002.

Michele Dolan

Certified Fitness Trainer

Expert Answer

If I were to suggest only two exercises to give your body more shape, I would suggest shoulders and buttocks. Do slow arm circles holding dumbbells(10-12 circles) 2-3 sets gradually building the shoulder cap. Build the lower half of the hourglass by working your gluteus maximus with hip thrusts, holding a heavy dumbbell or kettlebell.