For most women out there, myself included, our butt and thighs are one of our biggest concerns. The thighs are the first place to get jiggly and the butt is the first place to get bigger. The good news is that there are ways to firm up your thighs, and get a nice, tight butt. Here are a few of the best butt and thigh exercises that I have found to for reshaping my butt and thighs.

There are three key ingredients to getting a firmer, smaller butt and tighter thighs: diet, strength training, and aerobic exercise. This may not be what you wanted to hear, but it is the truth. You can have the body that you want, but it will take some work.

First Step: Diet

In order to maximize your results, you must reduce overall body fat. You cannot specifically target fat loss to one part of your body, so you must work on lowering your body fat percentage. The biggest way to control your body fat percentage is your diet.

I am not going to tell you to cut everything that tastes good out of your diet. I am however going to tell you to practice moderation! One or two cookies are okay, seven are not and it is possible to eat only one piece of pizza!

The key to a good diet, one that will melt fat, is moderation and counting those calories. Your diet should have about 60% carbohydrates, 35% protein, and no more than 15% fat. Easy ways to do this are to make sure that you are eating foods that have these proportions naturally. Start replacing any white foods (white bread, plain pasta, white rice) with brown foods (whole wheat bread, pasta, and brown rice). Also make sure you are getting plenty of vegetables.

At meals fill your plate 2/3 with vegetables and 1/3 with lean protein (white meat chicken or turkey, and fish). Remember moderation. An 8 or 9 plate is a lot more diet appropriate than a 12 plate. Also, it can take your body 15 minutes to tell your mind youre full, so wait before you have that second helping.

Second Step: Strength Training

Strength training is important when it comes to getting a great butt and firm thighs. This is when you will do your targeted butt and thigh exercises. The best butt and thigh exercises that you can do are lunges and squats.

At first start out doing forward lunges without weights and then add weights for extra resistance. Next do plea squats. Stand in a plea position and hold a weight of 10-15 pounds squat down until your thighs are parallel to the floor, raise and repeat. After that then you should do backwards lunges (just like a traditional lunge, just take a step back instead of forward. You should do these exercises in a circuit, in the order that they are listed. Do each exercise for 12-15 reps and do the entire circuit three times.

Another benefit to strength training is that the muscle is a natural fat burner. A pound of muscle burns 10 more calories than a pound of fat without you doing any extra work! The more muscle you have the more fat you can burn!

Strength training doesnt have to be done in a gym; it can be done at home. If you are unsure of what to do, there are a lot of great fitness books out there that will guide through exercises and diet.

Step Three: Aerobic Exercise

The first and second steps are very important, but you are never going to be able to get a great butt and thighs without aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise burns fat; there is no way to get around it. Again, it does not have to be done in a gym.

Find an activity that you like, that elevates your heart rate, and do it for about an hour, five days a week. Walk, run, play tennis, bike, shoot hoops, whatever it takes to get you moving and your heart rate elevated. Another plus to aerobic exercise is, it raises you caloric limit for the day. If you cheated during lunch, and youre counting the calories, you can make it up during your cardio session.