Transform Your Pear-Shaped Body: Exercises & Diet Tips

If you’ve been told that reshaping a pear-shaped body is impossible, you’ve been misled. 

Yes, genetics and hormones influence where you store fat, but they don’t mean you’re stuck with it forever. 

With the right diet, exercises, and workouts, you can transform your pear-shaped body and create a more balanced, proportional look. 

In this expert guide, you’ll learn everything you need to do in the gym and kitchen to make it happen.

Key Takeaways

• Excess fat is the primary cause of a pear-shaped body, but genetics and hormones play a large part in where your body stores that fat.
• Spot reduction is a myth; you can’t lose fat from your thighs, hips, and butt by doing exercises that train those body parts.
• The best way to reshape your pear-shaped body is to maintain a calorie deficit and focus on compound exercises that burn a lot of calories and build full-body muscle.
• A calorie-controlled, high-protein diet combined with the right pear-shaped body workouts will maximize fat loss and help you transform your body shape.

Table of Contents

+
• What Is a Pear-Shaped Body?
• The Role of Genetics and Hormones in a Pear-Shaped Body
• Pear-Shaped Body Exercises to Avoid
• The Best Exercises for a Pear-Shaped Body: Top 3 Tips
• The 7 Best Pear-Shaped Body Exercises
• Pear-Shaped Body: Diet Tips
• FAQ #1: What causes a pear-shaped body?
• FAQ #2: Is it harder for pear-shaped people to lose weight?
• FAQ #3: Can I change my body shape from a pear?

What Is a Pear-Shaped Body?

A person with a “pear-shaped body” stores fat mainly in the hips, thighs, and butt, causing their lower body to look significantly wider than their upper body—much like the shape of a pear. While the term may apply to some men, it’s much more commonly used when talking about women.

Here’s how it looks compared to some other common body shapes:

Many people associate the pear body shape with femininity, fertility, and physical attractiveness. However, some women with pear-shaped bodies wish for a more balanced physique and turn to diet and exercise to help change their shape.

RELATED: Hips Dips: What Are They And How Do You Get Rid of Them?

The Role of Genetics and Hormones in a Pear-Shaped Body

You’ve probably heard that genetics play a big role in shaping women’s bodies, especially when it comes to where they store fat. And this is mostly true: research shows that up to 70% of body fat distribution is determined by genes.

What’s more, for many women, specific genetic variations—such as RSPO3 and TBX15—make fat more likely to accumulate around the hips, thighs, and butt, creating the classic pear shape.

Hormones—particularly estrogen—amplify this effect, too. Estrogen promotes fat storage in these areas, making them the first place fat clings to and often the last to slim down when you lose weight.

But here’s the good news: while genes and hormones influence fat storage, they can’t stop you from getting rid of your pear shape—the fat around your hips, butt, and thighs will yield in the face of a prolonged calorie deficit.

This fundamental principle of fat storage applies no matter what’s happening with your hormones or genes.

Read this article to learn why:

How to Use Energy Balance to Lose Fat & Gain Muscle

Pear-Shaped Body Exercises to Avoid

Most guides to the best pear body shape exercises recommend prioritizing movements that specifically train your hips, thighs, and butt, like glute kickbacks, leg extensions, and cable abductions.

The thinking is that these exercises will burn fat in those areas, helping you achieve a more balanced physique.

But here’s the reality: spot reduction is a myth—you can’t lose fat from a specific part of your body just by exercising the nearby muscles. 

In fact, prioritizing exercises for your hips, butt, and thighs without also altering your diet can backfire. By increasing the size of the muscles under your fat, you may end up accentuating your pear shape rather than slimming it.

What should you do instead?

Two things:

1. Choose exercises that burn the most calories. This helps you maintain a calorie deficit, which is crucial for getting rid of a pear-shaped body.
2. Build full-body muscle. A muscular body burns more calories resting and moving than a similarly-sized fat one. Muscle also supports good metabolic health, which is vital for maintaining a healthy body fat percentage, and it even alters the expression of certain genes that accelerate fat burning. 

With that in mind, let’s look at some useful pear body shape exercise tips that will fast-track your progress. 

The Best Exercises for a Pear-Shaped Body: Top 3 Tips

To maximize the fat-burning and muscle-building effects of strength training, focus on the following:

1. Compound exercises: Compound exercise, such as the squat, deadlift, bench press, and overhead press, train multiple muscle groups simultaneously. Studies show that compound exercises produce the greatest increases in metabolic rate, muscle mass, and strength, which is why your pear-shaped body workouts should include a lot of compound weightlifting. 
2. Heavy weightlifting: Research shows that lifting weights that are 75-to-85% of your one-rep max (weights that you can do 6-to-12 reps with before failing) helps you build more muscle and burn more fat than training with lighter weights. 
3. Progressive overload: The best way to build muscle and, thus, maximize the fat-burning effects of weightlifting is to strive to add weight or reps to every exercise in every workout. This is known as progressive overload, and it’s the single most important driver of muscle growth.

This is the approach these women on my body transformation coaching program used and the results speak for themselves:

Now let’s get into the nitty-gritty of the best pear-shaped body exercises.

The 7 Best Pear-Shaped Body Exercises

You can use many exercises to reshape a pear-shaped body, but the following seven will get the job done quickest.

These exercises work so well because they train multiple muscle groups simultaneously, allow you to lift heavy weights, and make getting stronger straightforward, all of which makes them ideal for building full-body muscle and burning calories—vital components for pear-shaped body weight loss. 

Add the following exercises to your routine, and watch your pear shape change. 

1. Squat

Why: The squat is the king of compound exercises. It trains several major muscle groups throughout the body, including the quads, hamstrings, glutes, core, and back, lets you train with heavy weights safely, and makes progressing simple. And that’s why every good workout for a pear-shaped body should include the squat.

How:

1. Position a barbell in a squat rack at about the height of your nipples. 
2. Step under the bar, pinch your shoulder blades together, and rest the bar above the bony ridges on the bottom of your shoulder blades. 
3. Lift the bar out of the rack, take 1-to-2 steps backward, and place your feet a little wider than shoulder-width apart with your toes pointing slightly outward. 
4. Keeping your back straight, sit down and push your knees out in the same direction as your toes.
5. Stand up and return to the starting position.

READ MORE: How Deep Should You Squat? An Expert Guide to Squat Depth

2. Walking Lunge

Why: Walking lunges not only train your entire lower body but also engage your core and abs, as these muscles have to work hard to stabilize your body with each step. The dynamic nature of the exercises also increases calorie burn, making walking lunges an excellent exercise for promoting pear-shaped body weight loss.

How: 

1. Holding a dumbbell in each hand, stand with your feet hip-width apart.
2. Take a long step forward with your right foot—about 2-to-3 feet. Bend both knees until your left knee touches the floor. 
3. Push through your right foot to stand back up, bringing your left foot forward alongside your right foot.
4. Repeat the movement, stepping forward with your left foot.

3. Deadlift

Why: The deadlift is another top-tier pear-shaped body exercise because it trains every muscle on the back of your body (and many others besides) and lets you lift the heaviest weights of any movement. This makes it ideal for gaining strength, building muscle, and torching fat.

How: 

1. Stand with your feet about hip-width apart with your toes pointed slightly out. 
2. Move a loaded barbell over your midfoot, so it’s about an inch from your shins.
3. Take a deep breath into your belly, then place your hands on the bar just outside your shins with your palms facing you.
4. Flatten your back and drive your body upward and slightly back until you’re standing up straight.
5. Reverse the movement and return to the starting position.

READ MORE: How to Deadlift with Proper Technique

4. Romanian Deadlift

Why: The Romanian deadlift trains the same muscles as the regular deadlift but is less taxing on your body, so you can do it in another workout a few days after performing the regular deadlift. Deadlifting twice weekly is beneficial because it likely increases muscle growth, strength gain, and fat loss, so it’s an effective way to boost weight loss. 

How: 

1. Stand up straight holding a loaded barbell with a shoulder-width, overhand grip (palms facing you).
2. Flatten your back and lower the weights toward the floor in a straight line while keeping your legs mostly straight, allowing your butt to move backward as you descend. 
3. Once you feel a stretch in your hamstrings, bend your knees slightly more and continue lowering the weights until your lower back begins to round. 
4. Reverse the movement and return to the starting position.

5. Bench Press

Why: The bench press is a key exercise to include in your pear-shaped body workouts because it builds muscle throughout your upper body. Gaining upper body muscle helps balance out a bottom-heavy pear-shaped physique, creating a more proportional look. 

How: 

1. Lie on a flat bench and place your feet flat on the floor. 
2. Pull your shoulder blades together and down, and without lifting your butt or shoulders off the bench, slightly arch your back. 
3. Grab the bar with a slightly wider than shoulder-width grip and unrack the barbell.
4. Lower the barbell to your chest, keeping your elbows tucked 6-to-8 inches from your sides.
5. Press the bar back to the starting position.

READ MORE: The Definitive Guide to Proper Bench Press Form

6. Overhead Press

Why: The overhead press trains your shoulders, triceps, and upper back while also engaging your core and abs to stabilize your body. This makes it perfect for building balanced upper body muscle, which helps offset a pear-shaped frame and aids weight loss by increasing overall calorie burn.

How: 

1. Set a barbell in a rack at the same height as your upper chest. 
2. Grip the bar with a shoulder-width grip and your palms facing away from you.
3. Unrack the barbell, step backward, and plant your feet just outside of shoulder width.
4. Push the bar toward the ceiling until your arms are straight.
5. Reverse the movement and return to the starting position.

READ MORE: How to Do the Overhead Press: Muscles Worked, Form, and Alternatives

7. Lat Pulldown

Why: The lat pulldown is an essential pear-shape body exercise that targets your entire back—especially your lats—and your biceps. Building a stronger back adds width to your upper body, helping to balance out your pear shape and create a more hourglass-like figure.

How: 

1. Adjust the thigh pad so that it locks your lower body in place.
2. Stand up and grab the bar. While keeping your grip on the bar and your arms straight, sit down, allowing your body weight to pull the bar down with you.
3. Nudge your thighs under the pads and plant your feet on the floor. 
4. Pull the bar to your chest.
5. Reverse the movement and return to the starting position.

Pear-Shaped Body: Diet Tips

Now that you know the best way to change your pear shape is through weight loss, it’s important to understand the role of diet.

While the exercises above help by building muscle and burning calories, your diet plays an even more critical role in changing your pear shape.

Fortunately, losing weight (and your pear shape) isn’t as tricky as many believe. Here’s a simple three-step process to make it easier:

1. Eat the right number of calories.

Research shows that eating 20-to-25% fewer calories than you burn every day will help you lose fat lickety-split without losing muscle or wrestling with excessive hunger, lethargy, and the other hobgoblins of low-calorie dieting.

2. Eat enough protein.

High-protein dieting beats low-protein dieting in every way, especially when you’re dieting to lose weight.

For most people, aiming to eat 0.8-to-1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day works well. Or, if you’re very overweight (30%+ body fat), reduce this to around 40% of your total calories per day.

3. Take the right supplements.

The best supplements to boost pear-shaped body weight loss are:

• Caffeine: 3-to-6 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight per day increases metabolic rate and helps you train harder while dieting. 
• Yohimbine: 0.1-to-0.2 milligrams of yohimbine per kilogram of body weight before fasted training enhances fat loss.
• Fat Burner: Effective fat burners contain ingredients that boost the number of calories you burn and reduce hunger and cravings, making weight loss more straightforward.  

(And if you’d like to know exactly what other supplements you should take to reach any and all of your fitness goals, take the Legion Supplement Finder Quiz.)

FAQ #1: What causes a pear-shaped body?

The main cause of a pear-shaped body is excess body fat, though hormones and genetics also play a part. If you tend to carry weight around your hips, butt, and thighs, there’s a good chance your genes and hormones direct fat to accumulate there. However, remember that fat gain only happens if you eat more calories than you burn. In other words, while genetics and hormones influence where fat goes, a calorie surplus is what causes fat gain in the first place.

FAQ #2: Is it harder for pear-shaped people to lose weight?

Losing weight as a pear-shaped person isn’t necessarily harder, but shedding fat from your hips, thighs, and butt can be more challenging. Estrogen encourages fat storage in these areas, making them the first place fat sticks and the last to slim down when you lose weight. However, maintaining a calorie deficit through diet and exercise will cause you to lose fat, even in these stubborn spots.

FAQ #3: Can I change my body shape from a pear?

Yes, you can reshape your pear-shaped body by losing fat and building muscle. While you can’t change where your body naturally stores fat, lowering your overall body fat percentage will shrink your stubborn areas. Strength training can then help you build muscle to create a more balanced and proportional look.