How To Lose Finger Fat And Make Your Hands Look Slimmer

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HealthlineSubscribeHow to Lose Finger Fat the Healthy Way

Medically reviewed by Jake Tipane, CPT — Written by Kathryn Watson on December 11, 2020

The big picture
Caloric deficit
What you eat matters
Exercise
Lifestyle changes
Causes of weight gain
Summary

Everyone’s body has a different way of distributing excess fat. For some people, extra weight goes right to their fingers.

It’s difficult to target weight loss in a specific area of your body. So, if you’re trying to slim down your fingers and hands, you need to lose weight overall.

With a combination of diet and exercise, you can tone your fingers while dropping pounds elsewhere, if that’s your goal.

Let’s cover exercises and strategies for losing weight the healthy way and getting slimmer fingers in the process.

How to make your fingers thinner

If you want to make your fingers thinner, your efforts should focus on exercise as well as creating a caloric deficit in your diet.

Lifestyle changes, such as avoiding foods high in sodium and drinking plenty of water, can also help your fingers look thinner.

You can use exercises that target the muscles in your hands to tone the area as you drop weight overall.

How to create a caloric deficit

There are a lot of competing myths and narratives about how to lose weight. The fact is, if you burn more calories than you consume, you’ll create a caloric deficit — and you’ll lose weight.

You can do this by exercising more and eating fewer calories.

Each pound of fat on your body is equal to about 3,400 to 3,750 calories consumed. (However, it’s important to note that the calculations for these amounts are based on older research.)

In general, that means you need to burn around 3,500 calories to lose a pound. If you decrease your average calorie intake by 500 to 800 calories per day, you’ll lose somewhere between 1 and 2 pounds every week.

Of course, make sure that decreasing your average calorie intake by this amount still keeps you within a healthy calorie range, which will be different for everyone.

Any workout you do that burns calories will add to your caloric deficit. Workouts that burn a lot of calories include:

running
swimming
jumping rope
boxing

How to lose weight in fingers through dieting

As a general rule, you can eat fewer calories by:

consuming fewer high-calorie foods
increasing your intake of fiber and protein
eating smaller portions

Focus on the following nutrient-dense foods so that you’ll get all the vitamins and minerals you need to stay healthy while meeting your goals:

green, leafy vegetables, such as broccoli, spinach, and kale
beta-carotene-rich produce, such as carrots, sweet potatoes, and bell peppers
fiber-dense fruits, such as pears, apples, and strawberries
whole grains, such as wild rice, multigrain bread, and quinoa
lean meats, such as chicken breast and ground turkey
protein-dense legumes, such as lentils, chickpeas, and peanuts
healthy fats, such as avocado, salmon, tuna, almonds, and walnuts

Try to avoid consuming:

white sugar
white flour
other refined grain products

You may also want to avoid drinking alcohol, which dehydrates your body and can be packed with calories.

When you eat excess sodium, your fingers may swell up.

Follow to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guideline of fewer than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day. Drinking lots of water is also a method you can use to promote weight loss and your overall health.

How to lose weight in your fingers through exercise

While you’re pursing your weight loss goals through diet and exercise, you can also target your fingers to make them stronger and more toned.

Grip exercise

The classic grip exercise can be used to improve wrist, upper arm, and grip strength.

A grip exercise tool typically comes with two foam handles that can be grasped by both sides of your hand. As your fingers work to close the grip, a metal coil in the middle provides resistance.

For best results, do grip exercises several times per week.

Resistance bands

You can purchase specially sized resistance bands that are meant to work out your fingers.

These products strap to your wrist and have a hole in each band where you can insert each of your five fingers. By pulling the resistance bands up and outward, you’re improving the strength of your individual fingers as well as toning them overall.

Practicing an instrument

One way to get longer-looking fingers is to practice an instrument, like the piano or guitar.

It’s a great workout for your hands and fingers, in addition to being a mentally stimulating exercise. It can also be a form of music therapy.

How to make your hands look slimmer through lifestyle changes

You can also make lifestyle changes that will make your hands appear slimmer. These include:

Drink less alcohol. Alcohol can cause swelling and water retention, also known as alcohol bloating.
Go for a walk in the park. Not only does getting out in nature help you burn calories and lose weight, but it can also help decrease swelling and inflammation linked to stress.
Take vitamin D. A 2018 clinical study suggested that these supplements could help with weight loss. Whether through an oral supplement or limited sun exposure, increasing vitamin D may help boost your mood as well as your weight loss.
Do yoga. Poor circulation can make swelling worse, causing your fingers to look larger than they are. You can try yoga to improve circulation.

What causes weight gain in your fingers and hands?

When you eat more calories than you burn during the day, the calories are saved by your body in the form of excess fat.

Everyone’s body has a natural way that it tends to distribute weight. And for some of us, that place can be our hands and fingers.

Even if you’re at a healthy body weight, you may still find that your fingers appear thick or carry fat. This doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you or your body.

Having fingers that sometimes swell due to warm weather, humidity, or eating a lot of salt is also not unusual.

Takeaway

There’s no way you can spot-treat fat on your fingers.

You can pursue weight loss goals in a healthy way in order to drop excess pounds and have more energy. And, as a result, your fingers may look slimmer.

Some people will always carry some weight around their fingers even if they’re at a healthy weight — and that’s OK.

Talk with a doctor if you’re concerned about persistent swelling in your hands.

How we reviewed this article:

SourcesHistoryHealthline has strict sourcing guidelines and relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical journals and associations. We only use quality, credible sources to ensure content accuracy and integrity. You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and current by reading our editorial policy.

Angioedema. (2019).https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/angioedema/causes/
Get the facts: Sodium and the dietary guidelines. (2017).https://www.cdc.gov/salt/pdfs/sodium_dietary_guidelines.pdf
Guide to behavior change. (n.d.).https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/behavior.htm
Hasham S, et al. (2007). Diagnosis and treatment of swellings in the hand.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600075/
Khosravi ZS, et al. (2018). Effect of vitamin D supplementation on weight loss, glycemic indices, and lipid profile in obese and overweight women: A clinical trial study. DOI:https://dx.doi.org/10.4103/ijpvm.IJPVM_329_15

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Medically reviewed by Jake Tipane, CPT — Written by Kathryn Watson on December 11, 2020

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