• your upper body
• your waist
• your glutes, upper thighs, and hips

The emphasis of what you work on will depend on your natural shape.

If you’re already slim all around, you may want to start by building muscle around your shoulders and chest area to get broader on top. If you carry weight around your midsection, you’ll likely want to prioritize whittling that away.

Hourglass Figure Measurement and Training

Since it’s hard to spot-reduce fat in just one area of your body, it’s important to focus on overall weight loss if you want to drop inches from your waist. But there are some exercises and workouts that have been proven to be more successful at targeting fat around your midsection.

Yoga

When it comes to whittling down your waist, yoga is an option that’s hard to beat.

A 2016 study of 60 women showed that 12 weeks of yoga practice resulted in an average loss of 1.5 inches around the waist — and that was without going on a low-calorie diet.

Yoga poses such as Bow Pose, Boat Pose, and Reverse Warrior can activate, tighten, and tone your deep core muscles.

Planks

According to a 2017 study, planks and other stability exercises have the ability to activate your inner core. This, in turn, may help trim your waistline and improve athletic performance.

As a bonus, planks may help improve your posture as well as your endurance for activities like running or cycling.

If you want to lose weight to shrink your midsection, you may be wary of losing inches from your hips and thighs.

Once you start losing weight, though, you can try the following exercises to help you shape and tone the muscles in and around your hips. Aim to do these toning exercises at least three to four times a week.

Fire hydrants

Fire hydrant exercises, also known as dirty dog exercises or hip side lifts, target your hip area and glutes. This exercise also uses your core muscles for stability.

Try to do at least a couple sets of 10 repetitions on each side, and add more as they get easier.

Lunges

Lunges can help tone and build lean muscle mass in your thighs and buttocks. Lunges work your core and abdominals while giving your buttocks a lift.

Start off by doing 10 to 12 lunges on each leg at a time. You can add more lunges as you build your fitness.

Toning your shoulders and bust may prove to be the most challenging part of getting a curvier shape. Most people want to look solid and fit — not bulky or broad.

Here’s the good news: You can build up your bust size naturally through exercise. And there are plenty of exercises that you can incorporate to give your shoulders a shapely curve.

Wall presses

Wall presses, also called wall pushups, work your pectoral muscles as well as the “chicken wing” area underneath your arms and your upper shoulders.

You can pump out a few sets of these between commercial breaks to get your blood pumping and to give your chest muscles a workout.

Try to do 10 to 15 of these pushups at a time. Rest for a few minutes, then do another set.

A perfect hourglass figure may be hard to achieve and, in reality, it’s a body shape that few people have naturally.

Although there are ways to trim inches from your waist and tone your muscles in the right places, it’s important to be realistic and remember that your measurements don’t define you.

Instead of aiming for a desired body shape, try to aim for optimum overall health through regular exercise, a healthy diet, and loving your body.