How to Lose Weight from Your Face -

If you feel that your face is carrying more weight than you'd like, it is possible to change its appearance. In some cases, your facial weight may be a result of genetics, in which case, you may need to learn to love the genetic roll of the dice. If you're overweight, this will impact your facial fat distribution as well as your body and dieting healthily is the best course of action. Unfortunately, it isn't possible to target the face alone for fat loss but there are plenty of things you can do to minimize or lessen facial fat.

Edit Steps

Assessing the Need to Lose Facial Weight

Look in the mirror. If you have a normal size body but feel that your face is not slim, consider whether you might have a distorted notion of your proportions.
- Look at closely related family members. Do they have the same facial proportions as you? You may have a genetic predisposition to a certain layout of weight around your face. Also, some forms of facial chubbiness may be related to your youth and "puppy fat" tends to pass with aging.
- Ask people you can trust to be honest to you. Do they think your face is chubby or do they think it is appropriately proportioned?
- Is your face "puffy", as opposed to being fat? Puffiness can be caused by poor nutrition, salty foods, lack of sleep, alcohol or drug intake, lack of exercise, etc.
- Talk to your doctor. He or she will be able to reassure you as to what facial fat proportions are appropriate. Also, your doctor can discard possible problems such as edema (swelling).

Check your posture. Slumping posture can cause an appearance of a fatter face by forcing a double chin look. Any fat you do have will simply shift to the most comfortable placement and if your posture pushes your neck and chin downward, this may fatten your face.

Exercises can improve your posture.
- Stand and sit up straighter, so as to align your spine properly. Ask for help from a physiotherapist or doctor if you're not sure how you should be standing or sitting to ensure good posture.
- Breathe deeply. It is harder to slump when you breathe more deeply, as you need to straighten up to fill with air.
- Remind yourself to hold your shoulders back, tilt your head and chin up more and look people in the eyes.
- Posture improving exercises exist; ask your physiotherapist for more details or check online sources. Pilates, yoga and similar exercises will help too.

General Nutrition and Diet

Good overall nutrition for your body impacts your face as well.

Eat healthily. Restrict the amount of calories you consume to those needed for a person of your height, gender and age. Calorie tables are available from government authorities responsible for nutrition information in your country. Or, ask your doctor for advice appropriate to you.

Lose weight if you're overweight. When you lose body fat, you will also lose fat around your face. Be aware that it isn't possible to target one zone of the body for weight loss––when losing weight, the whole body, including the face, will be impacted. By following a nutritionally balanced diet to lose weight, along with regular exercise, you should find any unwanted facial fat reduces as well.
- It is important to discuss dieting with your doctor, to ensure that you follow a well-balanced diet and avoid fad dieting that can harm your body.
- Cardiovascular exercises and strength training are best for weight loss and toning.
- Eat plenty of fiber and leafy green vegetables. Avoid foods high in sugar and fat.
- Try to avoid alcohol or minimize its consumption drastically. Alcohol contains non-nutritious calories and dehydrates your body too. Dehydration can cause your face to appear bloated.

Keep well hydrated. Having sufficient water intake will help you to flush out excess sodium that may be creating puffiness in your face.^[1] Adequate water will also help to flush out toxins in the body that may be contributing to an unhealthy pallor.

Facial Exercises

There are over 50 muscles in the face,^[1] which some experts believe can all benefit from facial exercises.^[2]

Don't treat facial exercises as a cure-all. The idea of facial exercising has its devotees but never rely on this alone as a way to reduce facial fat, as having a slimmer look still comes back to losing weight healthily in general and exercising the whole body. However, that said, facial exercises are good to do in conjunction with dieting because they can be some help in preventing the sagging and wrinkling that occurs after a large weight loss.^[3]

Try facial yoga. Yoga poses that force your head downwards are considered to give the facial muscles a good workout, along with deep breathing exercises. As a bonus, this helps to keep you looking younger.^[2]

Say X and O many times in a row. These two letters will force your mouth and cheeks to contract in such a way as to make the muscles move a lot. Repeat as many times a day as you wish.

Chew chewing gum or bubblegum. The constant chewing action will use many muscles in the face and if you enjoy chewing gum, it's not going to be hard to do.
- Chew sugar-free gum. Avoid adding any more sugar to your diet than needed.

Open your mouth as roundly and widely as you can. Hold it for a few seconds. Then relax.
- Repeat this about 30 times in a row, three times a day (morning, noon and evening).

Using Makeup to Minimize Fatter Areas of the Face

Makeup is used to disguise all manner of things on the face. It can also be used to reduce the sense of breadth.

Use blush that is than the hue of your skin. Draw it from the exterior of the face to the inner. It gives an impression of more sculpted cheeks and looks good.

Use contouring to thin the face. Contouring can make a less defined face seem thinner, by accentuating the cheekbones and using shading to tone down and highlight different parts of the face.
- Contouring can make already-slim faces seem hollow and tired. Be careful how much contouring is used.
- Ask for a contouring lesson with a local makeup artist. This person will be able to best advise you on what to play up and what to tone down with respect to your own face. It takes time to learn to contour well, so keep practicing.

Arch your eyebrows. Arched eyebrows that have a little thickness (but not too much) can slim down a face.^[4] These can be made to stand out by using a shade slightly darker than your natural eyebrow color.

Use concealer to cover up under-eye circles. These circles can add the appearance of weight to your face.

Use lighter lip color. Darker lipstick colors can give an impression of heaviness. By using lighter lipsticks, you can make lips appear slimmer.

Edit Tips

Your natural body shape will have an impact on how large, wide or fatty your face appears.

Keeping your facial skin in excellent condition is essential for feeling better about how your face looks. Your face is the window to the world, so make it look as beautiful as possible by following a daily skincare and cleansing routine that suits your skin type and lifestyle. It doesn't have to be complex or expensive and your gender doesn't matter––just find a skin cleansing and moisturizing routine that works for you and stick to it.

Faces are prone to accumulating fat; as such, it may actually be a useful indicator for you to consider going on a diet to tone up your whole body.

Face sculpting creams do exist but do your research before spending large amounts of money.

A fuller face helps to keep most people looking younger. For many people, embracing the facial fat is the way to stay looking young for longer! After your 40s, you will start to lose facial fat naturally and lower BMIs mean that wrinkles stand out more on the face.^[2]

Edit Warnings

Facial surgery is as serious as any other form of surgery and shouldn't be considered lightly. There are many blood vessels in your face that can make such surgery tricky. Even when done well, facial surgery will leave scarring.

Chewing for a long time can result in aching jaws.

There is no such thing as "spot reduction" weight loss; there is no one way to target an area of the body and lose weight only there. You will need to be prepared to lose weight generally in order to lose some facial weight.

Losing too much weight from your face can result in you appearing much older, with shallow and sunken parts of your face.^[2] Anywhere between 15 to 25 percent body fat is essential for keeping the face youthful in appearance.^[2]