How to Reduce your Bust Size: Turning watermelon-sized breasts into oranges

Hauling around two watermelons strapped to your chest with wire and moulded material may be as uncomfortable and conspicuous as a full-term pregnant women’s tummy.  Girls are finding lugging around balloons of breast fat under their shoulders is dragging them down, with a pain and humiliation you would expect of someone who did something embarrassingly wrong.

Ms Davies, is a 21-year-old, pint-sized university student who has the great displeasure of carting around a pair of blossoming 14H boobs day in day out.

“I hate them,” she complains.  “They are too big!”

Ms Davies is surely not alone in her discomfort and hatred of her feminine body part, with new figures from lingerie suppliers finding that 40 per cent of Australian women wear a bra with a cup size of DD or bigger.

It appears Australian women’s breast are getting bigger as time progresses, as B was the average bra-cup size in the 1950s.  This figure has jumped up three bra-cup sizes in the space of about sixty years.  Thankfully, for sufferers of the larger than average bust, there is hope that doing specific exercises and having a balanced diet can help in possibly shrinking those watermelons into something that more resembles oranges.

Experts also praise how wearing the right bra and style of clothing for your body shape can help camouflage the real size of your breasts.

Kammy Jaffar is a fitness instructor who has been in the health industry for many years.  Although she lacks even apples for boobs and is jealous of those with orange-sized breasts in the least, she is a firm believer that the bust can be reduced.

 “Yes, absolutely, because it is essentially fat,” she confirms.

Using a mixture of three weight exercises and a cardio routine, Ms Jaffar has formatted an exercise regime which is aimed at targeting the breast area, reducing the fat surrounding them.

To start with Ms Jaffar suggests doing bar bench presses.

Here you have a bar with weights at both ends which are clipped in place to stop them falling off.  Lying down bring the bar towards your chest in line with your nipples keeping your elbows at a 90 degree angle, and then push the bar back up.

It is important to use your chest to push the bar rather than just using your arms, Ms Jaffar notes.

She also suggests starting with the lightest weight possible for this exercise, doing ten repetitions, twice, with a break in-between.

Peck-deck-butterflies, with its appealingly creative name, is a motion assisted workout which can help you flutter your breasts into shedding some fat.  This second weight exercise involves you placing your elbows and lower arms on the pad of the resistance machine and pressing it inwards whilst opening up your chest.  To see results this should be done 10-15 times in sets of two, Ms Jaffar recommends.

Although they sound like insects, dumb-bell flies are another useful weight exercise on the breast reduction to do list.

This involves getting comfy on a reclining chair.  Starting with the lightest weights available, which are usually about 1kg, lie on the chair and push the weights up in the air using your chest muscles and then back down again.  Repeat ten times, twice over.

For beginners, starting with light weights is a good idea.  This allows your body to become familiar with the exercise enabling you to prefect the correct techniques.

“Eventually your body will tell you if the weight is too light,” says Ms Jaffar.  “If you do this twice or three times a week, ideally you should be able to put some more weights on after six or eight weeks.”

Another exercise which can be done is push-ups.  Doing them on your knees with your knees close to your chest, is a lighter option compared to the two hands, two feet, traditional push-up.  An even easier option if you are struggling is to put your hands on a platform or step and go down on your knees and do push-ups off the block.  Eight sets of two are all that is needed to begin with.

Lastly, cardio is also necessary if you want to decrease the size of your cleavage.  This is because you can’t spot reduce part of your body; you have to work the whole lot to receive the full impact of your weight work-out, according to Ms Jaffar.

“So you reduce weight you reduce your breast size,” she simply puts it.  “In order to reduce weight we have to do cardio as well to get our heart burning.”

This may involve walking or running, as long as you are getting your heart rate up for about thirty minutes, at least four times a week.  Ms Jaffar expects that sufficient weight loss, around your bust area specifically, will be noticeable, conservatively three months after you start your work-out. 

Margaret Miller, senior lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics at Edith Cowan University, also agrees it is realistically possible to decrease your bust size.

“Breast tissue contains a high proportion of fat which is readily stored in the breasts during excess weight gain,” she says.  “Subsequently during weight loss, breast tissue is among the first to reduce, compared to more stubborn weight loss areas around the hips and thighs.”

Ms Miller also suggests that your genetic predisposition to bust size also influences your ability to lose weight there.

Along with genetics, diet during puberty and the amount of fat each individual can store in their breasts may determine the size of each woman’s femininity.

Weight loss from the breasts works in the same way as normal weight loss does, meaning less intake of calories and more output of energy.

“Exercises that strengthen the pectoral muscles also helps to improve the ‘perkiness’ of breasts,” Ms Miller says.

It has been said that foods such as caffeine and chicken which has been injected with hormones may also be reason to blame on women’s blossoming bust sizes.

“This is not true at all,” she says.

The reason for her sure opinion is that the hormones in the food would have been digested in the stomach before they are given the opportunity to work their magic on your breasts.

Wearing a properly fitted bra is a must.

Marianne Staltari is manager of Silk Elegance and has had 17 years experience in lingerie and bra fitting.  She says brands such as Elomi, Fantasy, Freya, Fair Form and Panache offer more fashionable bras which are specifically designed for women with a fuller bust.

Bras which are designed more for the watermelon than the orange sized breasts tend to have more construction to them.  These bras provide extra support with wider shoulder straps, more clips at the back where the bra does up and added support on the side wing.

Minimiser bras are talked about a lot when it comes to magically making your bust appear smaller. They work by taking away the point in the centre of the bra spreading the breast around into the body more, making it more compact.

Ms Staltari, however comments that this is not the best look for a larger lady because it will emphasise the size of the hips instead.  Alternatively she recommends a more balconette style bra, which has less point in the centre of the cup working to sit the bust up higher.

“Sometimes their bust sits down too low,” she says about women wearing the wrong bra.  “So being properly fitted into their correct size will actually sit their bust into their chest better.”

Carrying around a pair of watermelons for life is like a marriage destined for divorce for some women.

“It’s so hard,” says Ms Davies about her well-above-average sized breasts.

She is however prepared to try other alternative methods suggested by our experts, as an alternative to having a breast reduction.

 “It would be a lot of pain being tucked, sucked and cut,” says Ms Davies.  “I would try other things first like exercise.”

The pill and weight gain

The Pill is a common form of contraception helping prevent women from falling pregnant.  It can also be used to help overcome Pre-Menstrual Syndrome and assist in period regulation, whilst some Pills even aid in treating acne.  The usefulness of the Pill has lead to around 100 million women universally being on it.  There is however an ongoing debate as to whether the Pill causes women to put on weight, especially around their breast area.

Dr Manjir Mudhar, interviewed for this article, believes this is not entirely the case.

“Increased levels of Oestrogen and Progesterone in some pills may cause women to put on weight,” he says.  “But if you maintain a balanced diet and exercise regularly the likelihood of this will decrease.”

The feeling of weight gain can be contributed to a bloating feeling which is mainly due to the increased retention of fluid and sodium.  These feelings are caused by the female hormone, Oestrogen, which is found in the Pill.  Oestrogen is also responsible for cell production and tissue growth, helping to distribute fat around our body.

Progestin is also a hormone found in the Pill which may be responsible for increased appetite and hence weight gain.  To combat the effects Oestrogen and Progestin may have your body and weight, Dr Mudhar recommends taking low dose Pills such as Yasmin, Yaz or Microgynon 20.

“High dose Pills being traditional, or earlier Pills like Trifene, Triphasil and Microgynon 30 have higher levels of Oestrogen and Progestin,” he says, therefore are more likely to influence your fluid retention and diet.”

What are your thoughts on bust size, and what success, or not, have you had with exercise, diet and corsetry in taming the beasts?  Or alternatively, are you comfortable with your large breasts and wear them with pride? 

You may be interested in reading a Flourish reader's personal account of her breast reduction here.

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