There is nothing loving about Love handles! These are pesky fats that sit on the sides of the stomach. These Love Handles are quite challenging to get rid of because it lies on the top of the obliques and require certain specialized exercises to shed. It is not just exercise but one needs to adopt a healthy lifestyle to get rid of love handles. For example, fat accumulation occurs in the abdominal areas because people spend most of their time sitting and working at home.

Love handles are not something that you need to be ashamed of. If you give proper time and maintain a healthy lifestyle, you can remove them. That said, love handles can signal obesity and you need to first think about your diet and exercise routine. Here we can elaborate the causes of love handles, diet and preventive exercises to reduce excessive body fat.

What are the Causes of Love Handles?

There is not a single cause you can point out, but it is a combination of number of factors that lead to excess of fat accumulation over the lower sides of your torso. Love handles are not something unique thing in your body, it’s like belly fats that can be accumulated because of number of factors.

• Cortisol hormone, also known as the metabolic hormone is released when your body experiences stress. For some people, it leads to overeating and weight gain. It is generally more prominent in women than men because in principle women experience more stressful responses and high production of cortisol. In extreme cases, it leads to Cushing syndrome when unhealthy abdominal fat is accumulated in the belly.
  
  
• With age, fat distribution becomes uneven and shifts towards the belly area and obliques. Age also results in a lower level of estrogen in women and testosterone in women, which is also a contributor to love handles.
  
  
• Apart from physiological reasons, your diet is also a very important contributor to fat accumulation. With age, your anabolism increases and thus you can start retaining more calories that will inevitably make you gain weight.
  
  
• Lack of physical exercise or focused training is another reason for these seemingly omnipresent pockets of fats.
  
  
• Sometimes irrespective of everything you do, you still gain a significant amount of fat. In that case, you are unlucky because of your genetics. It is obviously not the end of the road but you need to work harder to stay fit.

Choosing a Diet

There are a large number of online as well as books are published on reducing diets. However, there are a few diet tips that actually work because these are not medically supervised. It is always advisable to have a medical check-up before embarking on a weight-reducing program, but you are probably safe going on a diet by yourself if you have only 10 to 15 pounds to lose.

As mentioned before, love handles can be a signal to your obesity, and therefore it is necessary to reduce the overall weight. You need to ensure that your diet is balanced and contains the recommended dietary allowance for vitamins, minerals and proteins.

Medically Supervised Diet

You need to consult a doctor before you start a weight-reducing diet program if any of the following points apply to you.

• You are more than 15 pounds over normal weight.
• You have been heavy for most or all of your life. You need special support to help you overcome longstanding habits.
• You are pregnant; dieting can endanger your unborn child.
• You have a health problem such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high blood cholesterol; the doctor might suggest additional measures.
• You suffer from an emotional depression; dieting might cause additional stress with which might not be able to cope.
• You develop symptoms of physical problems while on a diet, including sudden chest pains, nausea, fainting spells or depression.
• You are determined to follow a crash diet of fewer than 800 calories a day.

Exercises to Reduce Love Handles

While targeting fat reduction around the waistline is tough, certain specialized cardiovascular exercises and weight training can reduce love handles. Additionally, you can incorporate exercises that target specific areas such as hips and abdomen. This will improve muscle tone and help to lose overall weight.

1) Bicycle Crunches for Toned Abs & Obliques

First, you need to lie flat on your back with your legs lifted and your knee bent. Now, you contract your abdominal muscles and twist your right elbow toward your left knee while fully extending your right leg. Then repeat this motion on the opposite side. Do this exercise 15-30 times.

Benefits

• Activating the obliques  – side abdominal muscles
• Activating deep ab muscle
• Toning thighs and hamstrings

2) Russian Twists for Powerful Core Strength

You need to sit with your knees bent and feet flat on the ground. Remember to keep your torso at a 45-degree angle to the floor. Now, hold a light dumbbell that you are comfortable moving on with both hands. Lift your legs from the ground, crossing them at the ankles and balancing on your buttocks. Next, twist your body to the left and touch the dumbbell to the left side of your body. Repeat this motion 50 times while balancing with your legs and torso raised off of the ground.

Benefits

• Adding weights to the exercise helps burn good amount of calories.
• Overall strengthens ab muscles and help in getting flat stomach.
• Activating the rectus abdominals, both internal and external obliques.
• Preventing slouching and add good posture

3) Side Planks

Side planks are wonderful exercises to reduce love handles. You need to lie down into a side plank position with your elbow resting on the ground and your legs and hips resting on the ground. This will form a straight line. Then you raise your hips off the ground and hold the position for 10-15 seconds. Then repeat this motion.

Benefits

• Engaging core muscles without stressing your back
• Improving balance and posture
• Boosting metabolism
• Increasing overall flexibility of the body

4) Mountain Climbers

This is again a variation of planks. You need to start with a plank position. Then you need to bring your right knee up toward your chest while keeping your left leg extended. Hold this position briefly for 2-3 seconds before swiftly switching your legs and keeping your left knee up toward your chest. It is a bit advanced exercise where you need to carefully distribute weight on both feet and not to shift all weight to one leg. You can repeat this exercise for 30 sets.

Benefits

• Compound exercise, working multiple muscle groups
• Improving mobility and strengthening ab muscles
• Increasing core strength, reducing flat belly

Tips for Losing Weight

• You should know your eating problem areas. Start a food record diary for a week before you start your diet and exercise regime. Review it to spot special problems like high-calorie snacks, mood-related eating, and lapses on weekends.
  
  
• For the first few weeks of your dieting, measure your portion sizes so that you are sure you are not eating too much.
  
  
• Balance your meals and snacks, eating some of the foods from each food group every day. Also, eat smaller portions instead of giving up favourite food entirely.
  
  
• Minimize or cut out concentrated calorie sources high in sugar, alcohol and fat such as butter, cream fatty meats, salad dressings, rice cakes and pastries.
  
  
• Avoid eating and drinking while watching television or reading.

Keeping Your Weight in Line to Reduce Love Handles

You are more likely to succeed in losing love handles if you increase the amount of exercise you do while decreasing the number of calories you eat. You will benefit from the extra fitness and trimmer looks, and from the fact that you need a less rigid diet when your energy output increases.

Sedentary lifestyles make your love handles. So, if you have been sedentary until now, include more walking, stair climbing, and lifting in your daily routine. You can also add some vigorous aerobic exercises, which takes you to your maximum level of endurance, several times a week.

Choose the activities that you like the most because then you are more likely to keep them up. If you are embarrassed about your love handles or belly fat, you might prefer to exercise by yourself or with someone close to you. If you find that you are more successful with group support, you might make your scheduled exercise program a social occasion with friends or a gym.

Lifestyle Changes May Help in Reducing Love Handles

If your goal is to eliminate those stubborn love handles, exercise alone can’t help much. There are studies that show that taking small steps, incremental progress is the best way to get long-lasting results. People who take their lifestyle seriously and adopt smaller changes in their lifestyle such as drinking more water, walking, climbing the stairs, minimizing sitting time at one spot, and stop eating and drinking while watching a movie or television etc. will lose more weight.

In addition to diet and regular exercise, the following tips may help you to lose those irritating love handles:

Drink enough water – Water makes you full and it doesn’t have any calories. It will keep your system clean. Although seemingly counterintuitive, if you have a decent amount of salt intake in your diet, drinking lots of water will help in fluid retention. Excessive fluid retention will make your love handles worse.

Avoid alcohol and sugar foods – Consuming too much-refined sugar may lead to weight gain and love handles. Omit the cocktail hour and cut down on alcohol generally.

Wear loose-fitting clothes – This is not a permanent solution, but you can minimize the appearance of love handles with loose-fitting pants and skirts.

Summary

Love handles are not any kind of disease but a signal of obesity when fat retain around the hips and abdominal area. There are different methods to minimize even completely eliminate these pesky fats, but this fat is also very difficult to remove. It is therefore important to take a disciplined approach to your diet, exercise regime as well as change in lifestyle.