How to get rid of love handles is a common question people have, and most haven’t found a solution. These days, love handles have become a growing problem (no pun intended) for a lot of men and even women. Basically, love handles is a delicate way of addressing the fat that gathers at the sides of your waist.
You may be surprised to learn that you don’t necessarily have to be out of shape to have love handles. Often times, hardcore bodybuilders can get love handles in the off-season. They still workout and attain a great deal of muscle mass, they are just holding some extra body fat for the time. Love handles can be caused by an increase in calories, overeating, metabolic downgrade, aging, and inactivity.
How to Get Rid of Love Handles
Misinformation on Love Handles
Even though love handles are simply fat handles, that doesn’t stop fitness manufactures from throwing “miracle programs” and targeting gadgets at you so they can cash in on your desperation. Such fitness gizmos come along with an instruction manual and a bonus book informing you that in order to get the best results from your ab machine, you need to eat a clean and healthy diet. Duh?
Let’s face it. Bodybuilders have never relied on gizmos and gadget to get abs of steel. Real abs are built with a healthy diet, cardio, and regular ab training that can be done anywhere.
How to Say Bye-Bye to Your Love Handles
I know what you are thinking… You’ve tried everything and no matter what you do, your waist keeps getting bigger. Right? You’ve done hundreds of crunches and still don’t have a six-pack. Am I right? I can give you a few fitness secrets on how to get rid of those love handles that have been a pain in the side.
Step #1
If you are one of my loyal followers, you will know that the first thing I preach is nutrition. Love handles are just accumulated body fat on your sides and back. UrbanDictionary.com defines love handles as, “The areas of extra fat that hang or slightly bulge from the sides, and are also the little rolls on the lower back. Both men and women can have these.” To get rid of your love handles you need to clean up your diet. Stop eating junk food; avoid sugar, cut out the soda, and other obvious unhealthy stuff.
Step #2
Do more cardio workouts. You gotta get moving to burn the existing body fat off. After about 14-21 days of implementing just the first two steps, you’ll see a dramatic improvement. Start with doing about 20 minutes on the treadmill or elliptical. BE CONSISTENT! Increase the amount of cardio you are doing every week or two.
Step #3
Workout your abs. Doing regular ab work will build and strengthen the underlying ab muscle just under the fat. When your fat sheds from doing the first two, BAM, your abs will be poppin’ out.
Love Handles No-No’s
1.) Avoid hanging leg raises or knee ups. Yeah, these exercises don’t even TOUCH the lower abs as you might think. These two exercises actually target the Sartorius muscle that runs down the leg.
2.) Avoid twisting. Twisting with weights or even a stick can widen your waist (if you are genetically prone).
3.) Avoid side bends. Side bends can thicken the waist (if you are genetically prone), adding unwanted size.
Love Handles Exercises to Do
You don’t need to do a lot of fancy-dancy ab workouts. Do these listed below, combined with a good diet and cardio, and you’ll be sportin’ some nice abs very soon.
1.) Elbow-to-Knee – Lie down with your knees bent. In a controlled manner crunch your elbow to the opposite knee and repeat with the other elbow and knee.
2.) Lying Torso Lift – Lie down and put your legs up so your body is in the “L” position. Slowly, lift your hips off the floor. This is a small movement.
3.) The Stomach Vacuum – Stand up straight, exhale and pull your belly button in as far as you can, hold it there for as long as you can, and continue to breathe normally.
4.) Butterfly Crunches – Lie down, cross your legs Indian style, crunch up.
