The underlying cause of love handles is fat retention. Generally speaking, fat cells accumulate when your body takes in too many calories or you don't burn as many calories as you're consuming. Over time, these fat cells can become noticeable as they accumulate in certain areas, such as around your waist and hips.
If you eat a healthy, low-fat diet, burn more calories than you take in, and enjoy a good mix of cardio and ab workout time, you'll watch your love handles start to melt away within a few weeks.
While you can't spot reduce fat in your love handles, walking can help create a calorie deficit to burn overall body fat.
20-30 minutes of regular exercise targeting your oblique muscles every day can help keep your waist in shape. Oblique crunches, elbow twists, and side planks are a few of the best exercises that can help you reduce side fat effectively.
Studies have shown that interval-based exercise programs, most specifically high intensity interval training (HIIT), are more effective for burning off your love handles than steady state cardio. Instead of running for miles on end without any clear goal, fine tune your work and rest periods to strip away the fat.
Love handles, like many target zones, are tough to treat by themselves, Aaptiv trainer Jaime McFaden says. “Simply put, [love handles] are just one area that the body likes to store fat. Hormone imbalances, inactivity and eating high-fatty foods can make this area more susceptible to excess fat retention.”
As against areas such as legs, face and arms, our stomach and abdominal regions possess beta cells that makes it difficult to reduce the fats easily and lose weight in these areas. However, as per research, belly fat is the most difficult to lose as the fat there is so much harder to break down.
Refined carbohydrates are low in nutritional value but high in calories. These carbs are in white bread, refined grains, and sugary foods and drinks. Research has also linked refined carbs to the development of abdominal fat.
Once love handles appear, biology makes them tough to ditch. “You lose fat in the reverse order that you deposit it,” says Westcott. “And typically for men, the last place they lose fat would be that midsection area—the first place they put it on.”
Ward explains that a healthy fat loss is around 0.5 - 1% body fat per week, which means, 'You should see a noticeable difference to body fat levels within 8-12 weeks if following a structured exercise and nutrition plan.
A nutritious diet that is lower in calories will help you look and feel better, and can improve your health, too. Choosing the right foods -- think fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, lean protein, and low-fat dairy products -- will give you energy all day long and help satisfy your hunger so you eat less.
Love handles are a colloquial term for hip and abdomen fat. The body stores this fat, leading to bulges above the hips and around the waists. Poor diet, lack of sleep, and low physical activity are some of the main reasons for fat storage.
Adding foods rich in soluble fiber to your daily routine may help you get rid of stubborn love handles. Soluble fiber is found in foods like beans, nuts, oats, vegetables and fruits.
Simply walking more often can help you lose weight and belly fat, as well as provide other excellent health benefits, including a decreased risk of disease and improved mood. In fact, walking just one mile burns about 100 calories.
Massages. Massages are very important to stimulate blood circulation and break up fat deposits. This will enable your body to get rid of fat quicker. The most efficient technique to break up fat deposits is the palpate-roll massage.
Although genetics, age, alcohol intake, and lack of sleep can possibly cause the problem of excess fat near your hips and waistline, however, weight gain and extra fat are at the top among the causes of love handles.
Restricting calories but making those you do eat come from refined carbs, sugars and saturated fats can cause your body to not get all the nutrients it needs, especially protein, to support lean tissue. As a result, you may be losing weight in the form of lean muscle, not fat, so your love handles stick around.
Our Preoccupation with Motivation
So motivation is the number one perceived obstacle to weight loss. We've had countless conversations with clients who are frustrated, flustered and generally worn down by their lack of motivation — “It's my fault, I just can't seem to keep myself motivated,” they cry.
Research has found that men tend to lose more weight from their trunk area, while women lose more weight from their hips.