How to Lose your Love Handles?

'Muffin Top' Appearance

Combine Weights, Resistance and Strength Training

‘Love handles’ might sound alluring and seductive but there isn’t much to love about love handles. Rather, they are a pain to hang around with! Any wild guesses on what part of the body does ‘love handles’ refer to? If your thoughts didn’t go anywhere beyond the hands, thighs, legs or muscles, you are absolutely mistaken.

Love handles refers to the excess fat that sits on both sides of your stomach resulting in a ‘muffin top’ appearance. It hangs over the top of your pants dangling around and dancing to its own music. This is one of the few places in our body that is extremely challenging to conquer. If you think that you are smart enough to dissuade it with ab workouts and abdominal crunches, sorry but this will lead you nowhere. Approach any fitness expert on sorting out this issue and his/her first advise that no amount of abs workout will do the trick if you don’t focus on your diet and exercise would surely sound discouraging. Another false hope that encourage most individuals is the term ‘spot reduction’. Fat loss is never possible with spot reduction and there is not the minutest chance of targeting a specific area.

Not As Bad As Visible
Though quite detestable, your love handles contain subcutaneous fat that are way far better than the visceral fat that hangs around internal organs and causes health risk. These love handles dangling from your abdomen sides look like a muffin top and act stubbornly. Alas, even the cunning visceral fat gives away to your demands with consistent exercise and diet but the extra fat around your hips don’t budge easily. Even if your waist size is greater than 35 (in case you’re a woman) or 40 (in case you’re a man) it is the deep visceral fat that dissolves first. One needs abundance of patience, perseverance and discipline to help your love handles (including excess fat around your buttocks, hips and thighs) to hate your body and run away from it.

There is no one specific diet for losing love handles but it is always recommended to follow a meal plan that you can follow long-term, but this is hard stuff, especially for the men whose weight loss efforts are seen lastly around the hips. Some clear-cut ways to enable fat loss around your love handles include:

Clean Eating: Eating healthy food is one of the most critical and result-oriented steps while trying to lose fat anywhere in your body. Added sugars are capable of increasing fat portions, especially belly fat. Your sweetened beverages that contain fructose have the tendency to increase belly fat greatly. Rather than adding empty calories to your body, try indulging in healthy fats such as avocados, nuts, olive oil and fatty fish for a narrow waistline as such fats keep you full for longer periods resulting in fewer calories consumption through the day. The same holds good for fiber too as eating fiber-rich foods keeps you fuller by slowing down digestion. Eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, beans and oats.

Active movement: Staying active and finding ways to keep moving around as often as possible keeps you healthy and fit. With most people nowadays involved in desk work, long sitting hours and a sedentary lifestyle are bad influences on your waistline. While trying to focus on specific body parts is normal, it is always advisable to exercise for the entire body which also takes care of the love handles. Rather than wasting time on spot training, add aerobic exercises that take care of your whole-body movements.

Cardio & Weights: Cardio workouts don’t necessarily involve vigorous-intensity exercises such as running or spinning. Start gradually from low-intensity aerobic exercises, go for a brisk walk or swim to get your required 150 minutes of workout every week. While aerobic activities help you burn more fat during your workout, resistance training helps the body build lean muscles and burn more calories at rest. Try doing weight training exercises along with your cardio workout to reap greater benefits in a short time. Cardio along with strength/ resistance/weight training leaves you with the best results.
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Stress & Sleep: Stress and sleeplessness can increase weight gain due to the increase in cortisol levels in the body. Studies have proven that people who sleep for 7-8 hours are at lesser risk of weight gain compared to those who sleep for lesser than 6 hours. Avoid stress too as it triggers the release of cortisol (stress) hormones which in turn causes negative side effects such as anxiety, headache, digestive issues and weight gain.  Do meditation or involve yourself in some activity that you enjoy to stay peaceful and rest your mind. There are various other options at www.firsteatright.com which can help you relax your mind and body.

Stay Hydrated: Drink plenty of water for staying healthy. Many people indulge in sports drinks, sugar-sweetened beverages and juices to quench their thirst and finally gain fat around the waistline. This is more dangerous as liquid foods don’t restrict our quantity intake and we might drink more quantities adding up too much of calories to our body. Refrain from alcohol as this is one of the major reasons for belly fat and fat around the midsection.

Become fit and stay chic losing your love handles. Lead a healthy lifestyle by sticking to a healthy diet plan, exercise schedule and an active lifestyle. Follow the above-given tips to lose your love handles as fast as possible.

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