If you are wondering how to get rid of love handles, you’re not alone. Most people have things about their bodies they wish they could change. Lumps and bumps we grimace at in the mirror, wishing them away.
One of the lumps and bumps you may want to get rid of could be love handles. But a lot of women do not know how to get rid of love handles. They can be tricky for certain.
After all, it is impossible to spot reduce. You cannot do a set of exercises and simply shrink one area. Weight loss and reduction does not work like that.
Some things do cause your love handles to be more prominent than other times. Extra weight, alcohol, and excess sodium are examples.
In general, love handles are caused by excess weight. If you lose the excess, they will diminish. But some people who are slender have them. Then they’re really wondering how to get rid of love handles.
Diet
Too much insulin in your system will encourage the collection of fat around your midsection. If you have a genetic tendency toward love handles, then it will accumulate there. As long as you have too much insulin, you cannot shake that extra flab.
You can keep your insulin levels low by controlling your diet. Eliminating insulin provoking foods such as sugar, artificial sweetners, most fruits, and white flour will help. Making sure you eat protein with complex carbs and low glycemic index fruits will help as well.
Doctors recommend heart-healthy fats, like those found in olive oil, nuts, and salmon; 3 servings of calcium from green, leafy vegetables or dairy products; and plenty of fiber from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
These foods are digested slowly leaving you to feel satisfied for longer. Add some green tea to your diet for an extra fat-burning boost. Three cups a day will speed up your metabolism and ward off diseases.
Sodium
Sodium causes water retention. We retain water all over, but it settles in spots where we tend to harbor fat. So the more salt you eat, the more bloat, the more pronounced those love handles are.
And you need to watch more than the salt shaker. Salt is hidden in a lot of foods too.
Exercise
Exercise is important for overall health and can help decrease excess fat, which helps in your mission to discover how to get rid of love handles. Cardio helps you to lose fat all over. So does weight training.
Don’t think you have to live at the gym to get the job done. A moderate amount of exercise daily and resistance training a few times a week will do well.
You will be able to get rid of love handles quickly by doing exercises that were found by the American Council on Exercise to be the very best ones for working your obliques: Bicycle crunches, captain’s chair leg raises, and vertical leg crunches.
Bicycle crunches involve lying down on your back and doing crunch-twists while pedaling your legs as if you were riding a bicycle. Captain’s chair leg raises require the use of a captain’s chair, which is a common fixture in most gyms. Vertical leg crunches are performed like regular crunches, but with your legs raised perpendicular to the ground.
Alcohol
Reducing your alcoholic intake will reduce the look of your love handles. For one thing, alcohol has the worst kind of carbs for your insulin levels. Each time you drink, you are shooting up your insulin levels. All that insulin in your bloodstream just keeps extra flab on your midsection.
Clothing
The way your clothes fit can create the illusion of love handles or the illusion of a lack of love handles.
If your clothes are too tight or cling to that area, you are not doing yourself a service. One way to figure out how to get rid of love handles, is to dress in a way that minimizes them.
Weight loss takes consistency.
Find something you like doing and do it routinely. Or double up and do something you have to do but work up a sweat at it. Walking the dog can become exercise.
The way to lose love handles is to drop excess fat and avoid things that make them more noticeable.