Exercises to say goodbye to your love handles

Love handles, a pretty expression for a small belt of fat mass at the waist, just above the hips at the sides. Many can live with it, but others would do better with a better shaped waist and a more toned stomach. So which exercise will be the most effective in getting rid of your love handles and making you feel better about yourself? Follow our advice …

The expression "love handles" (which the Anglo-Saxons call Love Handles, following the same concept as us) is the term used to describe the pads placed on the sides of the abdominal belt. More precisely, it is these pretty curves that we can capture during our erotic lovemaking. Fortunately, those pads of fat above the hips are also affectionately referred to as "rings of life" or "gold hips."
Some women and men love their curves and are rightly proud of them. We have every right to love her voluptuous shapes! Others, on the other hand, find these fatty deposits on the stomachs and hips rather disturbing. And we can help them.

Whether it's for visual reasons or just to feel better about their body, this article is for anyone who wants to reduce their waistline. Be careful, this does not necessarily mean losing weight, losing weight, let's get on well! Because you should know that muscle mass weighs more than fat mass. So you can probably tone up and draw your waist better with the exercises that follow. But do not obsess over the weight loss displayed on your scale please!

If you want to get rid of love handles, you will need to focus your efforts on the large muscle groups involved in this area, as these are the key to burning fat.

In addition to exercise, if you eat a healthy diet, your love handles should clearly decrease or even disappear.

From good nutrition to targeted exercise: Our tips are guaranteed to melt those love handles!

How do you get rid of your love handles?

A well-thought-out workout keeps your love handles under control, and a mix of cardio and strength training creates the perfect balance. Burning fat and building muscle are the key ideas here.
If you want to drastically reduce or get rid of love handles because they have become too troublesome for you, you also need to be on a diet (in the sense of a new way of feeding yourself, not in the sense of a low calorie program necessarily based on deprivation, beware!) appropriate. Regular physical exercise, when coupled with good dietary hygiene, will allow you to see visible results fairly quickly.

Before starting, let's take a look at nutrition

If you eat a healthy, balanced diet, it's probably no secret that you are doing your body a lot of good. We are talking about losing your love handles only (draw your waist), but even if you want to lose weight, you will first have to think about a good diet – which means eating balanced, taking care of your sleep, work on stress and sometimes it is difficult to change our bad habits …

>>> See also: Where to start your food rebalancing?

Favor natural foods over processed dishes (ready-to-eat type), and foods rich in vitamins and fiber such as fresh fruits and vegetables. Know that after years of war on fat in the plates, it is now time to declare war on unnecessary sugar and salt in everyday life. So we drink water, and we green the menus!

Where exactly are the love handles located?

Often there are articles on the Internet that talk about hips. The bulges on the hips constitute the saddlebags, which are more difficult to dislodge.
The love handles, however, are located above, at the waist, and it is these small bulges that can be grasped between the fingers on the sides of the belly (those that protrude from low-rise jeans, as in almost everybody !). And in this matter, no discrimination: men also have love handles!

Can you lose your love handles quickly?

Let's be honest and realistic with you: if you want to get rid of your love handles quickly, you can probably do it in three weeks, for example. But the faster you lose, the less lasting this modification of the silhouette. The key is not AT ALL in how quickly to lose it, but in why the fat is stored, and maybe also why you want to end it.
Once you know what bothers you in your body, and why these “little buoys” are there, then you will know if you can and you really want to take action. Because know that these folds can also be very attractive.
So losing your love handles in a week is an untenable promise, let alone a lasting one. Be careful, a drastic diet and excessive sport are not a healthy solution.

What muscles are hidden under love handles?

The muscles that lie under the love handles are the obliques. They belong to the muscle group of the abdominal belt, but we are more used to working our surface abs (the famous chocolate bars), while we must especially tone our deep muscles and obliques for better posture, good tone and even to support the back. Eh yes !

What type of workout to get rid of love handles?

The key to melting the fat mass above the hips, on the side of the waist, is to not only mobilize your midsection, but also to train all of the major muscle groups to stimulate fat burning. Because if the body stores fat on the side, it also stores in the belly.
For physical trainer Lionel Gonnet, this localization of adiposities may mean a hormonal disorder: "Love handles are often a sign of excess production of insulin, the hormone secreted when you eat carbohydrates. " It is then of course necessary to play on food, but also to seek to adopt an energy-intensive sports routine. In this case, endurance is not enough.
Indeed, when you burn calories through an intense workout, the body continues to draw on its reserves after muscular effort.
So strength training and HIIT exercises are perfect for this.

See as well : HIIT, twice a week, this workout will transform your body
and Bodybuilding to tone up without bloating, we say yes!
and in video> Your flat stomach fitness routine:

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Video by Anne-Laure Mayor

The books you need:
– Sissy strong fitness body guide, the guide developed by the most famous French fitness Youtuber, packed with exercises and advice, and published by Solar. € 19.90 at Amazon
– The Yoga sculpt notebook, to combine muscle building, anti-stress activity, and softening stretching, in short to do yourself good during exercise. A method like a holiday notebook, developed by the instagrammer Frenchyogagirl (aka Sandrine Bridoux in real life!). A cheap and smart little work support, € 7.90 on Amazon.

Targeted training

Some may argue that there is no point in mobilizing only those muscle groups that our love handles rest on. However, this is not entirely true. If you are already rather sporti.f.ve and have a normal percentage of body fat (from a health point of view), then you can very well heat up the muscle groups in the areas you want to draw.

By engaging in abdominal exercises to tone your waist and back, that is, by mobilizing particularly the right and oblique abdominal muscles, and particularly with a rotational movement, you are actively working on your waist.

See also in video> How to gain my waist in 5 minutes a day? :

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Video by Anne-Laure Mayor

Do not hesitate to combine intense exercise and sheathing for the deep muscles. So all the plank exercises will help you firm up the whole area, but the following workout will be particularly suited to your goal.

  • The side sheathing board

The starting position : Lie on your right side, legs straight, resting on the edges of your feet, then put yourself on one forearm (perpendicular to the rest of the body).

In static cladding: Raise the pelvis to form a leg / hip / bust alignment. Be sure to keep your head in this extension so as not to hurt your neck.
Hold for 15 seconds, then rest for 5 seconds, and repeat three times. Then, as you regularly do this side plank exercise, increase the core time. From 15, go to 30 seconds, then 45, and try to hold on for a minute.
Do the same on the left side.

In tonic exercise: Rather than leaning on your forearm, stand on your outstretched arm, and position one foot in front of the other to promote better balance. Lower and raise your pelvis, without placing it completely on the ground.
Two sets of 8 repetitions with a 10 second break. The same on the other side.

Advanced version: lift one leg.

See also in video> Our sheathing plank exercises:

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Video by Clementine Fitaire

  • The russian twist

The starting position: Sitting on the ground, knees bent and chest slightly bent.

Exercise : Lift your feet off the ground without arching or rounding your back. This effort requires tightening the perineum and abdominals. Bring your palms together in front of your bust and twist your bust to the left, then to the right, without moving your pelvis and keeping your legs in front of you.
Do three sets of ten reps to the left and then to the right, with a 10 second break between each set.

The version for advanced : Hold a weight in your hands to operate the twists.