FITNESS

7 Exercises To Lose Love Handles

Despite their fancy name, there isn’t much love for love handles.

Despite their fancy name, there isn’t much love for love handles.

Love handles is another name for the excess fat that sits on the sides of the waist and hangs over the top of the pants. Also known as a muffin top, that fat can be a challenge to lose.

Many people try to target this particular area with endless side-to-side crunches and other abdominal moves that target the obliques, the muscles that line the sides of the torso.

In addition to being extremely difficult to remove, they also have a tendency to stick their oily nose where they don’t belong and ruin the fit of your favorite pair of jeans, making your best looking shirt extremely weird. , as well as many other annoying drawbacks.

In order to lose side belly fat, many people think that a quick abs workout is the answer.

The answer, however, lies elsewhere. Fear not, providing the right answers and solutions is exactly what you’ll learn here.

Before delving into the instructions for the best love handles exercises, know that some of the top reasons for love handles are insomnia, stress, and of course, poor diet.

It goes without saying that you should do everything you can to fall asleep and adopt a more relaxed, healthier lifestyle as soon as possible.

Diet tips: I always recommend to eat as healthy as possible and drink enough water throughout the day. If you want to put on muscle, increased calorie intake is important. As a tip — Grab our weight loss diet plan. You can also slowly increase your current meal portion, most importantly don’t skip meals if you want to loss weight.

Today I’m sharing 7 exercises to help you lose belly fat and love handles.

Together these moves make up a Quick and Easy Ab Workout routine. If you want a flat, toned core but don’t like crunches you’re going to love it!

My ab workouts that are short, sweet, but effective so my abs are tight, toned, and flat.

Otherwise, I’ll avoid exercising them all together or won’t get results. I have to get super creative with my ab exercise routines!

It’s quick, fat burning, and targets everything in the core muscle group using just 5 ab exercises.

Each move uses a different multi-directional movement and when you put them all together they really engage the abdominal muscles.

They’re also done at a fast pace. On average, it’ll only take you about three seconds per rep. So you’ll do those 240 reps in just 12 minutes or so.

That’ll light your muscles on fire and have you gasping for air (in a good way).

If you think that sounds too easy or too fast, I suggest you try it. You may find you can’t even finish.

But that’s OK — you can just start with a lower number of reps, like eight, and work your way up as you improve your fitness.

In fact, I recommend this strategy, if you want an even greater challenge, you can always take a breather and repeat the routine.

Remember: Whether you’re running or lifting, your muscles require energy to help you move. And this workout forces more of your muscles into action than you’d ever use while jogging for the same duration. It’ll also boost your metabolism for hours after your workout.

Now, without further ado, let’s take a look at 7 Great Love Handle Workouts That Guarantee Results

After you’re done trying, leave me a comment to let me know if you felt the burn.

1. Brisk Walking

Brisk walking is an effective way to drop pounds — including the belly fat that’s hiding your abdominal muscles. One hour of rapid walking a day can lead to one pound of fat loss a week.

Plus, it ensures that you don’t over-train, which can lead to an over-production of cortisol — a stress hormone that’s been shown to contribute to belly fat.

“After having an emergency hysterectomy, I spent six weeks in recovery lying on the couch watching reruns of ‘Entourage’ and eating microwaved lasagnas. No surprise, I developed belly fat. I got rid of it by walking briskly for 45 minutes in the morning, five days a week. I tried to link walking with something or someone I enjoyed. For example, I tried to walk with friends around the park or treat myself to a smoothie afterward. Six months later, my belly was back in shape.” — Kaye Newton, 47, author of Incision Decisions.

2. Core exercises and cardio

You know that your cardio sessions are crucial when it comes to burning the layer of fat sitting on top of your abdominal muscles. But it’s still important to work those abs even as you’re trying to shed fat.

“I’ve found that doing crunches on a stability ball three to four times per week has not only helped to reduce my belly fat — it’s started the beginnings of a six-pack! Sit-ups, planks, yoga, and Pilates have also helped to strengthen my core and flatten my tummy. But the focus isn’t just on abs: I squeeze in a full workout three to five times a week, and I try to keep it diverse. I’ll do anything from Zumba to cycling, to speed-walking, to boot camp classes.” — Debra Dixon-Anderson, 54, CEO and founder of Light of Gold PR, Marketing, and Consulting.

When your body tries to find control as your balance is challenged, your abs, obliques, and deep transverse abdominal muscles are activated.

Strengthening these core muscles also helps increase your metabolism, ultimately helping you to burn more calories and fat.

P.s: Some muscle supplements contain one or more active ingredients intended to increase fat burning, decrease appetite, or reduce absorption of fat. I use this supplement to boost muscle mass.

3. Sprints and jogs

Sprinting increases your muscle mass, ”says Jacqueline Augustine, PhD, assistant professor of exercise sciences at State University of New York Cortland.

It burns more calories than running at a steady pace, although it takes less time because you run faster at a higher intensity.

“The thing that helped me lose belly fat and keep it off is mixing up my workouts. Sometimes, I’ll alternate sprints and recovery jogs on the treadmill. But my favorite workout consists of doing two exercises for the same body part, with a cardio drill in between. For instance, I might do 10–12 chest presses, followed by 25–30 plank jacks, followed by 10–12 chest flys. I’ll repeat that three times, resting in between each round.” — Heather Holtschlag, 45, founder of Healthy Fit PR.

4. Low-impact, low-stress activities

Low-impact training minimizes the force and tension placed on your muscles and joints (such as your hips, knees, and ankles) during workouts.

These exercises are designed to keep one foot on the ground and one foot up. No jumping movement is allowed.

High-impact workouts increase strength and strain on your muscles and joints.

It’s a myth that low impact strength training or cardio training requires less work. If you do them correctly, you will still reach 40–50% of your maximum heart rate and sweat.

“I used to run, do step aerobics and kickboxing, use the Stairmaster or elliptical machines, bike, row, ski, you name it. But low-impact exercises make the most sense for me now. As a hardworking entrepreneur, water aerobics and Tai Chi keep my life low-stress, which helps ward off weight gain. Taking a daily walk is good, too. It doesn’t need to be long or fast — every little bit helps. And you really do feel great afterward.” — Paige Arnoff-Fenn, 51, CEO and founder of Mavens & Moguls.

5. Spinning and weights

Lifting heavy is where you see more an afterburn effect. Your body continues to burn calories even after you leave the gym. Just be sure that your technique doesn’t suffer as you increase your weight, which can lead to injury.

“I work out for at least an hour every day, starting with a SoulCycle session. After that, I’ll mix it up. I’ll play tennis with friends, stretch, and keep my muscles strong and toned with free weights and sit-ups. With this combination, I’ve never looked — or felt — better than I do now.” — Donna Mills, 76, actor.

If you’re new to strength training, this 15-minute total-body workout is a great place to start.

6. High Intensity interval training

While the old thinking was that steady-state cardio sessions were best for burning fat, we now know that short and intense bursts of fast-paced cardio is much more effective.

Hope Pedraza, an ACSM personal trainer and the creator of in Balance, a San Antonio-based fitness and wellness studio, suggests doing intervals that alternate between exercises that work different muscle groups.

“Doing high-intensity interval training (HIIT) helped me get lean for the first time in my life and blew away my belly fat over the course of five months. My workouts focus on standard strength work; then I add in compound movements for 30 seconds to a minute to elevate my heart rate — like squats, box jumps, cable rows, or cable skaters. I try to get my heart rate to 80% to 90% of my max to get into the HIIT zone. Depending on the workout, it’ll take 20 minutes to an hour total. I try to train four to five times a week.” — Sarah Foster, 49, independent ambassador coach for Team Fit.

7. Medicine ball russian twist

The Russian Twist is a popular core exercise that improves oblique strength and definition.

The exercise, usually done with a medicine ball, involves twisting your torso back and forth while maintaining a sitting position with your feet on the floor.

In this position, your abs contract to maintain a sitting position, while your obliques help rotate your torso.

Holding a medical ball or plate makes movement more difficult. The result is invigorating exercise that burns and fatigues your abs and obliques.

“In the past postpartum seasons I had learned that losing weight after baby was a great balance — mental and physical. Too soon and my milk supply was compromised, too strict and I was getting exhausted. So this time I waited until my fifth trimester. No shame in the game “I just had a baby”! As my body healed from a steep birth, I started thinking about officially weighing and setting some goals every 50 pounds the pregnancy gave me. I decided to focused on two exercises: the Russian twist and Plank. When my son was 8 months old, I stepped on the scale. To my surprise I had lost 40 pounds in those months since giving birth. “- Dr. Virginia Duan, 57, physician at the Center for Women’s Fetal Medicine and Ultrasound.

Russian Twists shouldn’t be your favorite exercise. Think of them as bicep curls for your core. You can do them every now and then to target your muscles to improve aesthetics.

Avoid hitting the weight on the floor as this almost guarantees that you will start to turn too much and in your lower back. Going from hip to hip is more than enough.

If you need to create a workout routine to help you stay on track, then watch this video to see my recommended abdominal exercises to lose belly fat and love handles.