Most women complain of having love handles on their hips that they really don’t love. In this article I want to show you how you can lose your love handles quickly and with a lot less hassle.
Losing love handles alone is impossible
As you all probably know by now it is impossible to lose your love handles by themselves. What I mean by this is that you will never be able to lose just the fat off of your hips alone. This is called “spot reducing” and it is not possible.
However, recent scientific studies have shown that spot reducing might not be as far fetched as we think. Early research has shown that by weight training an a particular muscle group you can increase heat in the area and then by performing cardio you can “target” the fat in that area.
I am not so sure.
It is better to take a total approach to fat loss as it is a tried and tested method. This is not to say the science is wrong. But, we will wait to see how the studies pan out before changing our workouts to comply.
How to lose your love handles fast
Losing your love handles is a three pronged attack. You need ALL of these three elements in order to succeed. One will have some results, two will have better results, but all three will comletely change the way your love handles look.
These three things are:
- Clean and natural diet
- High intensity cardio
- Weight training
When you utilize all three of these things you will see results quickly.
1. A clean and natural diet
Many women head off to the gym five nights a week and work their butts off on the treadmill and then wonder why they don’t see dramatic results in their weight loss. And the answer is: diet.
Your diet will make or break your weight loss program. Without a clean diet you have no hope of changing your body in the long term. And the sad thing is, losing weight is a lot harder for women than it is for men. Women need to be almost calorie perfect with their diet to see any results at all.
But instead of counting calories we should be eating all natural. A natural diet made up of fresh fruits and vegetables, free range eggs, raw milk and whole grains is much better than starving yourself on some plain crackers. In fact, a natural diet will actually help you burn fat faster!
Cut out all the man-made foods. Get rid of coffees and sodas and other empty drinks that are high in sugar but low in nutrition. Replace them with water, tea and fresh food. This is the biggest thing you can do if you want to lose your love handles.
2. High intensity cardio
If you take a look around your gym you will see 90% of the women walking or jogging on the treadmill at a very ordinary pace. It is indeed rare to see people doing short bursts of sprinting for 15 minutes or a mad dash on the exercise bike for a few intervals.
But this is the way to lose weight fast.
High intensity exercise is 100 times better at burning fat than slow lower intesity variations. In fact, it is better to spend 10 minutes sprinting on the bike than spending 30 minutes at a slower more mild pace. Much better.
The reason for this is simple. High intensity cardio gets your heart rate up and it keeps it up. It keeps it up long after the exercise session has finished so essentially you are burning calories long after the exercise session has finished. This stands in stark contrast to low intensity cardio where the calorie burning stops as soon as the workout does.
Try switching to some interval training for a few weeks and see if you notice a difference. Instead of spending a hour jogging try sprinting for one minute and then jogging for four. Mix it up so that you gradually become more and more intense in your workouts. This is a sure-fire way to lose your love handles.
3. Weight training
Many women are afraid of weight training. They think that using weights will make them bulky and masculine. They are wrong.
Weight training will not make you big. Women simply do not have the genetics to get big by doing a few weights. What weight training WILL do is make you firmer and more toned. It will increase your muscles to the point that you look harder and less soft.
But the most important thing is that weight training burns fat. It is a fantastic form of exercise for getting rid of love handles. It is the missing ingredient in many women’s fat loss workouts.
Weight training also causes you to burn more fat when you are rest. It increases your metabolism and allows you to burn more calories during the day. This means that less energy will be stored as fat cells.
Muscle burns fat. The more muscle the less fat. Period.
Conclusion on losing your love handles
Make sure you attack your love handles on three fronts, not just one. You need all of these things (as well as patience) to make a difference in the shape and feel of your body. But it can be done. And most importantly – it can be done by you.
If you’ve managed to reach your target weight and achieved those weight loss goals you had, you’ll need to plan how you’re going to keep the extra pounds off. The last thing you want is to for them to return! Maintaining your fitness training is one way. Working on some muscle building is another. Or you can do both. Like Lebron James clearly has – see how he did it! Share what we know about the (as we like to call it) Lebron James Workout.
