Dear Jellybean,
I am pretty confident about my body except that i have love handles. Love handles are like chunks of fat on my hip bones. I was wondering if you knew any workouts or anything to get rid of them. I would really appreciate if you could help me.
-Love Handler
Dear Love Handler,
While I'm willing to bet that you're the only one who notices those annoying love handles, I do understand that they might bother you. I took your question to a fitness doctor, who provided the following information and exercises.
If you're a fairly slim person, there's a good chance your love handles are genetic. (Take a look at your family and you could see just where your extra padding came from). If that's the case, it's going to be a bit harder to get rid of your love handles, but exercise will still help.
Unfortunately, you cannot "spot reduce" fat, which is what love handles are made of. It's simply impossible to target a specific area of your body for fat reduction. (It would be nice if you could get on the stationary bike and say, "Okay, burn fat from my waist today" but that's not how it works).
Each person has their own, unqiue pattern of weight loss and weight gain (you may lose fat in your face first and your love handles last), but you can't control the pattern. The good news is that all aerobic exercise stimulates fat burning, so doing 30 minutes of aerobic workout, 3 to 4 times a week, will help your body burn excess calories and attack fat all over. (Plus, it gets your heart in great shape and gives you more energy - both worthy goals).
Then you can add in resistance exercises (such as the ones listed below) to tone up your muscles. With your aerobic workout removing excess fat, those muscles should be more obvious, according to our fitness expert, with the result that you end up looking more toned and making love handles less noticeable.
These moves target and tone the long abdominal muscles that surround the "love handle" area. Do them 3 to 4 times a week, follow your aerobic workout. You should start to see results within about 8 weeks.
Hold a heavy object (a book, can from the pantry, or a 2-pound weight) in each hand, palm up. Start with arms hanging down at your sides. Slowly lift arms straight out to 90 degrees (elbows facing ceiling) and hold for 5 seconds. Slowly lower arms back to sides. Do this 10 times. Rest a minute, then repeat 10 more times.
Lie on your side with your body in a straight line. Fold your arms across your chest (hands touching shoulders). Keeping your legs together, lift them off the floor as you crunch your top elbow toward your hip. It's a small movement, but you should feel the contraction in your obliques (side tummy muscles). Do 10, rest a minute, then do 10 on the other side.
Stand with feet together. Use both hands to hold a heavy object (a book, can from the pantry, or a 2-pound weight) in front of your midsection. Twist your upper body as far as it will go the right, keeping lower body totally still, then spin upper body all the way to the left. Return to center. Keep your abs tight and move fast. Bring to center. Go 20 times to each side, rest for a minute, then do 20 more rotations.
