Love handles are one of the toughest areas to get rid of. Using the latest science, I’ll show you how to lose love handles (and keep them off) in 5 easy steps. But first, you need to understand how you developed that stubborn fat in the first place – from months and years of overeating. Our bodies prefer to store our excess calories as fat around the abdomen. This is especially true for men as well as women after menopause. Worse, usually, wherever the body stores fat first is where it will lose fat from last. This is what makes belly fat, lower back fat, and those love handles so easy to gain yet so tough to lose. But don’t worry. Love handles are just like any other fat. Use the right approach, and eventually, they will go away. And to lose love handles, we’ll start with the most important step, nutrition.
LINKS:
Calculate how many calories you need to eat to lose love handles:
https://builtwithscience.com/calorie-calculator
3-Day Full Body Workout Routine:
https://builtwithscience.com/workout-a-pdf/
https://builtwithscience.com/workout-b-pdf/
4-Day Upper/Lower Workout Routine:
https://builtwithscience.com/upper-workout/
https://builtwithscience.com/free-lower-body-workout/
6-Day Workout Routine:
https://builtwithscience.com/pushpulllegsworkoutpdf/
Click below done-for-you plan that’ll guide you step by step throughout the whole fat loss process:
https://builtwithscience.com/bws-free-fitness-quiz
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Alright step 1 – nutrition. So while a calorie deficit is needed, it’s not actually going to cause much fat loss in your love handles right away. Your body will instead prioritize other areas of your body before stubborn areas like your love handles. This is why you must use a calorie deficit that isn’t too aggressive. For most, a good general target is to aim to lose about a lb of fat a week. But don’t be afraid to take it even slower than this if needed.
So the next two steps cover what exercises you should be doing to lose love handles. First up is lifting weights. This won’t directly help get rid of your love handles, but it will help create the illusion of a smaller waist and less noticeable love handles. Second, lifting weights can help act as a safety guard to prevent fat regain in the future. 3-6 hard sets per muscle per week is likely all you need, with older individuals likely needing the top end of that range.
Alright, step 3. Although you should primarily create a deficit through your diet, you should also aim to increase the calories you burn through exercise. Now, unless you have quite an active job or lifestyle, without any cardio, you’re going to have to eat quite a low amount of calories in order to lose fat. Plus, one unique benefit of cardio is that regardless of if you lose weight or not, it’ll help reduce your visceral fat — the deep dangerous belly fat. This is obviously great for your health but also might even make a small difference with losing love handles by reducing the overall size of your belly.
What I’d recommend is just to start with walking. Track on average how many steps a day you’re currently taking, and aim to bump that up by 2,000 steps a day. Keep doing that until you reach 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day. In addition to that, you can also consider adding some low- to moderate-intensity cardio to your routine. But again, only what you enjoy and can stick to consistently.
However, it’s likely you’ll reach a point where what used to work is no longer working (this is why stubborn fat is so “stubborn”). You’ve reached this point if you haven’t noticed any fat loss or much drop in your body weight for at least 2-3 weeks. When this happens, there’s 2 things you can do. The first is to drop your calorie intake. Typically, a decrease of just 100 calories or so per day is all that’s needed. The second is to increase your activity and the average calories you burn every day. This can be as simple as bumping up your daily steps or adding another 20-30 minutes of low- to moderate-intensity cardio into your weekly routine.
Now if you stay consistent with the previous “how to lose love handles” steps, I guarantee you’ll lose your love handles. But honestly, to completely lose your love handles, you have to get very lean. A level of leanness that for most people, including myself, is very difficult to sustain. Believe me, I know we all want to look like all the shredded guys on social media. But most of these guys have incredible genetics, often aren’t natural, and also don’t share with you just how difficult it is to maintain that shape and how low energy it can make you feel day to day. So don’t worry if you still have a little bit of love handles or lower belly fat. Embrace all the progress you’ve already made, take breaks and just maintain whenever you need to, and realize that the extra push to lose that little bit of stubborn fat just might not be worth the trade-off.
source
Hope you enjoyed this one! Please take what I mentioned towards the end of the video seriously. Not many people talk about it, but it's the truth. Also, here's a link to all the studies mentioned:
MUSCLE LOSS IN A CALORIE DEFICIT WITHOUT STRENGTH TRAINING
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8308821/
MUSCLE LOSS ADVERSELY IMPACTS METABOLISM
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2980962/
PROPENSITY FOR POST-DIET FAT GAIN CORRELATED WITH MUSCLE LOSS
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31106601/
MINIMUM WORKOUT VOLUME
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21131862/
CALORIE-BURN ASSOCIATED WITH WEIGHTLIFTING
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30768553/
CARDIO REDUCES DANGEROUS VISCERAL FAT
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3568069/
BODYWEIGHT REDUCTION IS ASSOCIATED WITH ENERGY EXPENDITURE REDUCTION
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673773/
U rock bruh
very informative
Thanks for the breakdown
If i dont eat enough protein will i still lose fat and gain musle?
Chris Heria knows better.100%
U r so correct. Jesus is coming back like a twinkle of an eye. Repent ,get baptized and accept OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST AS YOUR SAVIOR
Well, after watching this, I got even more determined that I should just schedule my lipo360 to tackle these stubborn areas. I cannot tackle through a diet (my bmi is 19.5) or excersise (I do 17000 steps per day). I have given up, saved money for my liposuction. It is just a recovery fron it looks quite long and daunting process so I am afraid 2 weeks off work might not cover it.
I appreciate this big dog. Caloric deficit, lats, a bit of cardio and no flogging yourself mentally. Got it
I do 15 miles a day on the eliptical.
Is it ok to do 1 thousand jump ropes a day as cardio
10 years ago I was 23 and got down to 199lbs from 280lbs but still had my love handles. I lost all that weight in a matter of like 6/7 months. I looked and felt great but still had love handles. This could be due to the fact that I was NOT trying to get lean, I just wanted to be SKINNY. I wasn't just pure fat, I did have a good amount of muscle under the layers of fat including my pectorals which made my man boobs look perky instead of just hanging and sagging like most other fat guys. I didn't mind that as much as I did the inescapable love handles. Then, a series of unfortunate events happened in my life including the death of my teenage brother (who was also my best friend on this earth) which caused me a great deal of grief which led me to stop caring about "unimportant stuff" like weight loss lol why I put my health in a basket of unimportant shit to stop tending to I'm not really sure but I did. With the rapid pace in which I lost the weight, just as stated in this video, it came back FAST. I then had tons of excuses to not start working on my weight again including having kids, being busy at work, never having time to just relax etc. I got up to 297 which was the biggest I had ever been in my life just a year and a couple months ago. I started intermittent fasting and just trusting my body. Everybody claimed I was starving myself because "you're supposed to eat 3 square meals a day" but that's for a healthy person with a healthy diet and exercise and a healthy metabolism at a healthy weight. At basically 300 pounds, I'm pretty sure I'll survive waiting until my body is ACTUALLY hungry instead of just eating because it's there or smells good or sounds good or whatever. This helped in the shrinking of my stomach and decreasing my appetite which, in my opinion, is the first big best step that works for ME and MY BODY (I am by no means a dietician and I do not know your body, I'm just sharing what works for MY BODY because it's how I started my weight loss journey 10 years ago and knew how confidence inspiring it was for me then so I tried it and it still is for me). After my eating capacity was shortened, I would stay conscious while eating to know when I'm done. This does not mean eating until I'm at max capacity because I hate the feeling of being full so much, it's so uncomfortable to me feeling like if I bend forward too much it'll all come pouring out of my mouth lol. This time around, I DO want to retain muscle so I do home workouts every now and then but admittedly not as much as I should be. I'm trying to take this weight loss journey slowly and steadily so that this can be my final weight loss journey for the rest of my life. I'm now at 220 and have been at 220 for the past year or so and now I'm aiming for that sub 200lbs weight again. Personally I don't want to go below maybe 190 because when I was at 199 I remember inspecting my body and thinking my recommended target weight of 180 would look sickly on me (I'm 6'3.5 and wear a size 8 fitted cap) and would look like a bobble head. Still, I cannot seem to get rid of these damn love handles and it drives me insane. This is how I came across this video.
I do notice that when I'm sitting down, if I raise my hips, alternating between the left and right hip, a muscle tenses up under my love handles. I'm trying to think of a creative way to exercise these muscles but can't think of one at this moment. Can anybody recommend one? I can definitely feel the muscles contracting as I alternate raising them so maybe enough of whatever this is might help but there's gotta be a more efficient way of working these muscles out
I just started lifting weights a week ago. And I noticed I take maybe like 3-4 mins of a breather after each workout.. would it help to jog in place in the meantime till I’m ready to move on with my circuit or would that not really help?
Ive got this love handle problem, too. I just go extreme with 1) eating a clean diet, 2) going into a calorie deficit with one meal a day, 3) daily cardio, 4) cutting carbs and alcohol, and 5) daily weight training to muscle fatigue. Then, I might also get in a workout playing basketball with my son.
When I poke at my big love handle it feels firm like a muscle. Fct
2:57
I don’t care what anyone says, most of these guys are on steroids. Definitely.
i dont even hardily eat and still have them and im a skinny person
Eat less
MOVE MORE
Eat protein
MOVE MORE
Well I have a high metabolism, is that a plus?
There also one quicker way to lose your love handles. Lipo. Most fat around your mid waist will never go away if you have been losing weight for a long time. It is stored there and never going away, you will most likely need lipo and or a tummy tuck if there is loose skin with fat.
I have good facial features, i have strong appearance, but due to my love handles iam feeling bad. I know it will be removed if i do workout but till then i feel discomfort.
Will jumping jack , high knees and but kick give same benefit as walking or running ?
Hit calorie maintenance, hit a heavy workout focus on strength training, then cardio after? Also 1g protein per lb body weight
You taking too much and still you’re not getting on the point
Great work! Thanks
5:12 my biggest exercise fear is leaning down and looking like him,(I won’t, I have way more muscle, been exercising since a kid off & on)lol, hit the weights HARD fellas, you won’t regret it once the fat is gone, worse feeling would be to have that “boney “ look, you want to look FULL & lean.
now that's a cool, smart, educated presentation.
Just very curious. Is lemon/cucumber water good when combined with exercise for weight loss?
At my job I do about 15k steps a day. I have not seen any differences. Also I play basketball when I can after my workouts. I’ve been eating about 2k calories. Still have these ridiculous love handles and I’ve been working out for almost a full year while working out at least 4-5 times a week. I’ve taken a week break every couple months. Love handles have stuck with me through everything. What am I doing wrong?
Great video love all your explanations thank you
I encourage everyone to use AI products like ChatGPT to develop their own fitness programs instead of paying money to fitness influencers who are more interested in you buying their supplements and merch than your health. This dude has sound advice, but I’m sorry buddy, I’m not gonna go to your website and volunteer personal information about myself for free that you then monetize.
Thank you so much for this. Menopause is all about love handles
. What about burning more calories than usual without reducing calories intake? I don't 4:20 4:21 4:24 want to lose weight.
I did jumprope for cardio work out ,specially if i cant run because of the rainy weather
Thanks for the information Jeremy
Bingo! Meanopause!
Muscle training wont burn much calories… To burn more calories, we have to do cardio/circuit training as much as we can .