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.

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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.