People naturally want to get rid of their "love handles"--those little pouches of fat visible at the sides of a person's midsection. People sometimes feel that love handles present the most vexing obstacle to acquiring a desired body shape. If you are having difficulty losing your love handles, here are some tips that might help you.
Kick Up Your Cardio
If you spend most of your exercise efforts doing sit-ups and side crunches, you're not using your time efficiently. Love handles are composed of fat, but crunches and similar exercises are designed to build and tone muscle--not to burn fat. To get rid of love handles permanently, you need to burn them off through cardiovascular exercise. If you haven't been doing cardio, start now. Choose an exercise you enjoy but one that gets your heart pumping and makes you break a sweat. If you've been doing cardio consistently but mainly doing the treadmill or stair climber over and over, mix it up. Your body can get accustomed to one exercise over another and start burning fat less efficiently, so try jogging or using the elliptical trainer or taking an aerobics class. Once your body gets into a fat-burning mode from regular cardio exercise, you'll start shedding that stubborn love-handle fat.
Build Muscle All Over
According to the Mayo Clinic, muscle burns more calories than fat tissue does, so you should build muscle throughout your body--not just in your midsection. Toning and firming up your muscles can make your body a fat-burning machine, causing it to target your love-handle fat quickly and efficiently.
Increase Intensity of Core Exercises
If you've been doing the same sit-ups, crunches or planks over and over, add a little spice to your workout. Use a stability ball or try some new moves targeted at your obliques, the muscles located on the sides of your abdomen, under all that love handle fat. Building the oblique muscles will make your love-handle area firm once the fat starts burning away. Use a fitness ball to do the same exercises you were doing before. The instability of your body resting on the ball will cause you to use those muscles more, giving you a more efficient workout overall and boosting your body's metabolism.
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