Love Handles

Table of Contents

What are Love Handles?

Love handles are fat stores located right above the hips. People also refer to love handles as muffin tops. This fat is usually stubborn and hard to lose and may be annoying as they may be visible through your shirts. You may be insecure about your muffin top especially during the summer season, but it is natural, and I will guide you through getting rid of them.

Why are Love Handles Caused?

Love handles can be a sign of a higher body fat percentage. However, this will not always be the case, some people are genetically predisposed to store more fat in different areas, such as their belly, glutes, chest, legs, etc.

I recommended you use a scale that gives you measurements such as weight, body fat percentage and muscle mass. The scale will allow you to ensure that your body fat percentage is not too high as that will lead to love handles. Interestingly, individuals may start bulking and not realize that they are putting on too much fat instead of muscle mass, and this may lead to love handles. An affordable scale that I have been using for the past 5 years is this one: (https://amzn.to/3BwqhyC), and it works very well. This scale calculates your body fat percentage, muscle mass, BMI, visceral fat, metabolic age, body water, subcutaneous fat, BMR, etc.

In addition, men have higher stores of fat cells in the region above their waist, which makes it much easier for them to gain fat there. Moreover, factors such as lack of sleep and stress (which increases your cortisol levels) can cause your body to store higher levels of fat. People that are older in age can also see increased levels of fat storage.

Therefore, a combination of the reasons mentioned above (genetics, body fat percentage, sex, sleep, stress and age) can lead to love handles.

How to Lose the Muffin Top?

When it comes to losing fat, you are likely to lose fat in the reverse order from which it is stored. For example, if you gain fat above your hips first, you are likely to lose that fat last. This is a good rule of thumb to keep in mind, if you find yourself frustrated about being unable to lose the muffin top. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as spot reduction (losing fat in a specific area of your body). There are more extreme measures to remove fat from specific regions, such as plastic surgery techniques like Liposuction.

The solution to losing your muffin top is to lose fat overall. Fat loss can be achieved by eating less, exercising more (especially cardio), getting better sleep, and lowering stress levels. If you do plan on reducing the number of calories you are eating, it is recommended to combine that with some form of weight training, so that your body burns the fat instead of muscle.

If you are interested in using diet plans like the Keto Diet in order to lose fat, you can read my article on the Keto Diet. It will tell you how the Keto diet works, what are some of the side effects, and who the keto diet works best for. Click ‘here’ to read my article on it.

Although you cannot reduce the fat stores specifically, it is possible to tone the muscles in the region to improve the aesthetic and strength of the region.

Exercises to tone the muscles near your love handles

• Bicycle Crunches

• Mountain Climbers

• Russian Twists

How to Prevent Them?

• Do not eat above your maintenance calories
• Stay active / Workout
• Sleep
• Lower Stress
• Reduce your alcohol consumption

*This post includes affiliate links. I am not a doctor or a professional, but I try to share my opinions with you.

Health Made Easy Blogs

To stay up to date and notified regarding future articles about diet and fitness tips, consider subscribing to the email list.

Email(required)

Submit

Δ