love handles?

Question

whats a good at home exersize or machine (small) to get rid of "love handles" and the extra fat around the upper thighs?

Answer 1

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you work them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

Honey, trust me, when theyre in the mood, they dont see the love handles - real or wannabe ones !! Every male I have been with or have spoken to about this wonder what the hell we are on about!! The only ones with body image issues are women - US !! Yes you hear the guys say - they are a leg man, or they wont go with a bigger sized woman - but just look around you and you see the opposite. How many times do you see a thin guy with a larger girl? Heaps !! So stop worrying about nothing, and concentrate on the task at hand !! Then the sex will overcome everything, you let go and all inhibitions fall away...and things will be fabulous!! (Iam 45 and over 145 lbs, with bumps and curves not in all the right places, and hubby wouldn't have me any other way !)

Answer 3

Rocky Situps by far. That's the term we called them in the military so I don't know if you will find the exercise anywhere else under the sme name. I'm sure it exist..just under a different less stupid name :)

Anyway, lay on your back like you are going to do a regular situp. Place your feet about 18 inches apart and your knees the same if it is comfortable. Then lay back to begin. As you come up touch one knee with the elbow from the opposite side, then take the other elbow and twist to the opposite side and touch the other knee. Return to the starting position, but don't rest down there ;) Then do another repetiton by starting with the opposite knee this time.

This is just one of many exercises for you to do. Consider it along with the other exercises people are giving you here and you might be able to form a pretty good workout plan.

Answer 4

I've got a great solution for you that you will not only enjoy, but your partner will thank you for learning!

Below you will find a link to a "Bellydancing" Work out video. I've been doing the "love handle excresizes" for over a year and it works great and it's fun to do too. The video focuses primarily on the "core" but they do have other areas that they talk about toning. It's so fun and it's sexy too.

As for the "saddlebags" of the upper thighs, I have an excersize that stripped 4 inches off my thighs. Lay on your side with the bottom leg straight out and the top leg straight out as well. If you are laying on your right side, imagine pushing down with your ankles so that your left calf feels really tight. Now, turn your toes toward the floor and raise your leg up (keeping the calf taught and toes pointed down) to about a 50 -60 degree angle. When you bring your leg down, don't go down all the way....make your muscles work to stop the momentum. Do 20 reps of this to start. IF you are doing it right, you will feel a burning in your upper thigh on the side and around toward the buttocks (pointing your toes down works the upper and back muscles in your thigh)

If you want inner thigh workout simply take the left left you just worked out and cross it over your right leg and put it flat on the floor. Then flex your right leg (on the bottom) just like you did with the leg lifts, making your calf tight, and raise it as far as you can, flexing with your inner thigh muscle.

Then you just roll over and repeat the same routine with the opposide side. I lost inches and gained muscle doing this for just 3 weeks everynight during the news.

Answer 5

The best thing is diet and exercises. Try doing at least 30 minutes of cardio 3 times a week. Also, do some strength training exercises. I like Tab Bo. It is a good entire body work out. The key is to find something you like. Then you are more likely to stick with it. This has got to be a lifestyle change.

Answer 6

Okay, I have this same problem.
Grab some dumbells OR canned vegetables. stand with your legs apart and arms to your side.Put a dumbell or can in one hand and reach to the ground WITHOUT bending your legs too much. Repeat about 20 times, and then do your other side. Make sure you go SLOW. You dhoudl feel the stretch when you do this excersize.

Answer 7

Your body burns fat as a system. You can't spot reduce. Burn more calories than you take in to rudce total body fat.

No pasta
No fried Foods
No refined sugars
No alcohol

Answer 8

I don't use the handles. I like to ride with no hands.

Answer 9

Eat less

Answer 10

why? from what I hear, guys LOVE that