By Chris Martinez
Dec. 30. 2010-
Love handles, love handles, love handles! How do we get rid of this extra fat around our abdominal area that we all hate? Well, the quick and short answer would be, there are no abdominal exercises that are going to eliminate love handles. You can do thousands and thousands of sit ups a day or even those workouts that I see people doing, where they hold a weight in one hand and bend side to side with it. None of these will work because the key is to burn maximum calories, not sculpting the abdominal area because they’re such a small muscle group.
The first step is you really have to focus on doing full body workouts to oxidize as much calories as possible. What do I mean by full body workouts? Workouts that include your full body, a lot of muscle mass usage. For example, if you do a bicep curl, this will not burn many calories. Sure it will sculpt that specific muscle group, but there will be minimal calories burned. Instead, do squats, dead lifts, and bench press, basically anything that involves 2 or more muscle groups. Full body workouts will burn more calories, strengthen your body, build muscle so that your metabolic rate increases, and thus putting your body in a fat burning mode.
The second step is to include more interval training to burn maximum calories and raise your metabolic rate. Bouts of high intensity and low intensity training are your best bet. For example, when running a track, try walking the straight a ways and sprinting the edges where it starts circling. Also, for a bike, do a slow pedal for 45 seconds and then a fast pedal for 15 seconds and repeat. The best type of interval training I have found is 45 seconds steady state and 15 seconds all out 100% effort.
The third step is your diet. You knew this was coming, but unfortunately a diet is 80% of your results when it comes to exercise and getting those results. A nutrient dense whole food diet is what you need to start including. Eliminate fast foods, re-fined foods, sweets, and sugary drinks. Also, I recommend eating raw foods such as fruits and vegetables. These raw foods get your body food enzymes and once they’re metabolized, they burn fats, carbs, and proteins.
3 steps to eliminating love handles:
1) Include full body workouts
2) Include more interval training
3) Get your diet on point