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- Take note of these secrets to trim love handles!
- There are 2 key steps to achieving your love handle goals:
If you're looking to slim down your waistline but don't know where to start, let's explore the secrets to reducing love handles together.
Trimming love handles isn't as tough as you think!
Both men and women can experience love handles or excess fat around the waist, and as you age, this becomes more common.
As you age, it becomes increasingly difficult to lose fat, so it's important to start reducing belly fat as early as possible.
Fortunately, with determination, perseverance, and following the advice in this article, reducing love handles can become easier.
So, make sure to jot down these tips for trimming love handles!
Focus on overall fat loss
The first thing to remember is that we CANNOT target fat reduction solely in our hips or waist.
Even if you do thousands of crunches every day, your belly fat won't budge, and you may even risk making your belly bigger due to increased abdominal muscles.
Therefore, the only way to reduce love handles is to decrease your overall body fat.
When overall body fat decreases, your belly will decrease too. That's the only natural way to reduce belly fat. If you don't want to lose fat elsewhere, liposuction is your only option, folks. It may not be what you want to hear, but it's the truth. If someone tells you they can help you lose belly fat without affecting other areas, be cautious; you might end up losing money instead.
Alright, now that we're clear on the mindset, let's get to the main part.
There are 2 main steps to achieving your love handle goals:
Step 1: Eat Right
All fitness and nutrition experts agree that eating right is the key factor in determining how much belly fat you can lose.
Simply by adopting healthier eating habits, choosing the right foods to eat, and avoiding foods you shouldn't, you can already cut three-quarters of the way towards your love handle goals.
You need to know what to eat and what not to eat.
Why is that? Isn't it the case that the more you exercise, the faster you lose fat?
Yes, it's true that the more you exercise, the faster you lose fat, but do you have the stamina to exercise more? Or will you opt for an easier way that doesn't require as much effort?
Indeed, reducing food intake is a much simpler way to lose fat without the need for strenuous exercise.
Simply put, exercise aims to reduce calories, while eating is about consuming calories. While exercising, you have to spend a lot of time to burn a certain amount of calories, whereas you can consume 500 calories in just 5 minutes (imagine drinking a 500-calorie milk tea in 5 minutes, but burning off those 500 calories through exercise would take you an hour).
So why not choose to eat less to save time and speed up the process of reducing love handles, right?
Eating right will get you 70% of the way to success quickly.
So, how should you eat?
I bet many of you immediately think of cutting out carbs, right? It's a short-term fix but not beneficial in the long run.
Carbs are important for your body, especially your brain, so cutting them out may help you lose weight quickly but can also have significant long-term health consequences.
Cutting out carbs puts your body in a 'starvation mode,' causing it to store more fat to preserve life instead of increasing metabolism to burn fat. This makes fat harder to burn, and you won't be able to lose belly fat as quickly as expected. Instead of cutting out carbs, timing your carb intake is better.
Apart from carbs, you may also associate belly fat with fat intake. But the truth is, fat isn't what makes you fat, it's been scientifically proven.
Healthy fat-containing foods like olive oil, almonds, walnuts, flaxseeds, chia seeds, omega-3s... not only won't make you gain weight but also contribute positively to burning excess fat in your body. So, embrace good fats instead of 'hating' them.
Finally, an important factor in increasing fat burning is Protein. Protein has been proven to increase muscle mass, boost calorie and fat burning efficiency effectively.
Food sources rich in protein are extremely diverse, mostly found in meat and eggs from animals. Protein also exists in plants, but they are incomplete proteins. To create complete protein from plants, you need to combine multiple types.
By now, you're probably picturing how you should eat, but hold on, besides Protein, Carbs, and fats, you'll also need the help of various vegetables and fruits.
Green leafy vegetables and fruits are rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber. They all play a significant role in reducing your love handles. It's essential to eat a variety of vegetables and fruits and not stick to just one type because if you eat only one type, there will be excess and deficient nutrients.
Avoid using sugar, even sugar labeled as calorie-free, as it can easily increase your craving for uncontrollable carb intake.
You should also limit your salt intake because salt causes your body to retain water and can make it difficult to feel the effects of weight loss.
What about alcohol, beer, and cigarettes?
It goes without saying that not using them is best, but if you must, then limit them as much as possible because remember, 1 gram of alcohol contains a whopping 7 calories. The calorie count is not insignificant when you consume a large amount of alcohol or beer.
Alright, I understand now, but what should I eat?
Actually, I provided links to various types of food for you above, but I bet you didn't click on the links I provided, so here are some suggestions for you.
Protein
When it comes to protein, what I first think of is chicken (any kind, as long as it's fresh and natural), followed by lean beef, tuna, salmon (various types of fish in general), shrimp, eggs, and possibly tofu (if you're vegetarian).
In addition to the natural food sources mentioned above, you can also use Whey Protein, Soy Protein Isolate, or Pea Protein Isolate. They are usually in powder form and can be mixed with water or added directly to dishes before use.
Carb
When it comes to carbs, you'll need to pay a bit more attention because there are types of carbs that are absorbed quickly and those that are absorbed slowly.
Slow-absorbing carbs are safer for weight loss and overall health, including foods like sweet potatoes, oats, whole grain bread, whole grain bread, and brown rice.
What about fast-absorbing carbs like rice, noodles, and white bread? These foods are more effective when consumed after your workout, especially when combined with whey protein as it helps deliver protein to your muscles faster for post-workout recovery.
Fat
When it comes to fats, you should generally avoid fats from sources like refined cooking oil, deep-fried foods like fried chicken, snacks... Instead, opt for nuts like almonds, walnuts, flaxseeds, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds (even avocado) or oils like olive oil, rapeseed oil, coconut oil, peanut butter...
Fruits and Vegetables
And finally, fruits and vegetables, we often hear that you can't eat too much of these. This is partly true, especially for vegetables as they mainly contain vitamins and minerals, and vegetables like broccoli, kale, spinach are excellent for weight loss.
As for fruits, it's a bit different. Fruits contain carbs, and quite a bit of sugar (although it's still good sugar for health), but eating too much fruit can lead to excess calorie intake, making it difficult to lose weight, and the harder it is to lose weight, the harder it is to lose love handles.
Water-rich fruits like tomatoes, strawberries, watermelon, oranges, and blueberries are quite good for weight loss, but you should only eat a moderate amount each day.
Finally, although this may sound meticulous, if you feel like you're eating very little and eating exactly what's been recommended above but still have excess love handles, then it's time to reconsider how many calories you're eating every day.
A rough way is to use your hand to estimate the amount of food you need per meal. For example, the amount of protein you need to eat should be the size of your palm, the amount of carbs should be a fistful, the amount of fat should be equivalent to your thumb...
And if you want to delve deeper, check out the article on what macros are in the gym.
Alright, we're pretty much covered on the nutrition part now. Although I could list a whole bunch of other things to do, it might overwhelm you, so here's enough for you to start working on reducing love handles through diet.
Step 2. About exercising
While diet largely determines the effectiveness of reducing waistline fat, it doesn't mean you don't need to exercise.
Building muscle is the best way to maintain a long-term physique.
Exercise, while not as fast at burning calories as cutting down on food, brings overall health benefits as well as metabolic improvements.
As you know, the faster the metabolism, the quicker the fat burn. And guess what? Exercise revs up that fat burn even more. Workouts like HIIT are incredibly effective at torching fat, continuing to burn calories even up to 24 hours after you've finished.
Not to mention resistance training, like weightlifting, which increases muscle mass in your body. And when muscle mass goes up, so does calorie burning, helping you trim your waistline even more effectively.
Combining HIIT workouts with weightlifting makes fat burning significantly more effective.
If you're ready to start exercising, head to the gym right now to sign up for a class.
We've provided plenty of workout knowledge and sample gym schedules for you, just follow the provided instructions to get started.
Conclusion
To trim down love handles, regardless of the path you choose, it all boils down to the two main steps I mentioned earlier. So, don't waste time on pointless guides; focus on these two steps, and you'll get there.
Hopefully, with the information provided above, you now know how to tackle those love handles effectively. Wishing you success. If you need help with anything else, feel free to inbox our Fanpage.
Posted by: Cảnh Phạm
Keywords: Effective strategies to reduce love handles visibly in just 1 week
