Love handles, despite their name, do not inspire much deep affection from their host bodies' egos, but they do inspire passion to see them disappear. They can leave you with a bad feeling every time you look in the mirror because you see your sides bulging out and fat just hanging off of your stomach. They can diminish confidence and leave you with an unnecessary level of anxiety whenever you show them off.

The technical name for love handles is 'obliques'. It's the area around the sides of the stomach that make it spring out sideways and make your shape disproportionate. While you can't spot tone them to reduce their fat, toning up your middle muscles will definitely give them a tighter, flatter, firmer appearance. So while certain exercises help to make your appearance better, the reality is that love handles are a result of excess fat around your midsection, so only weight loss can really solve this problem.

Lose the Love Handles

There are certain stomach exercises and lifestyle changes you can adopt to get rid of those unsightly fat deposits. When you look below you will see that strengthening your ab muscles is a key step in reducing your love handles. But whenever you work on your abdominal muscles, you should also strengthen the muscles in your lower back to help balance the strength in your torso and reduce the fat on your back.

Love handles exist because of excess fat that is stored on your body. It is one of the first places that extra fat is stored. This means that to truly lose your love handles, you need to lose that weight. It only makes sense. If love handles are nothing more than extra fat around your stomach, then burning and reducing fat is your most effective tool against them. Exercise alone will not be able to remove your love handles. Learn more about the Causes of Stomach Fat.

Love Handle Exercises


Oblique Crunch

  • Place your feet on the floor as close to your bottom as possible and place your knees together.
  • Rest your hands across you chest and relax the neck.
  • Slowly raise your shoulders off the floor and turn to a diagonal angle across your body, keeping your lower back on the floor.
  • Hold that position for a second and breath out.
  • Slowly relax the stomach muscles and allow your shoulders to return to the floor. Repeat 10-12 times. Do as many sets you can with at least a minute rest in between.

Torso Twists

  • Stand firmly with feet shoulder width apart.
  • Twist to the left and hold for a couple of seconds. Tighten your ab muscles while you twist.
  • Now twist to the right and hold.
  • Return to starting position then repeat 10-12 reps, 2-3 sets.


















The exercises above will give you a good start at managing, supporting, and burning the fat from your love handles. But of course they won't by themselves reduce all of the fat, or even give you the final look that you are after. But exercises can be a great way to start the process of losing weight. Now, the area around your stomach is the first place that excess fat is stored, so naturally, it will also be the last place that it is reduced. So you may not see an immediate difference when losing weight, but it will come if you just stick to the process and remain committed.

Final thoughts

Many people think that love handles are just an inevitable part of life. But that kind of thinking just gives you an excuse to do nothing about them. But you do have the power to control them and eliminate them, you just have to take the initiative to do so. It won't be an immediate fix, and there is no silver bullet that will allow you to eliminated them quickly, but if you take the necessary steps, you will be well on your way to success. The first step is often the hardest, but by just starting the process, you will get the results that you long for.