Although you may want to just reduce your love handles, by addressing this issue correctly you will also reduce your risk for heart attack and stroke, decrease your risk for immune mediated diseases such as diabetes and fibromyalgia as well as reduce your risk for peripheral vascular disease and cardiomyopathy.
After addressing a dietary plan that includes a generous portion of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds and significantly reducing your intake of processed foods, saturated fats and meat, you are ready to include an aerobic exercise program. Your aerobic exercise program can include any exercise which elevates your heart rate for approximately 30 to 40 minutes three to four times a week. You can include any of the following activities: walking, rowing, jogging, using fitness machines, tennis or swimming.
Your love handles, or oblique muscles, also require a bit of re-training in order to improve muscle tone so that as the fat decreases those firm hips are more visible. There are specific exercises to help reduce the appearance of flabby muscle over the love handle area. The first is a bicycle maneuver that works both the obliques and the center abdominal muscle, rectus abdominus. Lie on your back with your knees bent. Placing your hands behind your head slowly lift up your head using only your abdominal muscles without pulling on the back of your head with your hands. Twist your body to the right and bring your right knee to your left elbow. Now extend your left leg without touching the ground. Repeat this maneuver on the opposite side of the body using a bicycle pedaling motion. Motion on each side is counted as one repetition and you should complete 20 repetitions to start.
Another exercise that includes a wide range of motion is to stand with your feet shoulder width apart and twist to the right while extending your left arm to the right also. This move motion should be in the upper body only and not involve the legs. Now twist your body to the left extending your right arm and repeat these repetitions 100 times keeping in 100% control of the motion. The benefit of this exercise comes in the control of the motion and not in swinging your body and side to side,
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