How to Lose Your Love Handles

Diet

The first step in this process is to review your eating habits. Cut out highly processed foods, white bread and "instant" anything, sugary sodas and the like, along with alcohol. Simply put, try to cut back on simple carbohydrates (sugar especially) and trans fats. It's a rough transition, but it'll set the stage for long-term success.

Instead, fill your diet with high-protein foods like skinless chicken breasts, lean beef, turkey, tuna, Tofu and low-fat milk products. Eggs are excellent sources of protein but can be a tad high on fat and cholesterol; the jury is still out on how much this matters, but for now you can play it safe by mixing egg whites with whole eggs when making scrambled eggs or omelets.

Fat is not necessarily a bad thing. Eating gobs of bacon grease is a whole different story than munching peanuts or fatty fish like salmon. The last one is especially beneficial, since it contains a lot of vital fatty acids that may actually help you in your efforts.

Fight snacking with carrots, celery and other fiber-rich foods; it is very difficult to take in that many calories from such sources.

Exercise

For best results, do both weight training and cardio. The weight training will keep your muscles stimulated and make sure you don't cannibalize your muscle mass while cutting calories, and may even boost your metabolism -- meaning you'll burn more calories even as you sleep.

Do lots of ab exercises. Even though doing twisted crunches won't burn the love handles specifically, keeping your midsection fit will give you something to show once the fat does come off. Also, strengthening up the obliques has a slightly toning effect, creating a girdle-like effect pulling the sides of your waist tighter -- although the effect won't be noticeable until you've burned off most of the covering fat.

As for cardio, this can be jogging, swimming, group exercises or whatever else you enjoy. The important thing is that you get your heart rate up and keep it up for at least a half-hour.

Lift weights one to three times a week (depending on your level of experience and schedule) and do cardio two to four times a week.

How to Lose Your Love Handles: Putting It All Together

So, let's pull these different pieces together into an overall strategy on how to lose your love handles. Flex your abs and use a tape measure around the least flattering part of your waist. Also step on the scale first thing in the morning, preferably nude. Make a note of these numbers and you have a starting point.

Begin exercising according to your abilities. For the diet, making the changes outlined above goes a long way in and by itself. Write down everything you eat (including small snacks that "don't count") and look up the caloric content; this is pretty easy since almost all food packages by law has this clearly displayed, while raw veggies and fruits can be looked up here.

Now repeat the weight and tape measure routine once a week, making note of your progress. That way, you have hard numbers to work with even if you don't SEE any improvement from week to week, which can make a big difference in terms of motivation. If the weight and measurements don't change, you have to either eat less or exercise more.

Don't go crazy -- just cut a few hundred calories or add an extra workout or two, and give it a couple weeks. This way, you can dial it in nice and slow -- aim for losing a pound of bodyfat per week -- without falling prey to the classic yo-yo dieting fallacies. This slow but steady progress will in turn keep chipping away at those darn love handles until you can declare final victory. Good luck!