Do you love your love handles? No? then read on....

Often with any weight loss journey you will reach a point where stubborn fat just sits there refusing to budge.

Each individual is different and we often read that this is purely genetic and we must be patient, it will go when our body chooses to let it go from that area.

But what if you have run out of patience?

Is spot reduction possible?

Despite popular belief yes it is (cue heavenly music and the sun parting the clouds lol) however this is more so through hormonal manipulation rather than specific exercises.

Through changes in your diet, lifestyle and with supplementation of natural products you can target those stubborn areas of fat whether it be your belly, love handles or thighs.

The Love Handles

before we start to focus on losing specific fat from the love handles I have to presume that you are already completing the following pre-requisites, without them you are fighting a losing battle:

- a clean, healthy, balanced diet with a mild caloric defecit compared to your daily maintenance intake.
- regular moderately intense exercise or activity.
- consuming a litre of water for every 25kg of body weight
- getting to sleep by 10.30pm 5 nights a week

If you are not doing these 4 things then start now as your body isnt ready to get specific...you might not even need to if you get the above completed for a sustained period of time.

ok so we're up to scratch and good to go?

Great, so the main culprit behind fat stored in the love handle area is insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance in its most simple terms leads to the body storing carbohydrate from your diet in the fat cells rather than the muscle or liver cells, and particularly this storage occurs in the love handles.

Insulin resistance develops from years of eating refined and sugary carbohydrates such as pasta, white rice, bread, and consuming large amounts of fizzy drinks, sweets, chocolate etc.

Our typical response to these foods is for the body to produce insulin to tell receptor cells to recieve the broken down sugars to reduce our blood sugar levels. Unfortunately because we over consume these foods over an extended period of time our cells become desensitized to the constantly high levels of insulin, ultimately leading to insulin resistance and love handle specific fat storage.

Ok that doesn't sound good what can I do about it?

First we need to give your body a break from all the refined overly processed foods such as pasta, white rice, bread and all sugar (look for it on food labels as fructose, dextrose, glucose or anything ending in ose and avoid like the plague). Do this for a 30 day period and you are well on the way to resetting your bodies responses to sugar based foods.

Secondly cycle your intake of complex carbohydrates, so alternate days with normal portions of potatoes, brown/wholegrain rice, with days of either very small carb portions or none at all. By alternating these cycles you are ensuring you keep energy levels up, allowing your body a rest from high insulin levels, and encouraging the body to access fat stores as a preferred energy source :).

ensure on low or no carb days that you make up your portions with meat or vegetables so that your body recieves adequate nutrients every day, you may miss the carbs but you shouldn't be going hungry.

If we get both of these parts right we should see results within 30 days :), we can assist the process with the following health supplements...

Fish oils:

Fish oil supplements, whether capsules or oil, are without doubt one of the best health products out there. Amongst the many health benefits (google them) you will see that fish oils accelerate fat burning, decelerate fat storage and blunt the insulin response when taken with meals (so specifically useful on carb days). I would advise finding yourself a good online source (as the high street versions are not as potent and taste awful), ideally there shouldn't be any fishy aftertaste if you get a good prouduct.

Fenugreek:

Fenugreek is a herb that is often used as a mediterranean culinary spice, it can be used in seed form sprinkled on foods, or taken as a capsule both of which can be found at high street health stores. for Insulin resitance, fenugreek helps to slow gastric emptying (so sugar doesn't overwhelm the blood stream) and reduce blood sugar which will reduce the insulin responses to your carb based meals and assist in giving your resistant cells a "breather".

Magnesium:

Magnesium is fast becoming recognised as an essential mineral for health, sadly it is also now publicised that many of us are already magnesium deficient.
(for some of the benefits of magnesium have a look at www.mgwater.com )

It would seem that magnesium is a potent protector against insulin resistance and will assist our process of removing the pressure from the over sensitized cells.

Magnesium can be found again at health stores with the most appropriate type being magnesium citrate, follow the dosage advice as if taken to too high a dosage you may be a little "loose" lol.

Thankyou for reading, I hope this helps you to understand why the love handles can be such a difficult area to remove and gives you some key points to put into action

to your health and happiness

Nathan

p.s. if you want more information try the following book for ideas :)



www.nathanlee-pt.com
www.nathanlee-pt.ning.com

Hey guys generally speaking I read a couple of books minimum per month to update my knowledge on fitness, health and diet...

here's some I have read so far this year...

worth a read if you want to find out more about some of the topics I write or will write about over the coming months :)

Getting to the bottom of it.....glute activation

Check this guy out....

he knows a thing or two about glute activation, the rest of us tho? Ours have got lazy.

not through a lack of exercise mind you most people in gyms will be doing squats and lunges, hip extensions and abductions but our glutes just really aren't developing and this can be a supplementary causal factor for low back pain...something that mr Gluteal up there wont experience!

So why aren't our glutes working?

Mainly because we are sat on them so often, with many of us office bound, driving more and then relaxing either on the sofa or seated in restaurants, we are spending more and more time in a seated position.

yes it's great isn't it?

well no, not really. We spent thousands of years evolving to stand tall and be active and now the last 20 years has seen us take an evolutionary step back into our seats.

I am confident to say that this is one of the biggest causal factors of low back pain seen today.

so why is the seated position so bad?

well two things oocur...

1) your hip flexors become extremely shortened and over active.
2) your glutes become lengthened and underactive.

Without going too indepth the agonist and antagonist muscles (paired) either side of a joint are served by the same nerves equally.

If one of those pairs becomes short or over active the nerve signal becomes inhibited to the opposing muscle...in this case the glutes (your bottom) get switched off (as they are also in a lengthened inactive postion when seated).

Over time this leads to the hip flexors pulling the lumbar (lower) spine out of position as the pelvis tilts forward, putting pressure on the lower back and being a precursor to low back pain.

The gluteals become weak and don't activate as they should in squatting, lunging, walking and the hamstrings tend to take over their work (synergistic dominance) (alongside the pelvic tilt this leads to us thinking we have tight hamstrings) leading to potential hamstring strains.

So what can i do to save my glutes?

first....stop stretching your hamstrings and focus on the hip flexors. See a qualified personal trainer to help you stretch or teach you to perform it yourself so that you can relax your hip flexors asap.

second.... get up out of your chair, if your'e stuck in the office all day get up every 30 minutes and stretch out your legs, walk to the water cooler and increase your fluid intake, go flirt with the boss, whatever it takes but get out of that chair.

third and final... get your trainer to give you specific glute strengthening exercises and show you how to really activate them, simple additions such as a resistance band around the knees during a squat force you to push outwards to keep knees in line with the toes and automatically activate your glutes....theyl thank you for it :)

bottoms up :)

nathan