Training guide
Love handles are the fat under your skin at the sides of your waist, just above your hip bones. They're normal at any size, and where your body keeps fat is largely down to your genes, sex and age. Side bends and twists don't burn them: in trials, ab exercises didn't shift the fat above the hip bone, and training one part of the body didn't take more fat off it.
To get rid of love handles, lose fat from your whole body: eat a little less, move more, strength train on 2 days a week and sleep well, and train your trunk for strength rather than to burn fat. This guide covers what love handles are, which "hip fat" you mean, whether oblique work widens your waist, what works and how long it takes, waist trainers, fat freezing and liposuction, and the signs that need a GP.
Love handles are fat under the skin at the sides of your waist. In twins, genes explained about 82 to 85% of the differences in trunk fat, identical twins overfed by the same amount gained fat in the same places, and men keep more of their fat around the middle than women. They're normal at any size.
Six weeks of ab exercises on 5 days a week didn't change the skinfold just above the hip bone in 24 adults, adding ab training to a diet did no better than the diet alone in 40 women, and across 13 studies training one body part didn't take the fat off it.
Eat a little less, aiming to lose 0.5 to 1 kg a week as the NHS suggests; move more (each extra 30 minutes a week of aerobic exercise took about half a centimetre off the waist in trials); strength train on 2 days a week; sleep 7 to 9 hours; and keep alcohol within 14 units a week.
Side planks, Pallof presses and carries build a stronger trunk. No study has measured waist size after oblique training: in trials the side ab muscles grew only a little, and much bigger obliques were seen only after years of professional tennis.
Keep your waist to less than half your height. That's about the deeper fat linked with type 2 diabetes and heart disease, not about how love handles look.
See a GP for fat building up on your tummy, upper back and neck with thin arms and legs and a red, round face, for a lump, or if one hip sticks out more than the other.
Fat under the skin at the sides of your waist, just above the bony rim of your pelvis (the iliac crest), sometimes spilling over a waistband: the "muffin top". Clinicians measure this spot with a skinfold calliper, as the suprailiac skinfold, and it's the one ab training didn't change in the trial that measured it.
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The external and internal obliques and the transversus abdominis wrap the sides of your waist, with the quadratus lumborum further back. The obliques turn and bend your trunk and, just as often, stop it turning and bending. Our obliques page has the anatomy.
Love handles are fat under the skin. Visceral fat sits inside your abdomen, around the organs, and on scans it predicts heart and metabolic disease. A tape round your waist takes in both, which is why waist size predicts disease beyond BMI (body mass index), and why NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) uses the waist-to-height ratio. With every weight-loss method studied, visceral fat fell proportionally more than fat under the skin.
In Danish twins, genes explained about 82% (younger) and 85% (older) of the differences in trunk fat. Identical twins overfed by the same amount gained fat in the same places as each other, and 49 gene regions are linked to waist-to-hip ratio, with most of the sex-specific ones acting more strongly in women.
Men keep more of their fat around the middle: upper-body fat was 48.6% of the total in men, 38.3% in women before the menopause and 42.1% after it, in a scan study of 234 adults. Women carry more on the hips and thighs. That's normal biology, not a sign you're doing something wrong.
With age, fat tends to shift towards the abdomen. At the start of the menopause transition the rate of fat gain doubled while lean mass fell, until about 2 years after the last period, and in 156 women only those who became postmenopausal gained visceral fat.
Bodies are a little uneven. A soft lump that moves may be a lipoma, a harmless fatty lump, and one hip sticking out can be a sign of scoliosis, a sideways curve in the spine. Both are questions for a GP, not a workout.
Folds above a tight waistband or under a fitted top happen at many body sizes, and they change with the clothes you wear as much as with your weight (our reading; we found no study of them).
At the sides of your waist: love handles. This guide covers them.
Sometimes called saddlebags. Our thigh fat guide covers it, along with cellulite.
Hip dips are the inward curve between your hip bone and the top of your thigh bone, and they come mostly from bone shape rather than fat. Our hip dips guide explains them. Some people have both love handles and hip dips; each has its own guide.
Across 13 studies of 1,158 people aged 14 to 71, training one limb didn't take more fat off it than off the untrained limb, and the results were consistent. In 11 adults who trained one leg for 12 weeks, fat fell by 10.2% in the arms and 6.9% in the trunk, but not in either leg.
In 24 inactive adults, 6 weeks of 7 ab exercises (2 sets of 10, 5 days a week), with their diet held steady, changed no fat measure, including the skinfold just above the hip bone. Their ab endurance improved.
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In 40 women with overweight or obesity, adding 12 weeks of ab resistance training to a diet didn't reduce belly fat, waist or hip size more than the diet alone. Both groups lost fat.
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In 104 adults who trained one arm for 12 weeks, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans found the fat change spread over both arms; a single skinfold suggested some local loss in men only.
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In 16 men with overweight, about 57 minutes of machine twists and crunches added to running, 4 days a week for 10 weeks, took about 700 g more fat off the trunk than running alone, with the same total fat loss. Fat next to a working muscle released a little more fat during exercise in 10 men. Neither shows slimmer love handles, and nearly an hour of crunches 4 days a week isn't a practical plan.
Across 89 studies, diet and exercise, medicines and surgery all took visceral fat off proportionally faster than fat under the skin, and none targeted one place.
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In 116 trials of 6,880 adults with overweight or obesity, each extra 30 minutes a week of aerobic exercise took off about 0.52 kg and 0.56 cm of waist, fairly evenly up to 300 minutes a week. Across 25 trials, aerobic exercise cut waist size by 3.2 cm on average: 4.2 cm with vigorous and 2.5 cm with moderate exercise.
On its own, strength training trimmed body fat by about 1.5 points across 54 trials. In 119 adults over 8 months, aerobic training took off more fat, while strength training added more muscle: doing both keeps your muscle while you lose fat.
In 61 women with obesity on a 6-month diet, fat under the skin fell at every place measured, by 7.6 to 18.0%, and proportionally more at the mid-arm and mid-thigh than at the waist and hips.
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The side ab muscles thickened a little with 12 weeks of ab training plus diet in 19 women. In 9 women, 36 weeks of Pilates raised their volume by 8% on one side. Professional tennis players' side ab muscles were 18% bigger on one side than the other after years of play. No study has measured waist size after oblique training.
The NHS suggests eating and drinking fewer calories than you use, aiming to lose 0.5 to 1 kg (1 to 2 lb) a week, being active for 45 to 60 minutes a day and cutting down on alcohol. Our calories per day calculator gives a target if your BMI is 25 or more.
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Build towards at least 150 minutes a week of moderate activity, such as brisk walking, cycling or swimming. In the trials, more minutes took more off the waist, up to about 300 a week, and vigorous exercise took off a little more than moderate.
Work all your major muscles, as the NHS advises: a squat, a hinge, a push and a pull, as in our 20-minute strength workout. It trims fat on its own and keeps your muscle while you lose fat.
Our protein calculator suggests 1.2 to 1.6 g per kg of body weight a day while you lose weight; in 49 trials, more than about 1.6 g per kg added no extra muscle. Avoid crash diets: a deficit of about 500 calories a day stopped muscle gains across trials, and athletes who lost weight more slowly kept more muscle.
That's what adults need. On the same diet, 5.5 hours in bed instead of 8.5 cut the fat lost by more than half in a small 2-week trial.
Spread over 3 or more days, as the NHS advises. A glass of wine can have up to 158 calories and some pints of stronger lager up to 222, and the NHS says regularly drinking more than it recommends can have a noticeable impact on your waistline.
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Our oblique workout, 2 or 3 times a week on days apart: side planks (15 to 40 seconds each side), half-kneeling Pallof presses (10 each side) and suitcase carries (20 m each hand) for 3 rounds, then slow Russian twists and side-lying oblique crunches for 2. It builds a stronger trunk; it won't burn the fat over it. No trial has tested how much oblique work is best, so these doses are our workout's starting point.
NICE's bands, for adults with a BMI under 35: a waist-to-height ratio of 0.4 to 0.49 is healthy, 0.5 to 0.59 means increased health risks, and 0.6 or more means further increased risks. Our waist-to-height ratio calculator works it out.
Find the bottom of your ribs and the top of your hips, wrap a tape midway between them (usually just above your belly button), breathe out naturally and read it. Every 2 to 4 weeks is often enough (our suggestion); our belly fat guide has more on measuring.
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Waist size predicts disease beyond BMI because it reflects the deeper fat around your organs, and exercise and eating less shrink it. Your waist can change before the scales do, so a tape and photos in the same light show progress better than weight alone (our reading).
These train the muscles under your love handles; they don't burn the fat over them. Side planks, Pallof presses and carries 3 rounds and Russian twists 2, as in our oblique workout; the side-lying oblique crunch has its own dose on its move page.
3D demoSide plankIntermediate · No equipment
3D demoKnee side plankBeginner · No equipment
3D demoHalf-kneeling Pallof pressBeginner · A band + An anchor point
3D demoSuitcase carryIntermediate · A dumbbell + A kettlebell
3D demoCable wood chopAdvanced · A cable machine
3D demoRussian twist with a weightIntermediate · Medicine ball
3D demoSide-lying oblique crunchBeginner · No equipment
3D demoSide plank with leg liftAdvanced · No equipmentWhole-body moves, as in our 20-minute strength workout (goblet squats, rows and Romanian deadlifts at 8 to 12 reps, twice through), plus your weekly walking, cycling or rowing. Indoor rowing and the cross-trainer have starting doses on their move pages.
3D demoTreadmill walkingBeginner · Cardio machine
3D demoStair climbingIntermediate · A step
3D demoStationary cyclingBeginner · Cardio machine
3D demoIndoor rowing (rowing machine)Beginner · Cardio machine
3D demoElliptical trainerBeginner · Cardio machine
3D demoDumbbell goblet squatIntermediate · A dumbbell
3D demoDumbbell Romanian deadliftIntermediate · A dumbbell
3D demoPush-upIntermediate · No equipment
3D demoSupported single-arm dumbbell rowIntermediate · A dumbbell + A bench or box
3D demoFarmer's carryIntermediate · A dumbbell + A kettlebellOur editorial plan, built on NHS and NICE advice, the trials in this guide and our oblique workout.
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The movement on the figure: Side plank
At 0.5 to 1 kg a week, love handles shrink with the rest of you. In one diet study, fat came off the arms and thighs proportionally faster than the waist and hips, so love handles can be among the slower places.
Where you lose fat first is partly inherited, and around the menopause the waist tends to gain, so the same plan may move more slowly then.
Nobody can tell you how your waist will look, or when. What you can control is the habit: activity most days, strength work twice a week, enough sleep and a small calorie cut.
We found no trial showing a garment removes fat from the waist, and sweating loses water, not fat (our reading). In 69 adults with overweight, a compression garment combined with goal setting and self-monitoring led to 1.3 kg more weight loss in 12 weeks than the comparison group, which the authors linked to changes in eating. The garment's own effect can't be separated out.
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Across 30 studies of 3,158 people, fat thickness just above the hip bone was about 5 mm less, and waists 3.6 cm smaller, 12 weeks after fat freezing (cryolipolysis) than before. Most studies compared people with themselves, with no comparison group, and numbness (in about half), redness, swelling and pain were common.
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After small-volume liposuction of the lower belly, hips or thighs in 32 women, body fat was back to the comparison group's level within a year, regained on the belly; the treated thighs stayed smaller.
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There's no workout that burns love handles. The oblique and chop and lift workouts build your trunk; the whole-body and cardio sessions do the fat-loss work.
A 25-minute oblique workout at home: side planks, a band Pallof press and a suitcase carry to hold your trunk steady, then slow Russian twists and side-lying crunches.
25 minIntermediate8 movesA band, An anchor pointResist a twist, then make one under control: Pallof presses, the press and turn, cable lifts and wood chops, with side planks and a carry.
30 minIntermediate9 movesA band, An anchor pointA 12-minute core session for the sides and back: side planks, bird dogs, a band press that resists twisting and an optional one-sided carry.
12 minBeginner10 movesA band, An anchor pointA 15-minute beginner core workout on the floor: dead bugs, bird dogs, knee planks, side planks and curl-ups.
15 minBeginner6 movesNo equipmentA 25-minute gym ab workout you can add weight to: cable crunches, hanging knee raises, ab wheel rollouts, Pallof presses and suitcase carries.
25 minIntermediate7 movesA cable machine, Pull-up barA 20-minute full-body dumbbell workout: two supersets of squats, rows, Romanian deadlifts and push-ups. Twice a week covers the minimum dose.
20 minBeginner8 movesA dumbbell, A bench or boxStrength moves first, then 20 to 30 minutes of steady cardio, with glucose checks built in. In one small type 1 diabetes trial, weights first kept glucose steadier.
45 minBeginner11 movesA dumbbell, A bench or boxA full-body circuit of 8 stations: dumbbell squats, push-ups, rows, lunges, deadlifts and cardio moves, 40 seconds each, for 2 or 3 rounds.
35 minBeginner14 movesA dumbbell, A bench or boxA steady 30 to 45 minute cardio session at talk-but-not-sing pace: walk, cycle, row or cross-train, counting toward weekly activity guidelines.
40 minBeginner3 movesCardio machine, A wallA 25-minute standing cardio circuit with no jumping: marching, step jacks, sit-to-stands, punches, step-ups and wall push-ups, with a seated option for most moves.
25 minBeginner9 movesA bench or box, A stepA 10-minute routine for straight after a meal: an easy walk, a few simple standing moves from blood sugar trials, then a short walk to finish.
10 minBeginner6 movesCardio machine, A bench or boxA 50-minute walk with hills, outdoors or on a treadmill slope: brisk on the flat, slower on the climbs, building from gentle slopes to about 6%.
50 minBeginner5 movesCardio machine, A stepA 25-minute interval session on a bike or rower: one-minute hard efforts with two minutes easy, building from 4 to 8 rounds.
25 minIntermediate1 movesCardio machineThe weight-loss plan is the main one; the walking plan builds to 150 minutes a week from very little. The 30-day ab challenge builds trunk strength; like any ab work, it won't burn love handles.
A 12-week workout plan for weight loss: three strength days, two cardio days and daily steps, building to 200 minutes a week, with honest results.
3 training days45 minBeginner6 days a weekA free 8-week walking plan for beginners: build to 150 minutes of brisk walking a week, with intervals, hills and two short strength sessions.
6 training days40 minBeginner3 days a weekA 12-week body recomposition plan to lose fat and build muscle: three strength days, cardio and steps, a small calorie cut, protein and honest timelines.
3 training days50 minBeginner3 days a weekThree full-body home workouts a week with dumbbells or no equipment at all, plus walks and an 8-week plan to keep progressing.
3 training days35 minBeginner3 days a weekA weekly plan for women over 50: strength, bone-loading and balance on 3 days plus walking, built on UK osteoporosis consensus advice.
3 training days45 minBeginner4 days a weekA free 30-day ab challenge: four 12-minute core sessions a week, from dead bugs to hollow holds, with rest days and an honest word on belly fat.
4 training days12 minBeginnerMen tend to keep more fat at the waist. In men with obesity, losing weight raised testosterone across 24 studies, more with more weight lost. Love handles on their own don't tell you your hormone levels (our reading); see a GP about symptoms that worry you.
Fat gain speeds up at the start of the menopause transition and shifts towards the waist, while muscle falls. Strength training and aerobic activity still work; our menopause guide has the detail.
The NHS advises avoiding sit-ups, planks and high-impact exercise to start with and building up from gentle tummy and pelvic floor exercises. Walking is a good start; our postpartum guide covers timing.
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Pregnant, or in the first months after a birth: do the first block only, with knee side planks, and follow our pregnancy or diastasis recti guide. With a prolapse, swap the twist and the crunch for more Pallof presses.
With osteoporosis, leave out the weight in the Russian twist and twist only as far as is comfortable; after a spinal fracture, ask a physiotherapist first.
If twisting brings on back pain or pain down a leg, do the first block only and see our back pain guide. A sudden sharp pain at the side of your tummy during a twist or throw can be an abdominal strain: see our abdominal strain guide.
With a hernia, stop any move that makes it hurt or bulge, and see a GP if you think you have one.
If you get chest pain or pressure, feel faint or dizzy, are unusually breathless, or your heart races or beats irregularly during exercise, as our plans advise.
For chest pain that feels tight, heavy or squeezing, or spreads to your arms, neck, jaw or back; a sudden, extremely painful headache, especially while straining; someone who faints while exercising; or palpitations that don't go away, or come with chest pain, breathlessness or feeling faint. Don't drive yourself to A&E.
Call 999 or go to A&E: loss of feeling or numbness around the genitals or bottom, new trouble peeing or controlling your bladder or bowels, changes in genital sensation during sex or problems with erections or orgasm, or pain, tingling, weakness or numbness in both legs. These are signs of cauda equina syndrome, which needs treating in hospital urgently. Don't drive yourself.
Call 999 or go to A&E: back pain with chest pain, or back pain that started after a serious accident, such as a car crash.
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Ask for an urgent GP appointment or get help from NHS 111 for a headache that's triggered or made worse by coughing, sneezing, bending down or exercising. In the US, contact your doctor or urgent care.
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See a GP if you think you have a hernia, a bulge or lump that may get bigger when you strain and smaller when you lie down. Get help from NHS 111 if you have a hernia and pain in or around it, a bloated tummy, you feel or are sick, you're vomiting blood or your vomit looks like coffee grounds, you're constipated, you have a high temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery, or you've suddenly become confused. Call 999 or go to A&E for a femoral hernia (a small lump at the top of your thigh, in your groin) with very bad tummy pain, sickness, being unable to fart or poo, a high temperature or sudden confusion.
See a GP if:
See a GP if you think you might have scoliosis: the NHS lists uneven shoulders, one shoulder or hip sticking out, and the ribs sticking out on one side among the signs.
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The NHS suggests seeing a GP if your BMI is in the overweight or obese range and you want help to lose weight, your waist is more than half your height, or you have conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure or sleep apnoea.
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The NHS lists spending a lot of time worrying about your weight and body shape, eating very little food, exercising too much, and having very strict routines around food among the signs of an eating disorder, and says to see a GP as soon as you can. Worrying a lot about one area of your body can be body dysmorphic disorder. Beat's helpline in England is 0808 801 0677, and our eating disorders guide has the other numbers.
Six weeks of ab exercises on 5 days a week didn't change the skinfold just above the hip bone in 24 adults, adding ab training to a diet did no better than the diet alone in 40 women, and across 13 studies training one body part didn't take the fat off it. Side bends and twists build trunk strength.
One trial in 16 men found about 700 g more trunk fat loss with nearly an hour of machine crunches and twists 4 days a week, and fat next to a working muscle releases a little more fat during exercise. But the meta-analysis found no effect, and none of it adds up to a practical plan.
No study has measured waist size after oblique training. The side ab muscles thickened a little with ab training while waists shrank with diet, and much bigger obliques came only with years of professional tennis. A little more muscle under a smaller fat layer usually makes a waist look firmer, not wider (our reading).
We found no trial showing a garment removes fat from the waist, and sweating loses water, not fat (our reading). In one trial, a compression garment combined with goal setting and self-monitoring led to 1.3 kg more weight loss in 12 weeks, which the authors linked to changes in eating.
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Love handles alone don't show your hormone levels. In men with obesity, losing weight raised testosterone across 24 studies.
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Fat freezing studies mostly compared people with themselves and reported common side effects such as numbness. After liposuction, body fat came back within a year, on the belly.
They're fat under the skin. The fat linked most with heart and metabolic disease is visceral fat inside the abdomen, which your waist size reflects. Keep your waist to less than half your height.
Lose fat from your whole body: eat a little less, move more, strength train on 2 days a week and sleep 7 to 9 hours. Side bends and twists strengthen the muscles underneath but don't burn the fat over them. The NHS suggests aiming to lose 0.5 to 1 kg a week.
No. Six weeks of ab exercises didn't change the skinfold just above the hip bone in 24 adults, and across 13 studies training one body part didn't take the fat off it. They do build a stronger trunk.
None burns them in particular. Aerobic exercise burns fat from your whole body: each extra 30 minutes a week took about half a centimetre off the waist in 116 trials, more with more minutes. Strength training on 2 days a week keeps your muscle while you lose fat.
Not in a practical way. One small trial of nearly an hour of machine crunches and twists 4 days a week found a little extra trunk fat loss, but 13 studies together found no spot reduction.
No study has measured it. In one trial the side ab muscles got a little thicker while waists shrank with diet, and much bigger obliques were seen only after years of professional tennis.
Where your body keeps fat is largely inherited, so some people carry more at the waist at any weight, and men tend to store more there. Folds above a tight waistband are normal at many sizes.
Months, at the pace your whole body loses fat. In one diet study, fat came off the arms and thighs proportionally faster than the waist and hips, so love handles can be among the slower places. Nobody can promise a date.
Fat gain speeds up at the start of the menopause transition, and more of it goes to the waist. Exercise and eating a little less still work, and our menopause guide covers the rest.
Not on their own. In men with obesity, losing weight raised testosterone across 24 studies, more with more weight lost. If you have symptoms you're worried about, see a GP.
We found no trial showing they remove fat from the waist, and sweating loses water, not fat. In one trial a compression garment plus goal setting and self-monitoring led to a little more weight loss, which the authors put down to changes in eating.
Fat freezing reduced fat thickness above the hip bone by about 5 mm at 12 weeks in studies that mostly compared people with themselves, and numbness and redness were common. After small-volume liposuction, body fat was back to its old level within a year, regained on the belly.
They're fat under the skin, but your waist size also reflects the deeper fat linked with type 2 diabetes and heart disease. NICE advises keeping your waist to less than half your height.
Exercise education, not a personal prescription, and clinical review of these guides is pending. Check with a GP before starting hard training if you have a heart condition, chest pain, dizziness or breathlessness when active, and stop for sharp or increasing pain. Health disclaimer.
