What's up, guys, Jeff Cavaliere, athleanx.com. Love handles basically the epitome of stubborn
body fat, particularly in men. What is it about this area that just tends to sort of
take so long to go away? Even at leaner levels of body, fat guys will still have
areas of fat around their waist and their low back that just won't go away. Well,
today I'm going to help you, I'm going to give you the action plan. A series of things that you
can do that are going to help you to finally get rid of these love handles once and for all.
So, look, whenever we talk about love handles, can we at least define them
all the same way - as body fat. Right? Body fat is body fat. Where we store it is what
determines maybe whether it's more stubborn or not. When it comes to the love handles,
though, what you do about it is always going to come down to the same solution,
and that is your diet and what you eat and what you put in your body. Now,
let's face it, if you look like this right now, though, there's love handles present.
There's a whole lot of other body fat present, too and this person is not getting the nutrition right
at all. More often than not, they're choosing the wrong foods. If you want to get to the
bottom of your problem, you're going to have to choose the right foods more often than not.
And even just the clean eater or the guy who eats clean most of the time,
it's not going to cut it when it comes to the love handles. Because again, it tends to be that
stubborn fat that holds on to the very last drop. You got to get it right more often than not, even
sometimes 80/20 won't cut it, you might just have to be better if it means that much to you.
You're still with me? Good. Because I'm going to cheer you up now. Because what I just said
is actually a lot simpler than you might think. Now maybe not easy for everybody, but definitely
worthwhile. And what I'm talking about is that let's say 90/10 approaching nutrition. And that
means for every nine meals that you eat, that we all would agree are healthy and in line with
somebody who's attempting to become hyper caloric and lose body fat, the 10th meal is on me. You can
indulge in something that maybe you do right now, but at a lesser frequency. Now, when it comes to
alcohol, I would suggest this is an area that's a little bit easier to clean up, too. Because we can
just simply cut down either the number of times per week that we drink or the number of drinks
we have each time we do drink. And because we know that they're pretty empty calories
and they start to stack up and add up quite quickly, it might be an area that's a lot easier
for you to fix than you might have thought. And then when it comes to the actual foods we eat,
I am going to suggest that you don't attempt to do this by becoming a carbphobic. What I'm saying is
don't try to avoid carbs altogether. Not only is it going to set you up for a long-term failure
because you just can't deprive yourself forever of these delicious nutrients,
but you're going to find that it also interferes with the process in another way.
And that is, though initial restriction of carbohydrates might actually cause you to
lose some weight and even some water weight. Over time, you're actually going to increase
your cortisol levels. And your circulating cortisol levels have a lot to say about body fat,
particularly stubborn body fat. If we can decrease our cortisol levels by actually still having some
carbohydrates in our body, not only are we going to help to not have this effect happen,
but more importantly, as I said, we're going to maintain our sanity. Guys, carbohydrates do
tend to be foods that we crave, however, we can certainly approach them more responsibly. Here's
why I always recommend to have a 2 to 1 ratio from the fibrous carbohydrates to the starchy
carbohydrates. If you're not sure what those are, you can always head to athleanx.com/carbs
to see a complete list of these two categories. For example, rice or pasta or baked potatoes or
sweet potatoes, I m not asking you to take them off your plate entirely, just have less of them.
And the easiest way to do that is to first fill your plate with more of the green stuff. Right?
The spinach, broccoli, asparagus put twice as much of that on your plate as you would the starchy
carbohydrate and not only can you enjoy them, but you're not going to have the caloric impact,
the density of those carbohydrates in particular, that will tend to keep you in that hyper caloric
state that's going to keep the body fat on. You get to keep them on your plate,
you get to keep your sanity and you get to get rid of those love handles once and for all.
And so, again, we're not talking about something that's really complex, but it does require some
consistency and that's what might be challenging. But I will tell you this, it will work every
single time if you follow what I'm saying here. So, as you start to see those early results, even
maybe you're starting at a 70/30 split, that's good. As long as you're going down 70/30, 80/20
towards 90/10, you're going to start to see those results that will keep you inspired and going.
Now, that being said, there's another side of this equation here and that's what you're doing
with your body, right? What are you doing in terms of the output? The inputs, taking care of what you
eat, but what are you doing in terms of your exercise? And there's three different things
I like to focus on here. The first one is, what's the style of your training? Now, if your main goal
is to lose body fat and you're doing bro splits or you're doing even push pull legs, which I love,
I might argue that you're following the wrong training approach right now.
Now there is something you can do that would actually give you more bang for your buck and it's
called Peripheral Heart Action Training or PHAT. And it's actually something that Bruce Lee used
and even Vince Gironda has used also. Now, what we're talking about is a combination of compound
exercises done in sequence but rotating around your body. So, you do an upper body exercise,
they do a lower body exercise. You go back to an upper body, but maybe this time it's
a pull exercise rather than a push. And you keep going in sequence with no rest in between. Now,
the weight that can be used is one that could actually be challenging to your muscles. So,
you can start building muscle via the metabolic stress route. That's a good thing because the
more muscle and lean muscle tissue you put on at rest, the more calories you burn, the easier time
you have getting into that hypercaloric state. The number of rounds that you do here is something
you can build up to, starting with even one or two and going up to maybe even six or seven. But the
fact is some training approaches are better than others when caloric burn is your focus
and when you're looking to lose those love handles, especially that stubborn last bit of fat,
this one might be the best one for you. But it's not just the type of training you do,
but also the exercises that you select. Because you might say that, hey, it sounds pretty familiar
to hit training what you just described, a series of exercises done in sequence with very
little rest in order to burn more calories. However, the difference between, let's say,
peripheral heart action training and hit training is the exercise selection.
Choosing more of the compound-based exercises that allow you to build muscle. Because we
know that even though the exercise is performed during a typical hit workout might be calorically
slightly more expensive. Maybe they allow you to burn 15 calories versus the 10 and
some of the more compound lifts you are still going to have the benefit of the added muscle
mass that you can build through the fat training that's going to help you
at rest long after that hit training workouts over. So, calorically you're going to wind up
burning more calories anyway. And as an example of this,
you can look at exercises like an Overhead Press, a Front Squat and then maybe into a Barbell Row,
right, and into a Curl. And you don't have to keep the weight the same here during this training,
this is not a complex. You can switch out the weight so that's always something that's going to
challenge you because we do want to rely on that metabolic overload to help you to build
more muscle tissue. Just remember, though, that the exercises themselves are what's key here,
and making sure you choose the right ones is definitely going to be important when you re
looking for that bigger impact to help you to get down to those lower body fat levels.
And even though these workouts will allow you to hit the big muscles,
we still have one we haven't talked about, but we have to, if love handles are your problem
and it's the obliques. And some might misguide you by telling you that training the obliques
is just going to thicken up your waistline. I've said this before, guys, the only thing
thickening your waistline is the body fat that's laying over the top right now. When revealed,
because you can get those body fat levels down, the obliques look amazing. They actually do
the best job of all the muscles in creating that thinning and tapering effect to the waistline.
So, we have to train them. But how will I recommend a few different things? Number one,
you have to learn how to rotate your torso in space. See if you do an exercise like the Russian
Twist and you're just tapping your hands left or right, you're not really rotating your torso. You
have to row your arms and elbows back side to side to make sure you're turning your shoulders
in space in order to train that muscle more effectively. Might be the first time you ever do
it if you've been tapping your hands all along. Or you do an exercise like the bicycle crunch,
another standard exercise, but oftentimes done incorrectly too. And it's because you're just
flipping your elbows back-to-back, but not rotating your shoulders through space.
But it also wants you to get up on your feet, because I know that there's benefits to be had
there, too. And any of the resisted rotation exercises are going to be really effective
for not just hitting the external obliques on one side, but also the internal obliques when you turn
to the opposite side. And of course, I want to get you up on the bar or beginners down on the floor,
but with the intention focus of contracting first with the obliques. A lot of times we let the abs
take over because we rush through the reps. Instead, go really slow and focus on getting
that rotation of the pelvis. And if you do that, guys, you're going to get better activation of the
obliques and ultimately as that body fat level comes down a way better looking waistline.
So how much of this oblique work we talking about? Well, ideally, if you could do a little bit every
day, it will go a long way. That being said, even just one or two oblique exercises is enough to get
the job done. If we can, however, figure out other ways to incorporate it into the other training
we're already doing. Then we're ahead of the game and these are where things like the carry or even
a suitcase lunge, right? Other exercises that will challenge that lateral core stability, will allow
us to get more of that volume that's going to pay off the big dividends as you drop that body fat
and almost sort of sneak it into the work you're already doing. So not a lot of extra work to do,
just making sure you're getting your work in. And then the cardio part of this and a lot of
people will put this first, but as I said before, it's not where you want to start. But it doesn't
mean that it doesn't play a part and help you to get rid of the love handles and particularly
the stubborn fat. Because a lot of us have actually probably heard about fasted cardio
and how important it can be in terms of dropping body fat. And the truth of the matter is, it may
not be all it's cracked up to be. While some may swear by it, others have actually pointed to the
research that shows that it's kind of a net-net when it comes to losing body fat. Because though
you might be burning more fat during the session when fasted, you burn less fat afterwards.
If you're going to do it in a fed state, you'll burn more carbohydrates, but you'll have more
fat burning after the fact. However, when it comes to that stubborn body fat, those last few pounds
that you can't get off, and again, when that fat is around the waist for guys that lasts to come
off area, this is where fasted cardio might play a bigger benefit. So, if you want to explore the
option guys, make sure you do, but not exclusively and don't put your hopes too much on it being the
big difference maker. Remember what you put in your mouth is always going to be the biggest
difference maker, this is just going to add to that and make things a little bit easier.
And speaking of easy, the easiest thing to do when you're not seeing features else
is to quit. But when it comes to these stubborn areas of body fat that sort of hang around,
you've got to be willing to persevere. And here's a perfect example of that, and that is somebody
that followed our Athlean-X program. You can see that after the first phase, he dropped
the significant amount of fat in the face and the neck, even in the upper abs area, but not around
his waistline, not in the love handle area. And if he had quit at this point saying, you know what,
I'm lean, but it seems like I'm always going to carry this area around my waist, he never would
have saw these results. And this is what happened when he continued. And this is finally where those
love handles went away. But again, they don't get the name stubborn for a reason. They're
there because they do take that consistency of effort. But if you put in the work and you do
what I'm showing you here, I promise you those results are going to be there for you.
If you're looking for a step-by-step planning guys, you can find them over at Amazon.com. If you
found the video helpful, make sure you leave your comments below. What else can I help you with?
I'll do my best to do that in a future video. Also, guys, make sure you click Subscribe, turn
you re your Notifications so you never miss the new video when we put one out. See you soon.