How To Treat & Remove Love Handles

“Love handles” are areas of excess skin and fat that extend outward from the abdomen, at the hips. Love handles can be more visible when wearing tight clothing, when they may spill out over the top of a waistband. This excess fat can be stubborn and difficult to eliminate with diet and regular exercise.

Why are love handles called “Love Handles”?

They aren’t called love handles because those who have them, love them! The name “love handles” comes because an individual’s partner or loved one will often embrace them around the hips, which is where these excess fat and skin pockets occur.

There is no specific activity or habit that causes love handles to form. In general, fat cells accumulate in the body when you consume too many calories, or don’t burn as many calories as you are consuming — so, eating too much and exercising too little can result in weight gain anywhere in the body, including around the hips.

And while fat can accumulate anywhere in the body, some factors increase the likelihood of fat accumulation around the hips, waist, or abdomen. These include hormone production, age, a diet that is high in fat and sugar, and sleep deprivation. Certain medical conditions, such as hypothyroidism, can make it difficult for individuals to burn excess calories, and can also, therefore, lead to weight gain, including fat accumulation around the hips or waist.

Love handles can also be the result of genetics, as many individuals whose family members have love handles are at higher risk of developing them themselves.

There are non-surgical lifestyle changes that can help reduce or eliminate love handles.

Solution 1: Diet Changes

As with all weight loss plans, adjusting your diet is an integral part of shedding excess fat and ensuring it does not return. A diet that is heavy on plant-based foods, such as leafy greens and whole grains, is low in fat and calories while providing vital nutrients and vitamins. Lean proteins, such as fish and white meat, and beans and legumes should also be eaten more often than heavier proteins such as red meat. Reducing your sodium intake can also help reduce weight and eliminate fat: the US Office of Women’s Health recommends that adults do not consume an excess of 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day, recommending that sodium intake remains closer to 1,500 milligrams per day.

Solution 2: Exercise

There are a number of exercises that specifically target the hips, waist, and abdomen, which can help reduce love handles. These include side planks, bicycle crunches, and mountain climbers. Those looking to lose weight should also incorporate cardiovascular activity, such as walking, running, hiking, or cycling, into their routine.

Check out our before and after section here!

Having love handles removed using medical or surgical procedures can vary significantly in cost. CoolSculpting, which uses cold temperatures to permanently disable and destroy the fat cell from the areas of unwanted body fat, costs a minimum of $799 per procedure; liposuction starts at $4,999.

SpaMedica offers a number of procedures to help eliminate love handles. These include non-surgical and non-invasive solutions, such as UltraShape, which is a nonsurgical fat reduction device that uses ultrasound waves to target and remove areas of excess fat and tighten the skin; and Velashape, a non-invasive, suction-coupled infrared and radiofrequency heating device that reduces fat, tightens the skin and contours the body. Liposuction, alongside solutions such as BodyTite, which uses a heat-delivering probe while performing a liposuction procedure, can also provide permanent solutions to love handles. A number of other approaches, both non-invasive and surgical, are designed to target the stubborn, difficult-to-lose excess fat that makes up love handles.

Dr. Mulholland and Dr. Bell both understand that all cosmetic procedures are highly individual, and will work with you to determine which solution is the best for targeting your specific concerns relating to the elimination of your love handles.