MY SIX PACK HAS RETURNED!!!!!!!

Those stubborn rolls of flesh around your middle, affectionately known as love handles, are more of a nuisance for men than women since that's one of the first places men store fat. But no matter who owns them, the only way to erase love handles is to lose weight!!!! With overall weight loss, you'll eventually see [the reduction] in your love handles.

The fastest and most effective way to reduce love handles is to double team exercise and diet. This is because if you tone without losing weight, you'll end up with muscle covered by a layer of fat.

First, lose excess fat by getting plenty of aerobic exercise and eating a healthy low-fat (this means low in saturated fats) diet; you need to burn off 3,500 more calories than you take in to lose a pound, that's about an extra hour of exercise or one less chocolate muffin per day for 10 days.

You can discipline yourself to avoid fatty foods by calculating the amount of calories it would provide and the amount of exercise needed to burn those calories (note:  unutilized energy is ultimately stored by your body in the form of fat)and committing yourself towards burning off your calorie intake from that meal or snack.

For example, lets say a tub of chocolate ice cream provides 3500 calories ( if you check the nutrition information on the packs of most food products, you’ll see the amount of calories it will produce), you will need to run for about 10 km to burn off that energy. If you go ahead and eat the ice cream, make sure you run or walk the 10km required to burn it off. After a few workouts of this nature, you’ll be more careful about what you eat.

Second, you can “spot build” by focusing on the underlying abdominal muscles—rectus abdominus, external and internal obliques (the muscles at your sides)—and your back muscles.

A good weight loss diet incorporates 3 major meals and 2-3 subsidiary meals. For instance you can start your day with two glasses of water at 6:30am eat a fruit with a bowl of oatmeal with honey, limiting your milk to two level spoons. Eat fruits BEFORE meals!!!! At 9am you could eat two slices of bread with a boiled egg (not fried!!); at 12pm, eat a can of tuna, or two boiled eggs. At 3pm you could eat beans, rice, amala (or preferably wheat meal) with fish. Luckily for us in Nigeria, our soups have high nutritional content, however, substitute high fat cooking oils with lower fat oils. By 6pm, your system should be winding down, so you could eat a vegetable salad with lots of tomato; alternatively you could eat foods that are high in fibre as it aids bowel movements on the morrow. You could cap dinner with a cup of tea with honey.

Make sure you savour each bite of your food, it helps digest it more effectively. Also try keeping some dried fruits and nuts at hand when you're in the office. they are very effective when you are feeling peckish; and the cravings can get very bad. Alternatively, you could prepare a pack of carrots which you could carry in your bags, especially if you're female.

Note: Avoid alcohol, even small amounts of alcohol can disrupt your normal hormone balance and weigh down your dieting efforts for days afterwards. Besides, alcohol packs almost as many calories per gram as pure fat.

Abdominal Exercise

For any type of abdominal movement to effectively train the abs, it must require a crunching movement or folding of the torso.

The basic abdominal crunch effectively defines and increases abdominal mass. With a traditional crunch, you lie on your back with your feet up on a bench or in the air where you are balancing them and roll your head and shoulders toward your pelvis by contracting your abs, your shoulders should not rise more than 45 degrees from the floor. During this movement, you are also pressing your lower back into the floor. To make the exercise more difficult, place your feet on a bench or against the wall.

While the crunch tends to emphasize the upper portion of the abdominal muscles, the lower portion, along with the hip flexors, contracts to maintain stability in the lower ab-hip region to allow for proper upper body movement. The muscles involved include the rectus abdominis, external and internal obliques, and to an extent - the hip flexors. 

The reverse crunch stabilizes your upper torso to put the focus on the lower abs. The reverse crunch uses the weight of your legs to add resistance. To perform the reverse crunch, lie face up with your arms along side your body. Bend your knees and raise your thighs until they are perpendicular to the floor, which is the starting position. Inhale and hold your breath as your contract your abdominal muscle to pull or roll your pelvis up toward your chest. Your knees should move relatively close to your chest and your pelvis should come completely off the floor.

As you crunch, keep your knees bent so that muscular contractions do the work instead of momentum. Squeeze your abs at the top and slowly lower yourself back to the starting position. For an even stronger contraction of the lower abs, hold your head and shoulders up. This tightens the upper abdominal region so that when the lower aspect shorts, it works harder to raise your hips.

Hanging leg or knee raises involve the same crunching movement but require a higher level of fitness, only with your body in a vertical position. Keeping your legs straight during the movement makes this lower-ab exercise even tougher. To perform this exercise jump or step up to a high bar so that when you grasp the bar your body hangs without your feet touching the floor or you can perform this exercise on a vertical bench.

Fully extend your arms and lower body when hanging from the bar. Your lumbar spine should be slightly arched. Inhale and hold your breath as you first bring your legs slightly behind your body, then quickly raise them forwards and upward as high as possible. Keep your legs straight but not locked out.

If you have tight hamstrings ( the muscles at the back of your thighs), keep a slight bend in the knee. For the exercise to be most effective, your legs should come above the level position, at which point you should hold the peak contraction for 1-2 seconds as you exhale. Relax slightly as you return to the starting position.

 If this exercise is too difficult to perform with straight legs bend your knees further to decrease the resistance. The key is to allow your pelvis to rotate maximally as your legs rise. Concentrate on curling your pelvis after you get your legs moving upward.

The obliques are generally the muscles that make your waist too big. Powerful obliques are important stabilizers for strength athletes, but if you want to create a lean, defined torso, then it is better to rarely train your obliques with weights. Doing weight oblique work tends to thicken your waistline instead of tapering it.

Side bends without weight or twisting crunches should be enough. Another strategy for keeping your waistline small is to perform stomach vacuums. They are great for exercising control of your abdominals and taper your waist.

To begin, stand straight with your feet shoulder width apart from each other. Place your hands on your hips. This is the starting position.

Now slowly inhale as much air as possible and then start to exhale as much as possible while bringing your stomach in as much as possible and hold this position. Try to visualize your navel touching your backbone. One isometric contraction is around 20 seconds. During the 20 second hold, try to breathe normally. Then inhale and bring your stomach back to the starting position. Once you have practiced this exercise, try to perform this exercise for longer than 20 seconds. Tip: You can work your way up to 40-60 seconds. Repeat for the recommended amount of sets. 

Training the abdominals are the same for men and women but results are determined largely by your gender. Men naturally carry the majority of their fat around their waist, whereas women tend to carry theirs on their hips and thighs. Thus, it is harder for a man to get his abs to appear. He must be extremely lean. Regardless of your gender, developing your abs occurs between the pelvis and the ribs. 

Start the journey toward building streamlined abdominals one step at a time, make sure you've got the right fundamentals, and the reults will astound you.

Harness the power of music to make your workouts more enjoyable.