Lovehandles: Loving to Hate Them When Do They Disappear?

In a world where everyone searches for perfection, it is very important that you feel secure and satisfied in your own skin. Among the various things that can pull your confidence down, having to face people and yourself with a body that is considered less than perfect or even obese is hard. 

Among all the criteria of excess fat, love handles are most commonly seen. Being here I’m sure you’re wondering at what body fat do love handles disappear.  

At what body fat do love handles disappear? For most people at about 11-15% is when love handles start to vanish and shrink up. In order to make the love handles fully disappear, your body should contain no more than 5-7% body fat. But if you find it hard to achieve that then 8-10% body fat is enough for making them almost invisible. 

We recommend you go through this article to know more as we are going to talk about love handles vividly to help you understand what they are and how you can get rid of them.  

What Are Love Handles?

Love handles are stomach fat or belly fat. It extends outward from the hip area and can be seen while wearing tight clothing but the presence of these love handles isn’t caused due to such clothing but when excess fat accumulates around the abdominal area and also the hips, love handles are created.

Love handles vary in terms of size. They can be too small or cute or curvaceous. It can turn into massive obese which causes stretchmarks. And that is not good for your health.

What Causes Love Handles?

One of the main reasons for love handles is excess body fat. Consumption of too many calories results in excess body fat. And these excess body fats turn into love handles. Around 20-24% body fat, muscle definition disappears and love handles start to appear.

Time to time these excess fats become visible because they gather in the same place, such as hips and waist. There are a lot of places in the body where fat can accumulate. But there are specific factors that increase the possibilities of body fat in the abdominal and hip area. Such as:

Age: As people get older, they gain excess fat. So, love handles become a common incident with aging.

Physical Inactivity: Lack of exercise or workout can cause love handles. Physical exercises help burn excess fats.

Hormones: Hormones can cause love handles. Excessive ‘Cortisol’ is one of the reasons to gain love handles.

Lack of Sleep: Deprivation of sleep can increase belly fat or love handles. Eventually, it will turn into obesity.

Calorie Consumption: Consumption of high-calorie food, sugar, and fats can cause love handles.

Lack of treatment: Some untreated or undiagnosed diseases can decrease metabolism such as Hypothyroidism which causes the low-calorie burn.

Body Fat Percentage and Love Handles

Love handles are directly related to body fat. Different shapes of the body can represent the percentage of body fat in someone’s body. In this section, I am going to discuss the different percentages of body fat in the human body and at which percentage you will get rid of the love handles.

At 31-40% body fat

At this range, this is called ‘Morbidly Obesity’. The visibility of muscle definition is very low or tends to zero. At this point love handles are very prominent. 

At 25-30% body fat

This is the range where men suffer from obesity. From this point, the higher percentage you go, the bulkier someone will look. Some men can look muscular but the definition is too low.

At 20-24% body fat

This is the range for love handles. At this range, you will start to see some definition in the muscles and also the fat around the belly area becomes more visible. It looks like a hanging belly. According to some studies, this is the average body fat rate for men.

At 16-19% body fat

From this range, the belly fats start to decrease and muscle definition starts to appear. Although some men may have the love handles visible, you can still observe the change. This range isn’t that much ‘unhealthy’. And this is where you’ll get to know that your body fat is decreasing.

At 13-15% body fat

At this range, guys start to look lean. Also, love handles start to disappear. Muscle’s definition of the rest of the body becomes a little visible.

At 11-12% body fat

The abdominal definition is quite visible from this range.

At 8-10% body fat

This is the ideal range for many men. This is where the love handles are almost invisible. Many men make this their goal range as this is more sustainable. The abdominal muscles are visible and you can see the abs.

At 5-7% body fat

This is more like the bodybuilder’s range. Here the love handles disappear. But as good it looks; it is harder to sustain. Proper workout and dedication are needed to sustain this range.

At 1-4% body fat

This range is for the pro bodybuilders and way harder to sustain. Under 5% body fat, the separations of the muscles are more visible.

So, we can see that around at 11-15% body fat level, the love handles are less visible, and below that level is ideal to disappear the love handles.

Do Love Handles Cause Any Harm?

Love handles are not always that harmful. But sometimes, they can do some damage to health. There are some risk factors regarding love handles which include:

• Excessive Cholesterol
• Heart Diseases
• Stroke
• Breathing problems
• Liver problems
• Cancer
• osteoarthritis
• Type-2 diabetes

So, Proper steps should be taken to minimize the extra fats and love handles.

How To Get Rid of Love Handles?

There are lots of ways to get rid of love handles. Here are some suggestions to minimize the fat.

Improve lifestyle

You have to adopt healthy habits to avoid stress from your life. As I said earlier, Stress can cause excess fat in your body which will harm you. Plenty of sleep is needed. So, a better lifestyle will help you to minimize the risk.

Proper diet

One of the most effective cures for the love handles is to maintain a controlled diet. Always eat healthy foods.

• Taking soluble fiber can help you by slowing down the food in your digestive system. This is mostly recommended for weight loss purposes.
• You have to avoid foods containing trans-fat such as soybean oil. It is proven in the studies that trans-fats can increase by around 33% fat gain.
• Avoiding Alcohol, Beverages with sugar is also essential,
• Any food containing sugar has to be avoided
• Diet including 50-gram carbs can reduce belly fat or love handles.
• Apple cider vinegar and green tea can be beneficial.
• Maintain a diet that includes high protein.
• You can also try fasting to lose weight. This one has become popular nowadays.

Exercise

Proper exercise is another effective way to reduce body fat and love handles. There are many exercises specifically for minimizing belly fat such as,

• Weight lifting
• Side planks
• Russian Twists
• Bridge
• Mountain Climber
• Bicycle crunches.

These are some exercises you can perform at your home and maintain body fat levels. You can also join a gym to know and use more techniques.

Medical Support and Procedures

Various types of medical procedures are there to reduce body fat and love handles. As technology is advancing the varieties of treatment are expanding day by day.

Some people go under plastic surgery for fat retention. ‘Liposuction’ is one of them. In this process, a solution is injected into the targeted area to liquefy the fat cells and then vacuum the liquid using an aspirator. In a few days, results are visible.

But this procedure is only for a specific area. Those who are obese and also have love handles go through more steps to make love handles disappear. This procedure is comparatively costlier than the other options I discussed earlier.

Final Thoughts on At What Body Fat Do Love Handles Disappear

If you want to have your love handles disappear you will need to get your nutrition on point as you will be more successful at losing body fat through a dietary approach.

After the dietary approach you want to bring in some strong cardio options to help you melt away the fat with some HIIT and LISS cardio, additionally adding weight lifting will add muscle and help burn more fat at the same time.