Love Handles – A Complete Guide.
One in three walk-in clients to the Damidols’ store has questions about love handles and how to correct them with shapewear. It is clear that both male and female, everyone hates the side stub of protruding flesh called love handles.
Indeed, not only do they look bad and also speak volumes about your nutrition habits but also about your lifestyle choices. The term “love handle” is a cute way of describing that bothersome bit of your body that hangs above your hips and just under your waist. Also, the area at the back of the waist above the buttocks is referred to as the love handles or flank area. The area is the typical area where there are pockets of fat resistant to diet and exercise.
Due to these love handles, it becomes difficult to fit in and have a trim silhouette in that beautiful LBD or beautiful body-hugging gown for your outings. On the other hand, men are also not left out in these battles with the love handles. Even a finely tailored suit can look ill-fitting with bulging flesh in the wrong places.
Whether you are petite or plus size, having love handles is a common nuisance. This article will delve into how to incorporate shapewears into your lifestyle changes to remove those love handles. Shapewear is an excellent undergarment to help with this for all body types. Let’s break down what love handles are and how to correct love handles using shapewear.
What Are Love Handles?
Love handles, flanks, derriere, those protruding bits above your hips. This is a bothersome part of the body. It often seems unresponsive to diet (I know some slim women who battle love handles), and exercise hardly alters them as they aren’t part of your major (or everyday use) muscle groups; hence you can’t tone them up quickly.
More often than not, fitness, diet, and a lack of quality sleep are some of the main reasons for excess fat around the hip region; other factors may trigger them to be more evident.
What causes love handles?
As stated earlier, love handles are caused by fat accumulation in the area. When you ingest too many calories and don’t burn as many calories as you consume, fat accumulates on your midsection and hips.
This is because your hips and belly are the first and last sites where fat deposits form and the last place they leave.
In truth, Women face this challenge more than men due to their higher risk of leptin resistance due to not eating the correct type of foods. Leptin is a hormone that causes the brain to alert you when you should stop eating and when your body has taken in enough calories.
A variety of factors causes love handles. These love handles are often persistent and challenging to get rid of or diminish.
One of the most common reasons for this status is a lack of a balanced diet, adequate sleep, and regular exercise.
Although fat deposits can form anywhere on the body, several circumstances that might cause fat to appear more prominently on the hips/love handles, lower back, and abdominal areas, including:
-Age.
-Lack of sleep.
-Hormonal Imbalances
-Medications.
-High far, Sugar or Calories -Consumption.
-A medical condition causing slow metabolism.
-Lack of physical activity.
While the issue is primarily cosmetic — as in, you do not love how they look — love handles can also indicate underlying risk factors for illnesses like type 2 diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
How to Correct Love Handles – The Shapewear Path.
To get rid of love handles, there are surgical and non-surgical paths to correcting it.
The non-surgical options for love handle fat removal include fat dissolving injections called kybella (belkyra) or cryolipolysis (fat freezing) called cool sculpting.
The Surgical removal is performed by Liposuction with either the body jet or Vaser liposuction systems. (View our article on Liposuction to see how incorporating shapewear can help you get excellent results there too).
Having stated that, there is a third path that has a less painful, traumatic, complicated yet instantaneous effect of reducing love handles, and that’s the shapewear path.
Shapewear is a kind of underwear that you can wear beneath your clothes to change the direction of your body fat and make you appear slimmer. The term shapewear is sometimes used interchangeably with waist trainers.
However, a waist trainer is targeted at the waistline or abdominal section against the shapewear, which comprises all garments that contribute or alter its wearer’s silhouette. It can assist in smoothing out your curves and give your stomach a more proportional look to the rest of your body.
Further, the shapewear has the added benefit of concealing your love handles while also reduces the look of excess fat in susceptible areas.
Our Shapewear Rules for Instantly Concealing Love Handles
Simply put, your love handles are a layer of flesh and fat over bone. There is only one way to hide them – using shapewear instantly. Compress them and wrap them in strong shapewear fabric! To make this transformation long-term, ensure to burn more calories daily than you consume.
According to a study on abdominal and flank fat, exercises focused on only the abdomen may not be enough to see results on love handles. In addition to targeting the abdominal muscles, it’s also essential to focus on full-body exercises, core building and strengthening exercises regularly, and avoid a sedentary lifestyle to see the best results.
These exercises combine both targeted ab exercises and other exercises — toning the back, hips, and legs — to maximize weight loss around the abdomen, flanks and/or love handles.
Back to our instant solution.
You will need extra STRENGHT shapewear on your love handles to make a big difference. When shopping, select EXTRA FIRM control that will help to compact them up.
Go for full body shapewear. You will need to have something that hides your lower hips, bottom and thighs too. If you wear knicker leg shapewear, you will get Visible Pant Line (VPL), no matter how well made and finely cut the shapewear is.
In addition, go for shapewear that is HIGH WAISTED if you don’t want the full-body type. The shapewear will firm and flatten your love handles. Let’s be honest; the flesh and fat need to have somewhere to go. If it slides UP, you will get flesh or fat spillage over the top of low waist shapewear.
This defeats the purpose and frustrates your desires. No one wants that! In this case, High waisted shapewear is the way to go.
What to look for in a Shapewear that can control Love Handles?
Control Waist Trainers/Cinchers –
Control trainers are one of the most efficient ways to conceal love handles and belly fat. They are designed to tighten your waist for more support and to smooth out your body symmetrically. They prevent extra fat from being pushed out and balance out the distribution, making it less noticeable.
Good quality shapewear is designed to make you feel comfortable throughout the day, making them ideal for everyday tasks such as going to work or school.
Control Pants/Control Camis –
Control pants are briefs or knickers, and they are one of the most popular and dominant types of shapewear available. This is because they smooth out your hips, bum, and stomach without altering the appearance of your legs or upper torso.
Control camis are designed to help reduce tummy fat, but they are also very effective at smoothing out the curved areas around your hips. They have the appearance of a tank top but are specifically designed to make you look slimmer and narrower.
Camis are popular among women because they are the most comfortable to wear when compared to other styles. They conceal fat around your stomach region because it encases the upper torso.
Body Shapers/ Suits –
Body shapers are similar to control camis, although much firmer. They target all areas of your upper torso, including your hips, tummy, breasts, and sides. They are ideal for abdominal spills and back fat.
They assist in manipulating excess skin and fat in the lower back by distributing it both upward and sideways. This helps to stretch out the skin around your hips, making your love handles less visible.
Shapewear can be worn with a variety of outfits, including formal gowns and everyday casual wear. They can be firmer or lighter in control and come in a variety of styles.
Pro tip: If you’re wearing a fancy dress, we recommend a firmer bodysuit because it helps distribute fat better than lighter options. When dressing casually, the opposite is true.
How to Choose the Best Shapewear for Love Handles?
Size –
Choosing the correct size of shapewear is key to improving the look of your overall body’s silhouette, especially in tight-fitting clothes. Shapewear products usually show a sizing chart either online, through the manufacturer/supplier, or on the packaging.
Your correct size will be determined by your waist size, body shape and length. Also, ensure that you pick the sizing according to your country’s sizing metrics. This is because you will find that some international products have different variations and numerals.
Comfort –
If you intend to wear shapewear regularly, it is critical to select comfortable shapewear. Materials that are flexible and breathable will help you feel less irritated throughout the day, especially in hot weather environments. Some can even absorb moisture if you sweat a lot.
Pro tip: If your upper body is more comprehensive, you may want to consider an open bust design, which allows for more flexibility and comfort.
Material –
The material you choose will be determined by your previous experience wearing clothes. Some women prefer a firmer fabric, while others prefer a softer fabric.
When it comes to reducing the appearance of excess body fat around your waist, spandex and elastane are the best materials to use.
They will guarantee that they will hug your body without stretching over time and provide firm control without sacrificing comfort.
Amount of Constriction –
The amount of constriction will depend on your body type. Albeit, there are a few qualities you should pay attention to get the best results when trying to reduce the visibility of your love handles. If you are going for control pants or tights, make sure it goes high above the waist region, covering your belly button.
This allows excess fat and skin to be distributed more evenly throughout the area than pushed in one direction. You will also notice that this makes you appear narrower and slimmer while preventing roll down.
Of course, if you want to wear a cami or a bodysuit, you will have no trouble doing so by default because they cover your entire upper torso.
Adjustable Straps –
Adjustable straps are a great feature to look for in a full-body shapewear garment, such as a control cami or body shaper. These can assist you in customizing the fit so that it is more tailored to you.
Adjustable straps can also help improve the appearance of your silhouette by keeping your upper back from being overly squeezed while providing just the right amount of support and the right amount of tummy control.
In final words, even the best-shaped women and men can store fats around their midsection, so no, it’s not just you. If you decide to go through the shapewear route, know this, it takes time and dedication, but it works. Good luck.
