She runs her fingers down past your chest past your belly and love handles.

She giggles and you push her hand away.

That is a bad sign.

Shit happens.

You get in a slump. You can’t get motivated.

You get tired and lazy.

You stop caring about the way you look.

You used to be rebellious and tenacious. Now the only thing that’s tenacious is the rumbling in your stomach from that questionable burrito at lunch.

The good news is, we’re here to help with our guide on:

How to Get Rid of Love Handles

We all have a little imaginary thermostat in our brain that pings when you get a bit too close to “too fat”. It’s usually signaled when your pants get too tight or you see something extra you haven’t noticed before in the mirror.

At this point one of two scenarios usually play out. The first scenario is scrambling behavior. The second scenario is you buy bigger clothing.

Either way, you’re hiding a embarassing muffin-top under your XXL T-Shirt and you need to know…

I’ll deal with the second scenario first. This is where you acknowledge that you’re reaching the “too fat” point, but take on a mindset that says “it’s ok”. There are multiple versions of this mindset from “I’m ok with it, I’m a guy” to “it’s not that bad”; and you decide to buy bigger clothing.

Mindset is Critical

The “it’s ok” mindset is the worst possible mindset to have. It causes you lower your standards for yourself and takes the fight out of you. This is the mindset that greases the slide to gaining a lot of weight in a short period time.

I’ve had many consultations where guys have shared stories of their weight truly spiraling out of control and when you finally wake up from the “it’s ok” state, you’re fifty or a hundred pounds overweight but you don’t know how you got there.

Adopting a mindset that says it’s ok undermines your internal drive. Not only do you find yourself down the river without a paddle in terms of having gained weight, but it fuels the demise of all your health markers. If you find yourself in the “it’s ok” mindset right now, it’s time to shake the foundation.

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Scrambling

The second and more common response to the “too fat” signal of your imaginary thermostat is scrambling behavior. This means that you will fight and scrap and do whatever it takes to lose 10 pounds to get back to where you think you should be. This isn’t from statistics on your doctors chart. This is your internal feeling of where you should be in terms of your self image. You know when you feel and look good.

Trim Your Waistline

Scrambling is like a ball of energy that kicks you into gear to do whatever it takes to get back to where you want to be. Scrambling can be beneficial to trim your waistline fast to get rid of love handles when you channel the energy into a strategy following the triad of effective fat loss– nutrition, resistance training and cardio.

Unfortunately if you don’t have a proper game plan on hand, scrambling behavior can also open your mind up to some questionable tactics like the popular crash diet of the moment or over exercising.

What to do?

Scrambling is not a comfortable, pleasant feeling. It’s not necessarily a bad feeling, but it’s an urge to move. An urge to make something happen. As with so many other things (like when you’re starving, logic goes out the window and you eat that pizza), when you reach a scrambling point, you’re going to reach for whatever is available and will make the most impact.

The secret is to anticipate and make a better decision.

Creating a Calorie Deficit

Look: the most important play in the waistline-slimming, love handle burning playbook is creating a caloric deficit.

You know, good ol’ taking in less calories than you burn each day. When you do this over the course of a week- to a month, everything changes. Your clothes feel loose, your waist shrinks, and you take the belt in a few notches.

You may even need to buy some new clothes. And send those over sized t-shirts she gives you crap about to the Salvation Army.

Most people report a simultaneous boost in energy levels as the weight starts to fall off. Is it the result of simply having less weight to carry around? Or is it the benefit if simply eating less junk?

Both.