Fitness coach Jeff Cavaliere is helping his viewers follow through on their elusive New Year’s resolutions. On January 26, 2025, Cavaliere detailed his five-step framework for eliminating stubborn love handles and achieving a sculpted waist.
From training athletes in Major League Baseball to sharing his knowledge online about exercising, Jeff Cavaliere has become one of the most trusted resources in the fitness community. He uses his incredibly popular YouTube channel, which houses over 13.9 million subscribers, to offer advice as he has a proven track record of staying fit and athletic.
We all know how challenging it is to maintain a tight and sculpted midsection. Below, Jeff Cavaliere, who implements science-based fitness strategies, walked followers along a path to a tighter stomach and waist, sharing details about diet and training.
“It’s not that easy but what I do have for you is a simple five-step attack plan that I can illustrate for you and show you how you can not only get rid of those stubborn love handles but also get that lean muscular look in the process.”
Jeff Cavaliere’s Proven 5-Step Guide to Achieving a Sculpted Waist
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Find his steps below, courtesy of his recent YouTube video:
- Nutrition
- Supplement Calorie Deficit With Calorie Expenditure
- Focus on Targeting Middle Delts and Lats
- Focus on Ab Work
- Focus on Training the Obliques
Nutrition
First and foremost, Jeff Cavaliere explained why dialing in nutrition and a calorie deficit are essential when trying to achieve a tighter waist.
“Nutrition is where you always have to responsibly start whenever you’re trying to create a caloric deficit so you can lose body fat.
The issue is, a lot of us don’t know where to start but there is an easy place to do a jump-off and that is to take two simple numbers, 12 and 15, and focus your attention right up here on that top row of abs.”
He stressed the importance of establishing a calorie deficit and understanding your maintenance calories.
“If you have visible abs, then what you’re going to do is take your body weight and multiply it by 15. If you do not have physical abs, you take your body weight and you multiply it by 12. What that gives you is a simple starting point. A caloric total that you should be targeting each day to determine whether or not you’re in maintenance or maybe you need to make more adjustments.”
Supplement Calorie Deficit With Calorie Expenditure
While you can never outrun a bad diet, Cavaliere says balancing a deficit by adding to your calorie expenditure will help get you closer to your goal.
“Even though you can never outrun a bad diet, you can contribute to the calories out portion of the equation to allow you to drop more body fat by increasing your activity.”
He explained that walking is a sustainable strategy for manipulating calorie expenditure.
“Guess what? You actually don’t have to run. As a matter of fact, you might want to start walking some more because that’s much more effective when we’re talking about creating fat loss. Why? Because it’s more sustainable,” he shared.
Focus on Performing Exercises That Target the Middle Delts and Lats
To fix the appearance of your waistline, Cavaliere implored his viewers to pick exercises that target the medial delts and lats. This helps create a more pronounced V-taper.
“Fixing the appearance of that waistline of yours by visually creating a wider physique through the use of exercises that target your shoulders, specifically your middle delts and your lats so you get more of that visible V-taper from the top to the bottom. We create this Dorito chip-shape.”
Focus on Ab Work
In addition, Cavaliere said ab training is crucial as it softens the appearance of love handles around the stomach.
“Even someone with definitive love handles looks instantly better when you start to etch in some abs because visibly, they actually happen to soften the appearance of those softer love handles by giving you something else to look at.”
He explained that most men lose fat top to bottom, with many first noticing changes around the upper ab area.
“They also do something much more important than that. This right here becomes the inspiration to keep going in order to get to a point where you can actually lose those love handles.
What men experience is something called top-down fat loss, meaning that when we start to lose weight, we start to see it first in our face, then in our neck, then usually through our chest then it starts to work its way down to that upper row of abs.”
Focus on Obliques
Lastly, he shared that the obliques frame the abs and that training them helps the stomach look more impressive.
“If you’re looking to get rid of those love handles, guess what you’re going to have to train? The obliques,” shares Cavaliere. “Your obliques are framing in your abs. They are actually giving you that visual tapering that makes your abs look a lot more impressive. Like I said, you’re going to have to train them.”
By following these five simple steps, you can build the physique you’ve always wanted. It won’t be easy, but Jeff Cavaliere firmly believes in these principles, proven through his experience helping others achieve their ideal physiques.
RELATED: Jeff Cavaliere Lays Out Dieting Framework to Get ‘Lean for a Lifetime’
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