Would you like to know how to get rid of “love handles”? For $249.95, LoveHandler by Sharper Image claims to be an easy way to do just that and a lot more. Apparently, all you need to do is to get on all fours and swing your lower body from side to side on the LoveHandler.

“LoveHandler is the quick and easy way to help lose your ‘love handles,’ sculpt your abs and trim your waist,” says Dan Isaacson, Hollywood’s personal trainer to the stars, who invented this contraption.

I guess so… If you are a guy and see, say, Britney Spears on all fours wagging her hips exercising her abdominal muscles on this thing, and singing “Oops!… I did It Again”, “…Baby One More Time”, you might lose some weight, because your metabolism will probably increase.

Somehow, I do not think this is going to happen. Besides, even if it did, the straight dope on losing your “love handles”, sculpting your abs and trimming your waist is this: unless you are a bodybuilder, you do not really need isolation exercises to work your external and internal oblique muscles.

Although the LoveHandler’s manual (see product manual) talks about “converting ‘love handles‘ to muscle” and elimination of “the extra fat by ‘converting‘ it to muscle,” all with the help of the LoveHandler, of course, there is no such thing.

Bodyfat is bodyfat and muscle is muscle, they do not convert to anything. Your “love handles” will disappear and your abs will be visible, when you lose overall weight, preferably more fat than muscle.