I think this has to be the most common question a woman asks any trainer or nutritionist. Love handles are simply a part of the body where fat is stored. From recent studies, it is the part of the body that women in the UK hate the most, but don't worry, it can be fixed!
Now, as love handles are simply a place where fat is stored, it means that eating healthy and performing fat burning exercises, they will go away (wahoo!). Diet is crucial, because if you continue to eat fatty foods, and you have love handles, any fat you store will go straight to them. There are certain areas of the body where fat is stored, these are; the buttocks, thighs, hips (love handles) back, stomach and upper arms. Some of those are more common than others, but the hips are very common for women.
Firstly, you want to start by changing your diet. By taking out junk food, sugary foods, cakes etc, and piling in plenty of protein. water, fruits and vegetables, you will lose an 'x' amount of weight, simply by doing that! With just changing your diet, yes you will lose weight, but it will be at a pace that many people will think is too slow. To speed things up, you want to include some high intensity cardio training. By including exercises such as interval sessions on the treadmill, spin bike and rowing machine, this will burn a lot of calories and fat. Those exercises are hard work and people do find cardio training boring, but, do you want to lose the love handles?? then do it!
As well as cardio training, you want to include some toning exercises. These can include sit ups, crunches, leg raises, cycle crunches, lunges, side lunges, oblique sit ups and dumbbell side bends. All of those exercises target the core of the body, which will tone it up, making it firmer and giving a thinner waist. A big trick to having a thinner waist, is to tone the abs and obliques. This is because it will 'tighten up' the waist, pulling in the love handle area, therefore giving you a thinner waist! (similar to what a corset does)
So, to sum up - eat plenty of protein, fruits and veg, moderate carbs and drink plenty of water. Cut out all fatty foods, sweets, even alcohol! Get in the gym and perform lots of core exercises to tone up your mid section.
Hope this helps!