If you want to fight belly fat, it can be very confusing deciding what type of exercise program to follow.
Magazines, books and websites can never seem to agree on anything.
And with some authors declaring that regular cardio is “dead” as far as losing fat is concerned, it’s no wonder that so many people are unsure about what to do for the best.
However, scientists from Canada have shown that “old school” aerobic exercise is STILL an effective way to lose weight and burn belly fat — but only if you’re prepared to do a lot of it.
Their research, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, shows that subjects following a simple 12-week walking program lost more belly fat than a group who dieted for a similar period.
I’ll explain exactly what this means for you in a moment.
First, let’s take a quick look at what happened in the study.
Participants (52 obese men) were assigned to one of four study groups and followed for three months.
- Diet-only
- Exercise-only
- Exercise without weight loss
- No exercise or diet
I want to focus on the diet-only and exercise-only groups, where the people taking part created a calorie deficit of 700 calories per day.
In other words the diet-only group ate 700 calories less than they burned. The exercise-only group, on the other hand, burned an extra 700 calories daily on the treadmill (brisk walking or light jogging). The length of each workout was determined by the time required to expend 700 calories.
And the result?
After 12 weeks, the diet-only group lost 11 pounds of fat and four pounds of muscle. The exercise-only group lost 13 pounds of fat and three pounds of muscle.
In other words, both groups got very similar results, although the walking group did lose a little more fat and slightly less muscle than the diet-only group.
What about belly fat?
There are two main types of belly fat in the stomach area.
- Visceral fat is stored deep inside your body. It surrounds and protects your internal organs.
- Subcutaneous fat, on the other hand, is stored just under your skin. It’s the stuff that wobbles when you jump up and down.
As you can see in the figure below, visceral fat (striped bars) and whole-body subcutaneous fat (white bars) dropped in both groups during the 3-month study, with the walking group (EWL) getting slightly better results than the diet-only (DWL) group.
To quote directly from the researchers:
Although we reaffirm that diet restriction is effective for reducing total and abdominal obesity, our findings also demonstrate that 12 weeks of approximately 60 minutes of daily exercise without caloric restriction is associated with substantial reductions in body weight (7.6 kg), total fat (6.1 kg), abdominal fat (1.9 kg), and visceral fat (1.0 kg).
Contrary to the claims of many, walking can help you fight belly fat, but you need to make sure that you do it long enough (the average workout length in this study was 63 minutes), that you do it hard enough (brisk walking/light jogging rather than just dawdling along) and that you do it often (the men in this study were exercising EVERY SINGLE DAY).
Anyone who thinks that walking for 30 minutes a few times each week is enough to get rid of their belly fat will be sorely disappointed.
SHAMELESS PLUG: If you want a complete step-by-step system that will help you build muscle, burn fat and build the body of a superhero, all while spending less than four hours per week in the gym, click here to download a copy of Muscle Evo right now.
P.S. If you enjoyed this post, please do me a favor and use one of the buttons below to share it with your friends and the rest of the free world.
About The Author
My name is Christian Finn. I run a private "members only" website that will help you burn fat, build muscle and get strong. If you want accurate, honest and in-depth reviews on the latest "hot topics" in the world of fitness, you're confused by all the conflicting advice out there, or you just want some fat-burning and muscle-building training routines that work, click here now to find out how I can help you.
