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Why Exercises To Lose Belly Fat Fail

by Dr. Dennis Clark 9 Comments

Exercises to Lose Belly Fat Fail

The concept of doing exercises to lose belly fat is ridiculous. You simply do not exercise fat. In fact, no matter what you do for exercise, here is why it will fail.
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Exercises to Lose Belly Fat

Don’t you feel overwhelmed by all the possible ways that you are supposed to be able to lose belly fat by exercising? Exercise is generally good for you, of course. However, only certain exercises – with the right frequency, intensity, and duration – will have a net positive impact on your metabolism.

These DO NOT include ab crunchers or any of the plethora of machines that are advertised to help you flatten your belly. Exercise influences muscle tissue, not fat.

Nevertheless, if you think you are doing the right thing and you are still not getting the results that you want, you may want to doublecheck your strategy: See my video: Getting Rid Of Fat – Part 14 – Some Exercises Work And Some Do Not Work For Fat Loss.

Failing No Matter What You Do?

Many years ago, more than I want to mention, I took up jogging for fitness. I was in my early 30s and this was the craze back then. I jogged (we called it ‘running’) with a group of my colleagues at the university, at around noon every day of the work week. Then I jogged by myself on weekends. We all measured our progress by running in events from 10Ks up to marathons. There seemed to be an event every weekend, so we had plenty to choose from.

At some point I made a puzzling observation about my running buddies, which then extended to other people who ran in those events. It was this: In spite of their running, they carried a permanent spare tire around their bellies. No matter how much they ran, the excess fat would not go away.

This observation even included the fastest of us, some of whom qualified to run in the Boston Marathon every year, which I never did. People who put in a lot of mileage every week – 40 miles or more – were still fat! Even now, every event that I enter (still doing 10Ks and half-marathons) includes lots of fat people.

Obviously, runners are in good shape for running. And this is supposed to be one of the better kinds of aerobic exercise for fitness, if your joints can hold up against the pounding.

The puzzle to me, up until recently, was how runners could stay fat in spite of plenty of training.

Then I read somewhere that 80 percent of what your body does metabolically depends on diet, and the other 20 percent depends on physical activity. I don’t know whether this is a totally fabricated comment or is supported by research evidence somewhere. I will have to look into it later. Nevertheless, I like it.

Now we finally have some medical professionals who are looking into the influence of exercise vs. diet for overall fitness. This is a huge subject with lots of variables. One that is attracting an increasing amount of attention, however, is the role of modern grains as a cause of what I call ‘deranged metabolism’.

This is a topic that I will explore in depth in future posts. At this time, though, I just wanted to call to your attention a blog that has been around for about a year, by a cardiologist, Dr. William Davis, who has put some good thought into what he calls the ‘wheat belly’ syndrome. Here is an example of what I found on his blog recently (Why athletes are overweight). It is a quote that epitomizes what I noticed in my running buddies so long ago.

Exercises to Lose Belly Fat Failure

This makes sense to me, and it explains what I noticed in others at first, and now in myself. Cherie, of course, is super enthusiastic about the book by Dr. Davis that validates her experience. I don’t have any official comment on it at the moment. However, as soon as I submit this post I will order it from Amazon – they have some used copies available for around 14 dollars right now.

If you have experience with Dr. Davis’ book or advice from his blog, I’d sure like to hear about it.

Commenting on exercises to lose belly fat,

Dr. D

Filed Under: Exercises to Lose Belly Fat Tagged With: Exercises To Lose Belly Fat

Comments

  1. Jesse says

    October 18, 2012 at 12:08 pm

    This is very interesting and I am very curious to do this in my own life now. I was staying away from everything that had wheat in it because it all had carbs but now I am going to concentrate more on the wheat aspect of it because there are low carb things that still have wheat in them. Are the low carb things better for you or should you avoid them as well?

  2. Bryan says

    October 19, 2012 at 9:06 am

    I think the misconception that people fall under with exercise and fat is that they think if they work out hard enough to really get a good sweat going that they will be losing fat then. You are getting stronger and more fit by doing the exercise but you have to lose the fat on top of the muscle in order to get the flat belly. Thank you for posting this I appreciate it.

  3. Brian says

    October 19, 2012 at 10:24 am

    I don’t think that they fail I just don’t think that you lose as much as you want to because you can’t see the improvements that are being made until you lose the belly fat on top. I have been doing crunches and all kinds of core stuff for a long time so I have strong abs I just have fat on top of it. I hate dieting though so that is my own fault.

  4. Megan says

    October 19, 2012 at 12:04 pm

    Well like you said you can’t exercise fat, it just sits there and giggles as you work the muscle underneath. If you are not dieting to lose the fat on your belly that is where you have to start. Thank you for posting this information so many people think that just by working out they will lose fat because all of those exercises advertise they will burn fat.

  5. Christopher says

    October 24, 2012 at 11:17 am

    Well I am not surprised that this happens because you have all of these videos out there to help you exercise at home and they advertise on them that you will start burning fat with in this certain amount of time if you sick with the exercise plan. And then they even say it in the video while they are explaining it to you. It is all lies and it is getting old.

  6. John says

    November 1, 2012 at 11:18 am

    I think the best quote I have heard about dieting and exercise getting rid of belly fat was the one “you can’t exercise fat that is so true I can’t believe that this is something so simple. Thank you for pointing that out and making it a duh moment for me, I know now to concentrate more on my diet then anything else. Keep up the good work.

  7. Jeanne says

    November 24, 2012 at 1:57 am

    I have no problem losing at least 1/16 of an inch off my waist line each day that I exercise and eat properly. I know this because I carefully measure my waistline first thing in the morning each day. By doing it when you wake up you ensure that food intake nor any body fluctuations throughout the day do not affect the measurement. This is really possible and true!

  8. Dr. Dennis Clark says

    February 6, 2013 at 12:16 pm

    Hi, Jesse: There is no consistent advice on low-carb processed foods, unless it is to avoid processed foods in general.

    All the best,
    Dennis

Trackbacks

  1. Weight Loss Programs That Fail | How To Lose Belly Fat Simply And Easily says:
    February 15, 2012 at 2:37 pm

    […] This was also what I noticed with my running buddies in years past, which led me to wonder why so many of them, including me, always seemed to carry a spare tire around the middle. Even the faster marathon runners among us failed to be truly trim. The weight of my observations (pardon the pun) in the gym and on the track finally spurred me to look into possible reasons why so many people who workout are not trim. I posted earlier on one of the factors in Why Exercises To Lose Belly Fat Fail. […]

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