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At some point we all get the desire to lose a little weight, maybe lose a few inches off here or there or desire a flatter this or that. For most of us it is the belly or gut area we would like to lose. Generally we notice the belt is a little tighter, the shirt clings slightly or we just don’t look so good naked. Sure some people want to lose the ass, some want to slim the hips and others want to reduce back fat – but nearly everyone, male or female, will at some point want to lose the belly.
We are told you can’t spot reduce fat, it all comes off at the same time – inevitably slowly. Diet is the weapon of choice, backed up by strength training or cardio….
But really, does it have to be like that? I want to eat what I want when I want – want me to count carbs, weigh meals, cut out food groups, have cheat days, eliminate this, add good that? Please I just got a motivation bypass. No, I want to spot reduce and lose the belly easily, effortlessly – bet you do to…..
Well it turns out they were lying to us. Yep, you can lose belly fat without dieting…..ish
When I am bored I like to check out various hypothesis that float into my thoughts by looking for academic studies to prove or disprove my thought of the day. You find some interesting stuff regardless if you prove or disprove your latest theories and ideas and so it came to be that I found some great ones. Some studies that touch on losing belly fat.
The first study I found was carried out in 2005 by the Division of Cardiology at Duke University Medical Center. You can read about the study here. Basically, the study wanted to know what effect exercise dose had on visceral and subcutaneous belly fat. They took a bunch of everyday individuals (175 of them) who were mildly overweight and showing all the signs of a sedentary lifestyle and divided them into four groups. Group one did nothing different, group two walked 12 miles per week, group three jogged 12 miles per week and group four really went for it and jogged 20 miles per week.
The second study was carried out in 2014 by the College Of Sports Science, Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea. You can check it out here. They wanted to assess the impact of walking on abdominal fat in obese women. They took 20 women and put half to do nothing and the other 10 to walk 3 times per week for about 60 minutes at a reasonable pace.
So what were the intriguing results of these studies?
Can You Lose Belly Fat By Walking
Well our first study carried out by Duke Medical Center found that in the group who did nothing they put on weight and increased the amount of visceral fat in the belly area quite significantly. However, the group who walked 12 miles per week did not put any additional visceral fat on the belly. This indicates they burned belly fat by walking and prevented additional build up compared to if they had done nothing.
In the South Korean study, over the twelve week period, the ladies who carried on as usual accumulated no additional fat in the abdominal region nor did they lose any fat. Interestingly, the ladies who walked for 60 minutes three times a week had statistically significant loses in both visceral fat and subcutaneous fat levels.
In both studies no one dieted and but both studies showed belly fat could be reduced by walking alone.
Can You Lose Belly Fat By Running
The Duke study additionally looked at running and it’s impact on belly fat. Two groups jogged – one group jogging 12 miles per week and a further group jogging 20 miles per week. The results were telling. Those that jogged 12 miles achieved the same results as those who walked 12 miles. They did not accumulate any additional visceral fat.
The group who jogged 20 miles actually had visceral fat levels decline below the initial measured point.
Safe to say you can lose belly fat by running…
Conclusion
What we can see from the two studies is that you can lose belly fat without dieting – you just need to do some exercise.
The exercise doesn’t even have to be hugely taxing. It would appear that it is all about dose rather than intensity. For sure, jogging 20 miles won’t take as long as walking 20 miles but it looks like it will achieve the same fat loss, and the South Korean study shows you can lose that subcutaneous fat held above the muscle layer as well as deep cavity fat. Win.
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