The #1 Exercise To Lose Belly Fat (FOR GOOD!)

belly fat is really easy to gain and notoriously hard to lose it can seem as though no matter what exercises you try and no matter how well you eat the belly fat just won't budge and unfortunately with exception to surgery there is currently no proven method of being able to spot reduce fat from the belly there is an exercise however that is incredibly underutilized yet powerfully effective when it comes to losing belly fat today i'll share what that is and how you can start using it right away first off let's talk about why belly fat

is so hard to lose in the first place this was first brought to attention in literature back in 1997 by dr bouchard where he discovered that certain areas of your body are easier to lose fat than others and is largely determined by genetics they found that although some individuals seem to be less inclined to store fat around their abdomen most people's genetics prioritize abdominal fat loss last now having your genetics stacked against you may seem problematic if you're looking to develop a slim or lean looking abdomen but there is a solution as long as you

create a calorie deficit and continue to burn more calories than you consume every day you will continue to lose fat eventually if maintained long enough you will lose excess fat from all areas of your body even if your genetics put your belly fat at the back of the lime and although your diet should be your main way of creating a calorie deficit adding additional exercise can help speed it up and ensure that you're continuing to lose fat even as your metabolism slows down now you guys are smart and you're probably already aware of this and

may have attempted to burn more calories and shred belly fat faster by incorporating things like running rowing cycling or even hit workouts these forms of cardio tend to burn calories very quickly making them seem like a great way to burn off belly fat over time for example based on what's known as a compendium of physical activities a regularly updated database that outlines the calorie burn for various exercises a 170 pound individual compared to if they were digested around can expect to burn roughly an additional 12 calories per minute when running at a moderate pace of

6 miles per hour so 30 minute running session would lead to a net total of about 360 calories burned do that three times a week for a year and that would lead to an additional 56 and 160 calories burned and given that back in 1958 researcher wishnovsky discovered that losing one pound of fat requires burning 3 500 calories more than you consume then this routine would amount to about 16 pounds of additional fat loss per year now while this does sound great on paper the truth is the overwhelming majority of people can't actually stick with

traditional cardio long enough for fat loss to reach stubborn areas in fact even in studies where subjects are assigned to cardio sessions to do dropout rates tend to be on average almost 20 percent it's not that these methods don't work because they do i've personally used running and hit regularly in the past to get me down to very lean levels in fact i used to believe that these intense cardio sessions were the key to burn off stubborn fat but they were brutal they required a lot of willpower i got sore from them and really impacted

my energy and i just dreaded doing them most of the time and although i stuck it through and eventually did get the six pack it was after simply because i was burning a lot of calories i just couldn't get myself to continue these brewing sessions especially outside of summer time and eventually i had lost a lot of the progress i've made now don't get me wrong these forms of cardio they do definitely have their place and some people have no problem sticking to them in fact i still do these intense sessions once or twice a

week for conditioning but i no longer rely on them as my main form of cardio to lose fat and nor should most people because if you want to lose your belly fat and more importantly keep it off once it's gone then you need something that you can stick to for life what's the solution it's the easiest to maintain the lowest stress lowest fatigue most versatile form of cardio walk in now i know what you're thinking walking doesn't burn many calories and there is no way i can walk my way to a six-pack years back i

would have said the exact same thing but a 2021 meta-analysis titled slow and steady or hard and fast helps shed some light on the matter the researchers analyzed a total of 54 studies to determine the effect that different types of cardio had on fat loss what they found is that intense forms of cardio like hit or running while time efficient didn't provide any superior fat loss effect when compared to longer yet less intense forms of cardio such as walking which makes sense it's simply a numbers game your body doesn't care whether the calories you burned

were from some crazy intense fasted cardio session or from plain old walk-in what matters most is what you can do consistently over time and if you quench the numbers you'll actually find that the calories burned from simply walking can very quickly add up to a meaningful amount for example using the same exercise database we used earlier a 170 pound individual walking at a casual three miles per hour can expect to burn an additional 3.4 calories per minute and roughly 200 calories per hour if for three days per week you add in an extra hour of

walking that would amount to 600 additional calories burned per week over the course of the year that's an additional 31 200 calories burned which would amount to about nine pounds of fat loss and the math checks out in the literature as well with one of the few studies out there analyzing watkins effect on fat loss finding that subjects who simply added in two and a half hours of brisk walking per week experienced an additional 3.5 pounds of fat loss over the course of 12 weeks now although hours of walking may sound like a lot it

doesn't have to be all at once later in this video i'm going to show you how to incorporate this into your life effortlessly but first just compare the walk-in routine to the running routine that i gave earlier yes the running routine will burn more calories in less time but be honest with yourself how likely would you be to keep that up for a whole year if you're like most people and you go all out for two months but then become inconsistent and give up after that that's 16 pounds of additional fat loss we calculated becomes

just a couple pounds nowhere near enough fat for most people to even come close to burning through their excess belly fat this is why walking is the number one exercise to lose belly fat and is why it's now my main form of cardio to get lean and stalin it's easy to stick to so now that i've hopefully convinced you of the power of walking let's dive into how you can easily start applying it to lose fat the first step is to determine an average of how many steps you're currently taking you can use a health

app on your iphone or use google fit if you're on android after week see what your daily average comes up to if you already know this great i'd like to know as well so do me a favor and comment below how many steps you're currently taking and if you have any tips that helped you increase it or what obstacles may be holding you back some of you however might be surprised with how few steps you're taking but this is a good thing as it means that you have a big opportunity to bump that up for

example here's one of our built with science program members devin who recently hit a plateau and simply bumped up his step count up from 3 000 steps to around 8 000 to 10 000 per day and is back to losing fat every single week especially in his stubborn areas it's simple but it works for most people though i wouldn't recommend trying to jump all the way up to something like 10 000 steps right away instead set a realistic goal and for example first aim to do an extra 2 000 steps a day given that the

average individual takes about 1200 steps during 10 minutes of walking all you have to do is throw in two 10 minute walks into your day to accomplish that once you're consistent with that try bumping it up by another 2000 steps and continue doing this with the goal of consistently getting at least 8 000 steps or even up to 15 000 steps per day which seems to be the range that provides the greatest fat loss and health benefits the key though is to make this fit your lifestyle some tips i personally use are to always choose

a bar parking spot take the longest way to the washroom do 10 minutes of incline wall kit after each workout take 10 minute walks after each meal take the stairs instead of the elevator whenever possible listen to podcasts while walking and more and for those who are busy in the office all day a study that had subjects add just five minutes of walking per hour into their office day found that over the course of the year it would amount to over nine pounds of additional fat loss in this case you can also try to aim

for a higher step count on the weekends to boost your weekly average but trust me these little things add up apply these tips and you'll be surprised with just how much they can increase your step count and even more surprise once you notice the fat slowly coming off that said guys i want to emphasize that walking or any form of cardio is only effective for fat loss if it's used in combination with the diet think about it the calories you burn from a whole hour of walking or 30 minute run is equivalent to the calories

in three pieces of toast which you can consume in literally a matter of seconds so use your diet as a primary way to create a calorie deficit and supplement it with walk-in to help speed up the process and if you need help with putting this all together into an easy to follow science-based workout and nutrition plan that you can trust will work to help you burn off stubborn fat and build lean muscle then head on over to build with science.com and take our analysis quiz to find the best program for you i'd also highly recommend

that you give this video a watch next which is going to cover some tips on how to structure your nutrition plan to help further speed up the fat loss process thank you so much for watching don't forget to subscribe and see you next time