There's a lot of fitness information online.
Some of it is useful.
Some of it is outdated.
And some of it is simply wrong.
Here are some of the most common things you'll hear — and what the evidence actually tells us.
"I want to lose belly fat, so I'll do more ab exercises."
Unfortunately, your body doesn't work quite like that.
Doing an exercise for a particular muscle doesn't mean you'll specifically lose the fat covering that muscle.
You can strengthen your abs, but you can't tell your body:
"Take the next bit of fat specifically from my stomach."
Research looking specifically at abdominal exercise has found that training the abs can improve abdominal muscular endurance without necessarily reducing abdominal fat.
Where your body stores and loses fat is influenced by things such as genetics, hormones, sex and overall energy balance.
So if your goal is to reduce belly fat, the focus should be on overall fat loss, not hundreds of crunches.
Build a sustainable approach around: