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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Joe Stone

Do you really need to walk 10,000 steps a day? And 17 other fitness ‘rules’, tackled by the experts

footprint illustration with 9,999 figures

You can’t use exercise to target specific areas (so sit-ups won’t give you a flat stomach)

TRUE “Sit-ups will strengthen your core, but they won’t get rid of belly fat,” says Daniel Lieberman, a Harvard University paleoanthropologist and the author of Exercised: the Science of Physical Activity, Rest and Health. “The good news is that we evolved to carry belly fat as a short-term energy supply, so when you start losing weight through exercise, that’s the first fat that’s going to get burned.”

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