"How can I lose my belly?"

"I do 100 sit-ups everyday and I STILL can't shift my belly. What am I doing wrong?"

"Help! People think I'm pregnant! And I'm a MAN! What can I do?!"

Okay, I'm kidding about the last overheard remark above. But the fact remains: big bellies were, and always have been, a big problem. But it doesn't mean they always will be.

If there's anything exercise experts agree on - which sometimes, in truth, isn't a lot - it's that most people, when it comes to losing belly fat, do the WRONG thing. Knock me down with a feather if I won't see Mr Andy Abdominals in the park tomorrow, grunting and groaning through a grueling 200 sit-up or crunch 'belly' session.

Andy thinks he's doing his stomach good. He's right. His belly muscles, I'll bet, are stronger than tungsten steel and as ripped as grandma's ol' washboard.

But guess what? Andy Abs still has a big belly. Oh, he's not lazy - I know because when he's done doing his abdominal exercises his face is as red as a plum tomato and beads of sweat pop out on his forehead. He's a gut buster, a right belly grafter, is Andy.

But like many, he's wasting his time. Oh, he'll garner some benefit from his abs routine: the red-faced work he's putting in will benefit his circulation a tad and the fresh air will invigorate his mind. And of course, his ab muscles will be as hard as Wicklow granite.

But he'll be nowhere near giving that belly the boot. Why? Because Andy is exercising his belly muscles but doing nothing about the actual FAT that's packed above those muscles! And as everybody knows, you can train muscle, but you CAN'T train fat. Surely everybody knows that by now, huh?

Wrong. There are a million websites out there that give people helpful, factual information about the differences between lean muscle tissue and bodily fat - or subcuteous fat, as it's properly known - and yet every day, thousands of people continue to sit-up and crunch-up and v-leg-up or whatever, in the erroneous belief that these exercises will somehow 'work' off that belly flab. But the plain truth is, you simply can't 'sit-up' away fat. Yet that's the mistake so many continue to do, despite the fact that many fitness and health experts say that 'spot reducing' doesn't work. But just try to convince some people of that!

The plain and unadorned fact is that to lose body fat - to lose it steadily, efficiently, and effectively - you need to do some kind of full-body workout like explosive plyometrics performed in a circuit, or interval training, or HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) or effective aerobic work like sprints or rope jumping.

Take Andy Abs above. After putting in his ab work, Andy normally takes a stroll round the park - and I MEAN a stroll: he plods along at a snail's pace. Now, if Andy were to, say, sprint for 30 seconds or so, then take a minute or two of strolling, then sprinted again, then strolled, and repeated the sequence for, say, 20-30 minutes, I'd hand you over my month's salary if Andy's belly, in no time at all, would be flatter than the Irish midlands.

And guess what? I'll bet even further that Andy's belly would disappear - even if he didn't do his sit-ups and crunches and whatnots. The fact is that fat loss is fat loss. When you lose body fat you don't just lose it from your waist, hips and thighs, or indeed, from your belly. You lose it all over. From your neck, from your face, from your calves, from your back. Even, believe it or not, from your fingers. Once, after following an interval training program for two months, I was helping a friend with work on his Vespa scooter out his back yard when my ring slid clean off my finger. It's a yellow and white gold ring my girlfriend bought for me in Turkey a few years back. The ring slid off because my fingers, due to my interval training program, had actually gotten leaner! Now ask yourself: was I doing finger sit-ups? Finger crunches? Finger planks?

If you're working out properly, you'll lose belly fat regardless. Stomach exercises are great, but only when they're part of an overall routine. Opinions vary, but I firmly believe - based on my own experience, that is - that short hard cardio will get you closer to that washboard belly. In other words, Maximum cardio performed in Minimum time-frames.

Not everybody is the same, of course. Some people swear by strength training, others by pilates or yoga or kick boxing, or whatever. Millions jog every day. I love jogging myself - but I wouldn't expect miracles from it in terms of weight loss. It IS a superb stress buster, though, and done regularly - with some sprints included, as above - it will definitely help in getting rid of belly blubber. If you're doing the right thing, you'll lose belly fat regardless. I will concede that some kind of core training is essential - I do planks and burpees myself.

But you won't shift that belly by doing 1,000 or even 100,000 sit-ups a day.

You might know all this already. Thousands do. The information in this article is nothing new - the cat's been out of the bag a while. But I suspect it'll take a lot more information and maybe more research before people are convinced.

One final note: if you DO have a big belly, and it doesn't bother you in the least, don't worry about it! Some of the most interesting people I know have big bellies. I know people who are in great shape that are boring as hell.

Personally, I can't STAND carrying blubber - but that's me. This piece just relates to those people who DO want to lose their gut but need convincing in learning to let go of Ye Olde Standard Belly Exercises.

Ask me, the best convincing is RESULTS!

.