Shadowing Practice: Targeting Belly Fat Is... Possible?! (NEW Study) - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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While everyone says you can't pick and choose where you lose fat from, some new studies are proving the opposite.
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They found not only can you target specific areas like your stubborn belly fat, but all it takes is a simple workout that you can even do at home.
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But while these new studies are actually very well designed, I don't fully trust the results quite yet.
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So I'm testing it myself.
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For 30 days, we're following the exact spot reduction plan that was scientifically proven to work, followed by another 30 days of regular fat loss,
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measuring everything using the most world, MRI.
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And let me just say, even as a coach and published researcher myself, I was genuinely shocked by the results.
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But before diving into the plan, meet my guinea pigs.
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This is Dennis, our creative director, who has been struggling with his belly fat ever since he was a kid.
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And abs is something he's always admired.
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When I look at someone, I look at their face first, and I look at their abs.
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I don't look at anything else.
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I don't care about this, I don't care about He just said,
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"Jeremy, the only thing I want is abs." Although he works out four days a week and doesn't eat much junk food, he's never been able to get rid of the fat around his belly.
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And based on his MRI scan, he's got some serious potential.
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So you actually do have nice looking abs.
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Yours are pretty thick.
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Yeah, now the first person is saying I'm pretty thick.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And this is Vicky who is pretty active as well, but is also struggling with losing that last layer of belly fat covering her ab definition.
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Your total body fat is 31 .8%.
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Oh!
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Now keep in mind, keep in mind for girls compared to guys, you usually want to add like 10 % to get the equivalent.
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Just because you have more essential fat is when you look at your belly specifically, that's at 24 .7%.
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You actually store the least fat in your belly compared to anyone else.
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Oh, interesting.
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And for Dennis, his total body fat came in at 17 .5%, with his belly clocking in at 16%.
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Now, if this new research holds up, the plan they'll be doing should be the perfect way to destroy the belly fat they've been shrunken with.
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We're going off of a study where they found this actually works super well.
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And the idea is that if you train your abs really hard, you're kind of mobilizing the fat in that area.
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So it's very interesting.
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The study I'm talking about was published in 2023, where the researchers came up with a pretty smart plan.
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They knew that before your body can actually burn fat, it first has to release it from the fat cell, a process called mobilization.
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If that doesn't happen, the fat just stays stored.
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And now here's where it gets really interesting, because when you train a specific muscle, blood flow increases to that area,
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and so does fat belly helping release more fat from that area.
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And that's exactly why so many people try to target belly fat with crunches and sit -ups.
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In fact, one study had participants do over 5 ,000 sit -ups in just 27 days to test this.
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But it didn't make a difference.
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Because unlocking fat is actually just one half of the equation.
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If you release fat from storage, but don't actually burn it, your body just stores it again.
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And so now you're probably wondering, so how do you burn it?
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And it's actually quite moderate intensity to maximize fat burn.
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And that is exactly what this new group of researchers tested.
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They had one group simply jog for 45 minutes.
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Whereas the spot reduction group, the researchers designed it so that their workout burned the exact same amount of calories.
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But their workout consisted of jogging for only 27 minutes and then immediately followed it with ab training.
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And this time, it worked.
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After 10 weeks, even though they didn't make any changes to the participants' diets, both groups lost a similar amount of total body fat.
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But the spot reduction group, they lost around 2 .5 times more fat around their belly.
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And this isn't the only study to find this.
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A 2017 study tested a similar protocol, but on arm and leg fat.
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And they too found clear proof of spot reduction.
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Now as a published researcher myself, I can tell you that these studies are actually quite well designed.
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But I did notice one big problem.
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They measured everything using DEXA scans, which is which is not precise enough to measure small changes in specific areas.
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That is why we're using MRI.
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It is by far the most precise way to measure fat and muscle changes.
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And it's rarely used in studies because it's extremely expensive and hard to get access to.
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But in experiments like this, It really is the only way to be confident with the results.
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We scanned Dennis and Vicky's bodies and identified three points along their spine to track the fat thickness across their upper,
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middle, and lower belly, as well as the thickness of their abs just to see how they respond to their training.
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Now we're coming back in 30 days to see if the plan actually works.
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You're gonna start here.
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Yeah.
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And all I want you to do is lift your tailbone off the bench.
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Slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow.
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to the study I mentioned earlier, just with a small upgrade to the ab training.
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They're doing four sets of weighted crunches for their upper abs and four sets of reverse crunches for the lower abs, trying to increase the weighted reps every single workout.
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The key here is you're not using your legs to get it up.
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Good job.
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Ah, burning.
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I'm going to cramp.
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There you go.
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Enemy out of this.
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Now, if you've seen my previous ads video, you'll probably recognize both of these exercises.
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the movements that you can use.
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And as you'll see later on, worked incredibly well.
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But immediately before their abs training, they'll do 25 minutes of moderate intensity cardio, just like the study did.
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And they're going to do this workout every other day.
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But there is one key difference between Dennis and Vicky's plans.
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Vicky does not lift weights.
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So for her, it's just the cardio and ab work.
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Dennis, on the other hand, is sticking with his usual three -day lifting routine alongside it.
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And as you'll see, that difference actually ends up having a huge impact on the results.
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But to do cardio and ads at all, Dennis was off to a rough start.
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- I changed my cardio to a stairmaster.
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I think it's a little bit more fun.
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I climbed 123 floors and you can't say I broke Alex Holland's record.
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Whereas Vicky went with incline walking for her cardio, but trying to juggle it with work has been hectic.
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So it is 1am right now and I'm driving to the gym on a Monday morning and it's all my fault.
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I had a presentation due tomorrow for work and I honestly procrastinated.
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But so far both of them haven't missed a single workout, which is great because belly fat can honestly feel like a nightmare you can't escape no matter how hard you try, especially for men.
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And there's a reason for that.
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After my team and I analyzed over eight years of DEXA scans from nearly 18 ,000 people, we noticed a clear pattern.
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Women tend to store most of their fat around their hips, their legs, and their arms, whereas men always tend to store more of their fat in their belly.
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And this actually just becomes much worse once your body fat gets above 25 to 30%.
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But it's not just where fat is stored, it's also how it comes off.
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Because when we looked at fat loss across different body parts,
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the belly was consistently one of the and legs tended to lean out first.
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So it makes sense why so many people try to target it directly.
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Dennis actually saw this growing up.
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At his parents house in Taiwan, there's a horse riding machine and even a belly reduction machine his dad has been using for years.
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Yet his belly hasn't changed.
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But if our experiment works, this could finally give a real solution to his problem.
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And so far, the early results look promising.
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We're just a week and a half in and Dennis is convinced his abs are more visible, especially under some good lighting.
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Okay.
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There's still a lot of fats covering it.
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Meanwhile, Vicky was consistently getting stronger with her weighted crunches and also sticking to a rigorous schedule.
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But in week two, both Dennis and Vicky noticed something interesting.
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I will say, I do feel like I can kind of see like upper ab definition.
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I don't know if I'm seeing as much improvement in my lower region, but for sure in the upper ab region.
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You can kind of see some abs coming in here.
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- But it's actually a reason the lower belly is the hardest area to burn off.
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There's two receptor types inside fat cells, alpha -2 receptors, which slow fat release, and beta receptors, which accelerate it.
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Your lower belly fat is thought to have a much higher ratio of alpha -2 receptors, making it slower to burn off.
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But that's not the only issue.
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Visible abs, they come from two things, low enough body fat and abs that actually pop through.
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Now the upper abs tend to be thick and pop through easily, And depending on your ab genetics, you might not really even have any.
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And this is actually why we're tracking Dennis and Vicky's ab growth with the MRI scans.
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To see if the ab training grows their upper abs as well as their lower abs.
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And if it does, how much that actually helps them pop through.
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Now we're just 20 days in and Vicky isn't the only one feeling like the belly fat is coming off.
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Dennis has seen some great improvements on his abs strength and the appearance.
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I'm going to do an ab -grade version.
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- So sore.
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- Which also means he's spending more time checking himself out in the gym, admiring the abs he used to only see on influencers.
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In fact, he was sending me photos almost every single night.
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But take a look at this.
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These are two photos Dennis took on the exact same day, just with different lighting.
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Influencers use this lighting trick all the time to look better, and honestly, I do too.
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But he can set the wrong expectations if you're not aware of it.
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Because even when you're super lean, that six -pack shredded look all the time in every environment.
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And you're gonna drag yourself crazy trying to chase that.
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And this also matters for our experiment too, because small differences in lighting could easily make it look like the protocol is working, even if nothing has actually changed,
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which is again why we're relying on precise measurements, so we're not guessing based just on how things look.
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After a total of 375 minutes of cardio and 15 ab sessions in 30 days, it's time to see whether all this work actually made a difference in belly fat.
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Well, have you noticed anything?
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- Okay, maybe a little bit.
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Like, I can see like the line in the middle.
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- Let's start with Dennis.
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After 30 days, Dennis actually gained half a pound, but he ended up going through a small body recomposition.
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As a result, Your body fat percentage went from 17...
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0 .5 % down to 17%.
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But how much of that fat loss came from his belly?
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Well, and based on his MRI, barely any.
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Most of his fat loss actually came from his arms and hips.
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His belly fat only dropped by about 0 .3%.
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So for Dennis, more muscle, but no sign that spot reduction actually worked.
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But maybe it's because he wasn't in a big enough calorie deficit.
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And we weren't controlling for his diet.
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And that is where Vicky's results come in handy.
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You actually lost five pounds in the month.
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- Yeah, that was kind of crazy.
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I feel like I was eating the same, and then I went on vacation, and then I think with work stress and school stress, like if I don't sleep well, I don't eat a lot.
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- But Vicky's cardio only approach took a toll.
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Despite losing five pounds on the scale, 60 % of that weight came from lean mass, and only 40 % was actual fat.
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As a result, your body fat percentage Went from 31 .8 % down to 31 .5%.
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Okay, okay.
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I would put my money that if you did weights on top of that, then probably five out of those five pounds would be fat.
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Oh, now researchers have actually tested this.
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While cardio plus a diet can lead to more overall weight loss, lifting weights ensures more of that weight comes from fat, not muscle.
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So it ends up being the more effective way to get leaner.
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But Vicky still ended up losing a good amount of fat.
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Vicky saw clear belly fat reductions, especially in her upper belly.
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But don't get too excited just yet.
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When we zoom out and look at her entire body, the amount of fat her belly was proportionate to her arms,
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shoulder, and legs, with some of these other areas actually seeing greater reductions.
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That said, the MRI scan of their ab muscles did reveal something promising.
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Dennis' abs showed a crazy amount of growth, even more than I was personally expecting, with every single one of his abs growing on average about 20 % bigger.
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which might explain why in the right lighting, both of them noticed their abs bulging out more.
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As for Vicky, because she wasn't weight training, she lost size in every single muscle of her body,
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except for her abs, which actually ended up growing about 15 % bigger.
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For losing belly fat, it does seem like your diet, as well as if you're lifting weights, will determine how much fat you lose,
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and factors beyond your control will dictate where that fat gets taken from.
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Which brings us to phase two.
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Because the first 30 days we tested this spot reduction theory.
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Yeah.
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Yes now for the next 30 days We are just gonna throw that in the trash.
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No more cardio.
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No more cardio.
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Yeah.
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I don't Cardio I hate it so much.
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I kind of liked it.
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So no more cardio.
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No more ad training. At all.
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No wait.
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Zero.
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Zero.
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Zero.
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Oh really?
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I'm sorry.
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I don't want to lose a muscle here though.
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You might.
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We'll see.
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For the next 30 days, what we're going to do instead is We are going to do diet and we're going to focus on weight training.
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We'll compare the results from this 30 day phase to the previous 30 days of spot reduction.
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And let's just say the results blew us away.
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There you go.
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Wow, would you look at that?
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Whoa!
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Yeah.
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What is this?
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Now going into phase two, I'm expecting Vicky
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and Dennis to each lose about four to five pounds of pure fat in 30 days while maintaining all of their muscle.
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And their plan has two simple rules designed to help them lose fat as fast as possible.
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Rule one, track everything you eat to hit your daily calorie target.
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Now, if you take your body weight in pounds and you multiply it by 12, that is roughly what Dennis and Vicky are following at their respective body weights.
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But if you want a more personalized number, you can use our calorie calculator at builtwithscience .com, which I'll also link down below.
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But how they hit their calorie target is just as important.
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They're and including a fifth size of lean protein in each meal to protect their muscle.
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But the second part of their plan is where we fix what went wrong.
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Especially for Vicky, who in phase one lost muscle everywhere except for her abs.
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That's it, that's it!
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Ah!
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It's a little embarrassing.
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That was pretty good, that was not fast.
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What?
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I barely moved.
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Oh.
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Vicky will be following a three -day full body workout to hit every major muscle group, while Dennis is sticking to a four -day upper -lower split.
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I honestly don't know if I can do it.
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I now go and watch them drink and eat like...
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I get so hungry around 4 :00 and 5 :00 p .m.
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But I have to save it for later because I don't want to go to bed hungry.
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Now, even though Dennis is no longer climbing Mount Everest every other day, cutting food is equally as painful for him.
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He's a huge foodie.
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Eating out almost every day and living downtown means temptation is everywhere.
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Just like Dennis, Vicky didn't exactly start off strong.
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I ate a thousand calories of dim sum.
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We only got 1500 a day.
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So I went into the party being like, okay, like I got 500 calories left.
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as well, like cucumber rolls, sushi rolls.
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Took a picture with Build a Science app.
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It was 500 calories.
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I'm like, okay, perfect.
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Then I had a beer.
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and a few slices of pizza, and so that added up real quick.
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- Oh, and she forgot to mention that she ate a cake during her workout on the same day.
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But despite that rough start, both of them quickly adapted and got on track with her food prep.
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- I pre -weight everything, so when I cook a meal, I know exactly how much cold I have left in the day.
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- We're 10 days into phase two.
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Dennis is still eating out, but he's set on proving that dieting does not have to be torture.
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I'll always ask for the sauce on the side instead of having it poured on the top.
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Sauces are actually one of the most overlooked sources when dining out.
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For example, having hollandaise sauce poured all over your eggs benedict can easily add 400 extra calories.
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But if you keep it on the side and dip with control, you can easily bring that down to under 100.
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Had the itch and I got a matcha self -serve.
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So I log it into the map.
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This thing's like 300 calories or something.
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Oh my god, like how do I burn this off?
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And it's like 10 p .m.
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This is where most people get a wrong during fat loss.
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It is incredibly hard to outburn a bad diet.
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300 liquid calories can be consumed in a matter of minutes.
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But to burn off the equivalent, Vicky would be looking at an hour of incline walking or 30 minutes of running.
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Plus, in phase 2, we completely got rid of cardio because it's actually not the best tool for fat loss.
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Because after doing cardio, people tend to subconsciously eat more or move less throughout the rest of the day.
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tool.
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And again, even if you do lose weight like Vicky did, if you're not strength training, then most of that weight loss will be from muscle rather than fat.
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Now to be clear, I am not anti -cardio.
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It has real health benefits and it can definitely help speed up fat loss when you use it correctly.
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But for the sake of this experiment, I am curious to see the results Dennis and Vicky can get without it.
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And already we are seeing a much bigger difference than in phase one.
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This is their first two weeks in phase one versus their first two weeks in phase two.
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I mean, it's pretty clear to belly fat much faster.
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But there is something I'm worried about.
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In this phase, they're doing zero dead -backed ab training.
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Now, yes, research shows your abs are actually highly activated during heavy lifts like squats and deadlifts, which both of them are doing.
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But it's still unclear if that's enough to actually build or even maintain your ab size.
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And so at this point, I am genuinely curious.
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If Dennis and VK's abs start shrinking, could that completely change how they look, even though they seem to be losing more belly fat than in phase one?
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We'll find out actually happens at the end of the experiment, but 20 days in, both of their weight is dropping, just like we predicted.
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And more importantly, they've seemed to finally found a diet that actually fits their lifestyle.
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This is my new favorite snack.
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Tuna. and toasted rice cake.
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I like to scoop out some oil.
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You know, every calorie count.
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I also noticed Dennis made a simple but smart change.
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He swapped a lot of his fatty meat protein to lean fish.
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Lowering calories, he packs in more protein.
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Vicky tried to do something similar, but ran into an issue.
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I was going over my calories a little bit.
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I've been eating basically salmon, broccoli and rice.
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- Five out of seven days.
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- Now, while salmon is great for omega -3s, it actually packs a ton of calories from all the fat.
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Now that's not a bad thing, but for Vicky it was causing her to overeat.
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Whereas when you compare what 30 grams of protein looks like from other sources, like whitefish or shrimp, you can get a lot more for less.
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So that's only around, well plus seasoning and like olive oil and stuff.
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like 500 calories or so, 40 grams of protein.
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This is really good.
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- On top of that, Dennis made another subtle change at parties.
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He secretly swapped his usual whiskey for tea.
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- So this is my little trick.
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The color's pretty much the same.
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And you won't make it weird at parties.
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He even came up with a bunch of creative, tasty, low -calorie meals.
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And if you're a member of our Built with Science Plus app, all you have to do is scan this QR code and it's going to upload that recipe directly to your food log.
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And with just a few days left, it seems like all these tips and tricks were working incredibly well.
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This is kind of crazy.
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They're definitely supposed to be like nice and tight to the waist, but...
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They're so loose.
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Now we'll get to the final results in a second, but by this point, I think it's pretty clear which 30 day approach worked best.
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So even if targeting your belly fat isn't actually possible, the good news is you can get rid of it no matter your genetics
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and no matter how big your belly has gotten over the years.
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And if you do it right, you can see results really quickly.
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And if you want a step -by -step plan that will guide you every step of the way, showing you exactly how to work out and what to eat every single week,
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then try out our Built With Science Plus app for two weeks free by scanning this QR code
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or heading to builtwithscience .com.
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And now, it's time to see their final results in person.
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- You have like four coming in, holy crap.
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- Yeah!
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- There you go.
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- Whoa, would you look at that?
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- It was this one, whoa!
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- Oh, oh, whoa, it's really hard.
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- If you like jump, look at it.
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- Whoa!
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- Jump again?
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- I like when you jump.
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See here?
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Wow.
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But there's a downside having asked.
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I found myself like looking down a lot, just like touching myself.
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I do want to Feel them every day.
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Just make sure they are still there.
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Okay, results.
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Let's start with the...
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Abs, okay?
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So in the first part of the experiment your abs actually grew by about 15 % Okay, your upper abs, middle abs, lower abs, they all grew.
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Okay, and then the second part of the experiment We cut out all ab exercises, but you did start strength training.
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Yeah, you did squats, you did this and So what happened to your abs?
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Well, they did not grow, but they didn't really shrink.
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They pretty much maintained.
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Okay, good.
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Good.
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That's good to hear.
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That's for Dennis.
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Your ads actually got about 16 % smaller.
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Oh my god!
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That's a lot!
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Wait, how does that work?
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So you almost pretty much got back to the point where you were before doing any ab exercises.
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So my theory here is Vicky, a complete beginner who just started strength training, got enough indirect ab stimulus to maintain her new ab size.
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Which for someone like Dennis, who's been lifting weights for a while, he would need to train his abs directly and so would I.
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But how much has his ab shrinkage actually affected how his midsection now looks?
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Well, let's now dive into their fat loss results.
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So in phase one, Vicky lost five pounds, of those five pounds were from fat, taking her body fat from 31 .8 % to just 31 .5%.
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This time, .
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You're down to 27 .5%.
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- No, isn't he?
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- Yes.
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- What?
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- Whoa!
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- That is a huge drop.
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- Wow!
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- And that was a combination of fat loss, which we'll get to from the MRI of your belly.
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But what really brought your body fat percentage down was the muscle gain.
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This time you gained almost three pounds of lean mass.
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Wow.
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Not only that, but during our spot reduction experiment in phase one, her belly fat dropped by just 3%.
363
But this time...
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your belly fat, dropped on average by 30%.
365
30 %?!
366
Yes.
367
Dennis' result is just as crazy.
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In phase one, Dennis gained half a pound and his body fat went down by 0 .5%.
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But this time, after 30 days of only dieting and strength training, he not only lost 5 pounds on the scale, but...
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His body fat went down to 14 .4%.
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- Whoa.
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- Hey, that's so good.
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- 3 %?
374
- That's a lot.
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- In one month.
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- Oh, you walked in.
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Yeah, I was tracking everything, including even just a spoon of peanut butter.
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See, that's the difference.
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Guys, people say they track, but they don't.
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As for his belly fat, the spot reduction protocol on phase one led to pretty much no change in his belly, just a 0 .3 % drop.
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But this time, your belly fat dropped on average by 26 .3%.
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Oh my God.
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Diet is everything.
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And Dennis was actually so motivated from this experiment, he's decided to combine everything.
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Diet, strength training plus ab exercises to get to 12 % body fat.
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So make sure to subscribe so you don't miss that
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and give this video a watch next
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if you want to learn the two exercises that both Vicky and Dennis did that made their abs pop.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 386 sentences and 4415 words to shadow. The speech runs for 24:04. The speaker talks fast, about 184 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| belly noun | /ˈbɛli/ | The abdomen (especially a fat one). |
| calorie noun | /ˈkæləɹi/ | A non-SI unit of energy, equivalent to 4.184 kilojoules, that can raise the temperature of a kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. This is the unit normally… |
| muscle noun | /ˈmʌs.əl/ | A contractile form of tissue which animals use to effect movement. |
| reduction noun | /ɹɪˈdʌk.ʃən/ | The act, process, or result of reducing. |
| experiment noun | /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/ | A test under controlled conditions made to either demonstrate a known truth, examine the validity of a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of… |
| scan verb | /skæn/ | To examine sequentially, carefully, or critically; to scrutinize; to behold closely. |
| workout noun | /ˈwɝk.aʊ̯t/ | An exercise session; a period of physical exercise. |
| whoa | /woʊ/ | Stop (especially when commanding a horse or imitative thereof); calm down; slow down. |
| lean verb | /ˈliːn/ | To incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating. |
| researcher noun | /ˈɹiˌsɝ.t͡ʃɚ/ | One who researches. |
| whereas | /(h)wɛɹˈæz/ | In contrast; whilst on the contrary; although. |
| receptor noun | /ɹɪˈsɛp.tə/ | A protein on a cell wall that binds with specific molecules so that they can be absorbed into the cell in order to control certain functions. |
| meal noun | /ˈmiːl/ | Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity. |
| percentage noun | /pə(ɹ)ˈsɛntɪd͡ʒ/ | The amount, number or rate of something, regarded as part of a total of 100; a part of a whole. |
| trick noun | /ˈtɹɪk/ | Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| burn off verb | To dissipate as the result of heat. | |
| come off verb | To become detached. | |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
| add up verb | To take the sum of; to total. | |
| cut out verb | To refrain from (doing something, using something etc.), to stop or cease (doing something). | |
| do over verb | /ˈduˌoʊvɚ/ | To cover with; to smear or spread on to. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 93 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, we're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thick /θɪk/, thickness /ˈθɪknəs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: reduction /ɹɪˈdʌk.ʃən/, shock /ʃɔk/, trash /tɹæʃ/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, ratio /ˈɹeɪ.ʃoʊ/
- Long words — get the stress right: experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, consistently /kənˈsɪstəntli/, intensity /ɪnˈtɛnsɪti/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like belly, calorie, muscle.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if you're lifting weights, will determine |
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | has been struggling · has been using · I've been eating |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | they've been · you've seen · has been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was published · is stored · is convinced |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.