Study hints at key exercise to keep belly fat away

Varying your exercise routine does more than just keep your workout results from plateauing .

Specifically, researchers found that men who did 20 minutes of weight training daily had less abdominal fat than men who spent the same amount of time doing aerobic exercise. Better yet, men who combined the two workouts had the best results.

The new study by the Harvard School of Public Health measured the physical activity, waist circumference and body weight of 10,500 healthy U.S. men aged 40 and over.

“This study underscores the importance of weight training in reducing abdominal obesity, especially among the elderly,” said Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard and senior author of the study.

But don’t cut back on aerobic exercise – participants who only did aerobics gained less weight over the course of the study.