But can doing ab crunches help you to lose that belly fat? Experts say no. “You can’t pick and choose areas where you’d like to burn fat,” says Phil Tyne, director of the fitness center at the Baylor Tom Landry Health & Wellness Center in Dallas. So crunches aren’t going to target weight loss in that area.

I’ve always been quite doubtful when people repeated that you need to do crunches in order to lose your belly fat; I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks that’s absurd.

“Sweating is not necessarily an indicator of exertion,” says Tyne. “Sweating is your body’s way of cooling itself.” It’s possible to burn a significant number of calories without breaking a sweat.

This one I didn’t really know. It doesn’t necessarily apply to me, though, as I break a sweat with the tiniest effort.