Core exercises will build up your abs, but they do nothing for the layer of fat on top of them. Likewise, no leg exercise can give you slimmer thighs. And yet headlines and tweets about shrinking specific body parts abound -- even when the articles themselves contradict the headline.

We've all seen those transformation photos of people going from pufferfish-like bellies to enviously defined abs. You may have mused, "I wish I could get to that 'After' picture, too." Oh, but you can. Without actually being close to that great a shape, in fact. It's not honest, but marketers do it, and hot damn, you will look fabulous.

Dear Lifehacker, In the past, I've assumed most doctors are charlatans, and only visited them in matter of dire emergency (needing a sick note for work, week-long flu, etc.). I am now reaching a point in my life where my body and mind are getting older and I am reconsidering past decisions.

When you want to lose weight, you have to cut out some of your favourite unhealthy treats. The desire to eat these tasty foods often stems from an underlying desire for something else. According to David Bedrick, writing for Psychology Today, identifying the desire can make dieting a heck of a lot easier.

Every year, for many, many years, I would promise myself I'd lose weight. Sometimes I would make a little headway, but mostly I didn't. Then in 2017, it happened. Like most huge changes, it was actually lots of little choices adding up to something big. Here's how I did it.

We don't often discuss the mental impact of restrictive diets such as Whole30 (no "inflammatory" foods), keto (low carb, high fat) or paleo (foods supposedly eaten during the Palaeolithic era). People like to tout the weight loss and mood-boosting effects of these diets, but experts say they can push some of us toward disordered eating.

Teach 600 people to eat more vegetables and less added sugar for a year, and it turns out they will lose weight. There's nothing super shocking in the new DIETFITS study, but there's a lot to learn about what doesn't matter in dieting.

Some people exercise solely to improve and maintain an already-fabulous physique. Others just want to make their bodies look presentable by shedding visceral fat.

If you're looking to get your BMI down as quickly and efficiently as possible, this explainer from an exercise physiologist will help to steer you in the right direction.

Losing weight can be a struggle, but there are so many little things you can do to make things easier. Here's a super long list of tips for those of you trying to shift a bit of weight.

Bright and beautiful fruits. Hearty whole grains. Vitamin packed vegetables in the most delicious of sauces. Are you ready for this? Here are some of our best tips, tricks, and advice on eating healthy.

We're a few days into the new year now. How's that resolution going? Not so great, huh? Look, some resolutions are just bad. Yours is probably one of them.

A thrusting young buck at work recently approached me to ask for some tips on toning up. He does a lot of exercise but lives pretty generously. That means, whatever his body asks him for, he generously provides. As a result he has cultivated something of a "Dadbod" and has now decided to take action to stem the tide.

Diet usually matters more for weight loss than exercise, but it turns out that Biggest Loser contestants who managed to keep the weight off have to exercise a lot. But if you and I aren't Biggest Loser contestants, does that mean anything for us?

Brief news items of note for Lifehacker readers, including: NeoGAF has reopened but the users revolt, Stranger Things season 2 will live up to expectations (yes!), Australian CEOs share some of their secrets to success.

I worked in a bakery once. If a biscuit broke, we couldn't sell it, so naturally I would dispose of the evidence in the most delicious way possible. Sometimes I'd be filling doughnuts with icing and it would smell so good and at the end there would be some leftover icing. A little taste couldn't hurt, right?

We asked, and you delivered -- how do you work near junk food without pigging out? From bringing a sensible lunch to developing weird habits, here are the strategies that worked for you.

If you've ever experimented with food tracking, you probably know that it's really easy to track the kilojoules and nutritional macros in a can of chicken noodle soup or a box of chocolate chip cookies -- the information is right there on the package and it's often pre-loaded into apps like Fitbit and MyFitnessPal -- but it's a lot harder to track kilojoules and macros in the soup and cookies you make at home.

Nobody brags about eating junk. A healthy diet includes veggies and eschews too much sugar, and if you eat that way, you can feel satisfied that you are eating "clean". But you know what? Eating clean is a trap.

Apple cider vinegar has been a multipurpose folk remedy for decades, touted as a disinfectant, a natural way to replenish skin and hair, and a superfood with all kinds of benefits. Science has backed a few of these purposes, for vinegar in general, but the observable results are pretty meh.