Getting enough muscle to increase my metabolic rate sufficiently will probably will never happen to me. Meanwhile, the only thing that consistently reduced my body fat around midsection and in my face is daily walking about 15 000 steps a day (2 hours, 10km, 500-600 calories burn). In the Summer when I go to Europe I naturally walk around a lot and I get much slimmer and fat free while I eat sugary stuff and my daily calories probably are above 2500. I try to substitute the prolonged walking with cardio machines at the gym but haven't noticed an effect as significant as long walking.Its not about the amount of energy you use up while working out or moving around. What will give a sustained burn is getting and keeping enough muscle mass that your BMR(Base Metabolic Rate) is high enough to burn that much calories to keep the fat of the midsection, without the need of treadmills etc. So you can keep those for the cardio. High BMR = less fat = less aromatisation.