Reader Email: Diet Pointers For Visible Abs

Posted on Jun 24, 2009 by Andrew in Building Muscle, General Health & Fitness, Inspiration, Men's Health, Nutrition, Proper exercise form, Reader Emails, Weight Loss .

The following was an email received from one of Go Healthy Go Fit’s faithful, Ryan M:

I just need help fixing my diet to where I can slim down and show my abs. If you have any suggestions for some good workouts to supplement the diet and therefore help facilitate the weight loss process, I would love to have your advice and feedback.

Great question Ryan! First off, I’d like to commend you for identifying the most important part in reaching your goal… and that’s understanding that your diet plays the key role. Anytime you’re looking to get that ab definition, you should always make adjustments to your diet first and foremost.

Crunching The Numbers

With that said, one of the most simple approaches (assuming that you are making healthy choices with your food) is to gain a better understanding of how many calories you’re consuming as well as expending. Start with your caloric consumption since it’s easier to quantify. Write down what you eat any given day and then look up the calorie count for each item. Add up the total and save the number. (You can use the following sites to get a calorie count of different foods. Calorie Count, Calorie King, The Calorie Counter, etc.)

Once you’ve got that done, then you’ve got to figure out how many calories you are burning a day. This one is a little more tricky, seeing as there are many different sites which report different calorie counts for the same exercise. Also, it’s somewhat hard to gauge how the intensity of your workout effects the amount of calories you are burning. However, one thing is certain: if you can’t see your abs, you’re going to have to eat less! Don’t be afraid to take it down a few hundred calories. I have found that through simple trial and error, one can eventually land on the perfect number in order to attain their fitness goals.

Body-weight Exercises Keep Things In Proportion

You hit the gym on a mission to get rock hard abs and 9 times out of 10 you’ll get over zealous with weighted ab workouts. What most people don’t understand is that when you do ab exercises with too much weight, especially on your obliques, you can build the muscles out, making for an unflattering look. Also, as soon as you stop working out, that muscle will turn to love handles… with no reason to love them whatsoever.

Stick with body weight exercises such as the plank exercise, leg lifts and V-crunches. These exercises will build your abs without building them out. Also, understand that your core muscles consist of not only the front six-pack, but also the obliques, lower back as well as a section which envelopes your organs and goes all the way around your core. So make sure that you are doing ab exercises that hit these muscles as well (side raises, ball twists, lower back raises, etc.).

And last but not least, say no to junk food, processed carbs, and sugar in general. These types of foods will prevent your body from burning the fat on your lower abs, ergo no six pack. If you want that winning stomach, you gotta pay the price!

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Tags: eating to get a six pack, fitness, health, how should I eat if I want to see my abs?, how should I workout if I want to see my abs?, Nutrition, seeing your six pack, six pack abs, what ab exercises should I do?, what diet changes should I make to get a six pack?

4 Responses to “Reader Email: Diet Pointers For Visible Abs”

Fatblastzone

Jun 24, 2009

6:16 am

Many people just haven’t grasped the importance of making the necessary changes in their diet. If you do 300 crunches a day but do not create a calorie deficit to reduce your body fat percentage, you will be spinning your wheels. Any layers of fat must first come off before you will see that six-pack.

Reply to this comment
- Andrew
  
  Jun 24, 2009
  
  7:26 pm
  
  Spinning your wheels… love that phrase!! Check out this post I did a while back:
  
  http://gohealthygofit.com/fitness-tips-that-separate-the-successful-from-the-wheel-spinners/
  
  All the Best,
  
  Andrew
  
  Reply to this comment
eli

Jul 19, 2009

6:20 pm

no sugar? What about bananas, or some other non-refined sugar source, i.e. fruit.

Reply to this comment
- Andrew
  
  Jul 29, 2009
  
  5:52 pm
  
  Bananas are cool. Fruit is cool, but some people respond differently to even fruit. Sometimes it takes limiting your sugar intake altogether.
  
  All the Best,
  
  Andrew
  
  Reply to this comment