Fat Loss Lifestyle Blog

Every one at one point in time or another has wanted to get a chiseled midsection. Most of us have given up on the dream of having “ripped” six pack abs. But you do not have too.

I am a guy who at the age of 23 had a 40 inch gut. My overall bodyfat percentage was 26%.
I had no muscle in my midsection at all. Whether you believe this or not, I do not have great genetics to be lean and muscular. I have had to totally over haul my metabolism with fatloss lifestyle habits.

But now at the age of 44 I have a nice six pack and truth be told, it feels great. So my point is that anyone can do this. The key is working smarter not harder.

There are a lot of reasons to build your abdominals and bring your body fat level down.

Below are three.

#1 You look and feel good

We are all vain to a certain extent. How we look and how we feel about our own body plays a big part on our psychy. When we feel good about our body, that feeling good spills over into other areas of our life.

Our Mind, Body, and Soul are all connected. Feeling good is a prerequisite for going out and having “good” flow back to us. So when we feel good about our body, it helps us become more successful in other areas of our life; as long as we are not too vain and hyper focused on our waistline.

We have a saying that offends some people but I believe it has some merit.

Our waistline determines our attitude; Our attitude determines our altitude; Get a better body; Get a better life.

#2 Your spine is more stable and pain free

When you build your ab muscles it’s like an internal corset that holds your guts in. When you tighten your “Inner Weight Belt” you create more stabilization for your spine, vertebrae and discs. We have had dozens of clients vastly improve and many totally eliminate back pain by strengthening their core.

#3 You gain the ability to become more athletic, doing functional activities.

Having a strong, athletic abdominal wall is very important at being able to move. This is very important at any time of your life but especially into your 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Being able to work, play, and move is a big part of aging gracefully. When you are in pain or a limited range of motion in your core, you are very challenged.

One big misconception that a lot of people have about building a strong, sexy midsection is that all you have to do is sit-ups. The more sit ups you can do; the better your abs will look. This is called “Spot Reducing”. You can build up an incredible abdominal wall with the best exercise program on earth; but if you do not bring your overall body fat level down, you will not see your abs.

It is impossible to bring your body fat level down in your mid-section by doing abdominal exercises.

Important areas of focus to bring your overall body fat down are;

• Food – Nutrition
Make sure to eat unprocessed foods; organic when possible. If it is made in a plant, stay away; if it comes from a plant eat it. Lean, Green, & Marine; lean red meats, green colorful leafy veggies, and fish are all good foods to include in your nutrition program.

Eating good quality unprocessed foods is not enough. In order to reach your true fitness & fat loss potential you must eventually work you way up to eating 5-6 small meals per day.

When you eat small meals (with protein and carbs together) more often through out the day you boost your body’s metabolism. When you eat only 1-2 times per day ( which is very common today because we are in so much of a hurry) you are sending a message to your body that food is scarce; therefore it is going to slow down the rate at which you are burning calories. This is not good.

• Exercise- Resistance and Cardio

One of the most time efficient ways to burn more calories is to gain more muscle. Because for every pound of muscle that you have in the future that you don’t have now your body will burn 50-70 calories more per day. Gain 10 lbs. of muscle and you burn 500 -700 calories more per day. And that is just to carry around that muscle with your daily activities (you even burn more calories at night when you sleep). Get active and move that muscle and you will burn even more calories.

You have the best chance of gaining the most amount of muscle in major areas like legs, buns, chest, shoulders, and back. Therefore a resistance program that is designed to hit all these major muscle groups is crucial.

Also doing cardio a couple times per week is a way to burn more calories. For time efficiency, we prefer INTERVAL CARDIO

because of the fact that you will burn more total calories after the interval cardio session than with traditional low intensity “jogging” type cardio sessions.

A nice mix for an intelligent routine that can be woven into a lifestyle would be to do two 30 minute interval cardio sessions (preferably first thing in the morning) and two or three 60 minute resistance sessions per week.

• Lifestyle Choices
Also important in bringing your overall body fat level down is choices you make outside of your work outs and meals. Like getting enough rest. Since you will be training relatively intensely you need more sleep to help in recovery. You see; we actually are tearing the body down while we work out. The muscle’s and our energy systems build back and recover away from the work outs. Work out too much and you will limit your growth and lower your immune system.

Also it is a must to limit abuse or preferably use of alcohol, tobacco, or any drugs. Limit your intake of caffeine and stay away from fat burning pills and ephedrine. These types of supplements and drugs are only a short term help toward fat loss & are very harmful to your system.

Lowering your stress levels through meditation, deep breathing, prayer, eft (tapping), laughing, and loving can really help us reach our true fat loss potential.

Tips on how to work Abdominals;

Make sure to go slower than you think and shorten the range of motion on your exercises. The old fashioned sit ups do not isolate the ab muscle very well at all. Where as very slow crunches (limited range of motion) work very well.

Our abdominal muscles need more variety than other muscle groups. Make sure to hit abdominals from all three sides each week. Crunches / sit ups will focus on upper abs; knee ups and leg raises will focus on lower abs, and punches, twists, & side bridges will focus on side oblique’s.

Try doing 2 sets of 3 different exercises in each abdominal work out. Work your abs 2 or 3 times per week at most. Like other muscle groups if you work them out effectively; they should be slightly sore the day after. This is a sign that they need to rest and recover before you exercise them again.

Make sure that you use a wide variety of abdominal exercises. You may only be able to use an effective ab exercise for 2 or 3 work outs before the body will get used to it. That is not to say you can’t use it later again; but you will need to use new ones for a while for a few weeks. For many videos on unique, effective abdominal exercises you can go to my U-Tube Video channel at
http://www.youtube.com/user/fatlosslifestyle Make sure to subscribe to it so whenever I release a new abdominal video, you will be sent an alert. There are many abdominal videos already there. I am only a couple months away from creating an entire video exercise library of all my favorite movements that will be sure to tighten your tummy.

Please comment below. We can all learn from each other. Tell me what your favorite ab exercises are. Or tell me what your favorite fat loss tactic is.

Your Healthy Lifestyle Coach,

Darin