Diet for a Six Pack

Oh those six pack abs. Everybody wants them, but so few are willing to do what it takes. Even worse so few even know what to do.

First lets start with some basic anatomy. Abs are short for abdominal muscles, but the actual anatomy term is rectus abdominis. Abs are liked buried treasure. The treasure is there, you just have to dig for it. Everybody has abs, but for most people they are covered by a layer of fat which hides them from view.

Abs don't start getting defined until you are at less than 10% body fat for men and 15% body fat for women. So the goal becomes to reduce your body fat percentage until it is less than that. To find out how may pounds of fat you have to lose to arrive at that body fat percentage requires some calculations. Here is where the mathematics of weight loss comes in to play. Take out your calculator and follow along.

The first step is to determine your current body fat percentage. To do this you can have it measured by a personal trainer or you health care provider. You can also purchase a body composition monitor such as those made by Tanita.

Once you know what you current body fat percentage is take that and subtract your goal body fat percentage from it. As an example we will use 9 percent as a goal body fat percentage and 20 percent as our current body fat percentage. And we will use 200 pounds as our current weight. So here is the math.

First convert the percentages to decimal values.

20% = .20 and 9% = .09

Then subtract

.20 – .09 = .11

Then add 1

.11 + 1 = 1.11 Then divide that into your current body weight which will then give you your goal weight:

200 / 1.11 = 180

Subtract your goal weight from your current weight to find out how many pounds of fat you need to lose to arrive at your goal body fat percentage.

200-180 = 20

So to be at 9% body fat we need to lose 20 pounds of fat.

To lose 20 pounds of fat without losing any muscle will take approx 20 – 22 weeks with a combination of diet and exercise. If you lose the weight any faster you will end up losing lots of muscle in the process which will mess up your metabolism.