Diet for a Six Pack

The quest for the six-pack

The six-pack has become the height of male vanity – the gym a sweaty parallel with the beauty salon. Here is the definitive guide to achieving a six-pack – just be prepared to work for it.

Diet

“Abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym!” exclaims Justin Leonard, ISSA CFT from absecrets.com. Exercising your abdominal muscles doesn't really make them much bigger, just gives them a better definition. Therefore, in order for your abs to stand out you need to lose the layers of flab that cover them by eating sensibly and taking regular exercise. However, if you are a female six-pack hunter, beware that you have a natural subcutaneous layer of fat. If you lose this it can be dangerous, so aim for a toned look rather than a severely rippled one.

Cut down on 'bad' substances such as alcohol, fast and fried foods and reduce your fat, sodium and carbohydrate intake. That doesn't mean eating nothing but protein, rather to take each in moderation. There are various theories about exercise and diet. It has been suggested that drinking coffee or similar caffeine rich drinks before exercises increases your metabolism, enabling you to burn more fat. Similarly green tea is thought to raise your metabolic rate. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition claims, “consumption of green tea produces thermo genesis and increases energy expenditure and fat oxidation”.

Exercise

Cardiovascular exercise is necessary to help lose fat, so choose exercises such as running, swimming and cycling, which burn calories. The more fat burnt from your supplies, the more likely your abs are to display themselves in all their glory.

Abdominal workout 1. The stomach crunch

• You can do hundreds of these and still not feel it if you don't do it right. Do them slowly, tensing the stomach throughout for best results.
• Lie on your back and lift your shoulders off the ground, moving your ribs towards your hips – not too far, just keep it so you can feel your stomach working – and hold it for two seconds. Keep your head still, hands resting lightly on either side, but don't use them to pull yourself up – it is cheating and could strain your neck.
• Leg variations (getting progressively harder): Keep your legs bent and feet on the ground; keep your legs bent and feet in the air; have your legs straight out in front of you; or have your legs straight out in front of you and move them up and down in time with your torso.
• Arm variations (in ascending pain order): Across the chest; resting lightly on the sides of the head; or straight out above your head.
• Further variations: Rotate torso and lift the knees alternately so that each elbow (with hands resting on the head) touches the opposite knee; or you could try holding weights.

2. The leg raise

• These work the same muscles as the stomach crunch, but concentrate more on the lower half.
• Lie on your back and, with your legs straight out in front of you, lift them slowly, a few inches from the ground, whilst tensing your abdomen. Hold it and then lower slowly.
• Variations involve moving your legs around slowly in circles, just holding them out or doing raises at an angle on a bench or, for the very advanced, while hanging from a chin up bar raising them to 90 degrees (Ouch!).

3. Improve your V-shape

• Obliques: To get the full effect of the V-shape the areas to the side of the six-pack must be built up. Side crunches will help – lie on your side with your legs bent and slowly raise your torso with your hands resting lightly on your head. Tense abdomen throughout and hold for a count of two.
• Improve your seratus anterior: or those funny lumpy muscles over the rib cage, by bench-pressing things while spreading your shoulders apart. This can be combined with sit-ups by holding light weights above your chest in the stomach crunch position and then crunching while simultaneously pushing up with your already extended arms.
• Build up your shoulders: Push-ups and chin-ups are the easiest route without weights.

4. Tips

• Don't count if you're really serious, just do each exercise until you can't taking a one-minute break in-between.
• Don't do them everyday – if you are doing them intensively your body will need time to rest in-between sessions. Alternate with a different exercise or just take a day off.
• Doing sit-ups after cardiovascular exercise ensures that the abdominal muscles are warm.
• Stretching the abdominal muscles in-between sit-up sets is supposed to give them a better definition. The cat stretch is an easy one: lie on your front and push up with your arms, arching your back, hold and slowly lower.

View diagrams of the exercises:
webefit.com
sixpacknow.com

Written by Tom Allebone-Webb