Everyone wants a six pack. Everyone wants to look good at the beach and I am going to show you how you can do both. Everyone can achieve it, everything is up to you and how willing you are to dedicating yourself to achieving your goal.
Set It As a Goal
Lets start with the first thing you have to do, in order to come closer to your goal of getting abs. I know I mention it in many articles, but i cant stress this point enough. You have to set it as a goal. You have to write it down and set a deadline to when you want to achieve your goal. Remember that the deadline has to be realistic, or else the goal will be de-motivating instead of motivating and that is not what you need, I think.
Write your goal in present tense and start with "I". A good Example; "I have a six pack before August".
Loosing Fat
Now you have written it down, lets get to work. The first thing you have to realize is that your six pack won`t show until you get rid of the fat, that is covering your abs. Although you got HUGE ab muscles they will not show until you get rid of the fat that is covering them.
This is why six packs are so rare (Like they were species), people don't have the discipline or knowledge to get rid of the fat.
Now that you got motivation and commitment through the goal you sat for yourself earlier on, I will provide you with some knowledge, so you will be able to get rid of the fat as quickly as possible.
In order for your abs to show, you will have to get down to at least 12% body fat, depending on the size of your ab muscles.
This you will achieve by reading my fat loss article, or reading this excerpt;
You can make the diet part very complicated and time consuming, but that is not what it is all about. It is making healthy eating a lifestyle that should be simple to obtain and continue.
So to make it simple, we are only concerned about calories in vs calories out.
Let me explain; Your body burns around 1800-2500 calories pr day depending on person to person. What this means is, that without you doing anything, your body will burn 1800-2500 calories no matter what you do.
If you eat more, it will be stored as fat. If you eat less, your body is going to take the energy it need from other energy stores like fat.
So what you want to do, is consume less calories than your body burns, to run a caloric deficit or in other terms, burn fat.
If you are wondering how many calories you should be aiming for, take your metabolic rate and multiply it by 0.80 (-20%). So if your body burns 2500 calories you should eat 2000 calories. This way you will lose ca 0.5 kg pr week.
So first off we need to know how many calories your body burns when your body is at rest (metabolic rate). To find out, I would ask you to type in your stats in the calorie calculator. It will then find your metabolic rate, and we will continue from there. So to get to the calculator, just click the link below
Calorie Calculator
Now that you know your metabolic rate (how may calories your body burns) I can give you some tips to make it easier to keep a caloric deficit.
Tip 1 Drink lots of water: This is really a great tip to make you eat less. If you drink lots of water you will feel much more full and satisfied and the craving for food will therefor not be as strong. You will also be satisfied with much less food than normal, because your stomach already is filled up with calorie free water. To get the maximal benefit you should try to aim for 2 glasses of water before each meal.
It is also a good idea to drink water trough out the whole day to stay alert and you will feel much more healthy and your skin will also benefit.
Tip 2 Make small portions of food: By making small portions of food when you are cooking, you will stop eating when there is not more left to eat. So plan your meals in advance.
Tip 3 Don`t snack: By don`t snacking in between your meals you will cut out a whole lot of calories here and there.
You would be shocked if you knew how many calories there are in a chocolate bar. One chocolate bar and a cola = 300 calories. Those 300 calories may look un-harmful at first but if you do the math it will add up to a whole lot in one year. So cut out the snacks and focus on your 3-5 meals pr day.
Exercise
Now that we got the Diet part done, lets get to the exercising part.
Although it is more important to lose fat, it is also important to train your ab muscles so they have some size.
You should target your ab muscles with at least four exercises so you hit all the parts of your core.
You should incorporate movements like twists (Russian Twist), bends (Side bends) and crunches. This way you will hit all the parts of your abdominal muscles. You should also strengthen your core and stabilizer muscles with exercises like planks.
To make it easy for you I have created a ab workout for you, which you can do 3-5 times a week. It will only take you ca 5 min each day and is worth it all at the end.
Crunches - 20-30 repetitions
Leg Raises: 20-30 repetitions
Russian Twists: 20-30 repetitions
Side Bends: 20-30 repetitions on each side
Plank: 20-30 repetitions
You are going to perform all those exercises with no rest in between. Choose the right amount of repetitions for you. If 20 repetitions is to hard an un-achievable feel free to perform less repetitions and work up to 30.
After 5 min you should be done with the workout, and you can now wait for your muscles to grow.
Remember it will take some time, it does not happen over night.
For me, with low body fat (7-8%) it took me one month before I saw noticeable results. This also depends on person to person
Summary
As you can see, getting a visible six pack is really simple, but takes some work.
It consist of two parts, which are loosing fat and building your ab muscles.
If you take what I have written in this article and mix it with some self-discipline you will be guaranteed success in form of a six pack.
You can achieve everything you set your mind to. Make this a goal and do everything you can to achieve it before the deadline.
You can do it!
