Okay Monty Python, grab your coconuts, load up your “horse,” and get started on your quest for those rock-hard abs you’ve always wanted.

I’m going to guess for most of you, abs are the Holy Grail of physical fitness.  Ryan Reynolds had abs that were so defined on Blade 3 that one writer assumed he had ab implants.  The actors in 300 became famous not just for their biceps and pecs but more for their abs that looked painted on.  Everybody is after them, but nobody can find them!

So what’s the deal? Are people looking in the wrong place?  Or are some people just genetically blessed with abs and others aren’t?  Let’s get one thing out of the way first.

95% of all Fitness Marketers are Full of ****

Think of the last 10 infomercials you’ve seen on TV (Weezer Snuggies don’t count).  I’d guarantee 2/3rds of them are designed to “give you a flatter stomach” in just a few minutes a day, three times a week!  Let me know any of these sound familiar:

• Hawaii Chair
• The Flex Belt
• The Ab Coaster
• Ab Circle Pro
• Crunchless Abs

These are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.  They’re all designed to “target your upper and lower abs, work those obliques, and build a set of sexy abs you’ve always wanted!”  New ab machines pop up every other day, and unfortunately people keep buying them!  You’re like Sir Galahad, chasing the Holy Grail into a building of ridiculously attractive women: sure it might make you feel better about yourself in the short term, but it ain’t gonna get you what you really want in the long run.

So why don’t these machines work?

Muscle is Different from Fat

If you’re a female, you’ve probably said “I want to tone up” at some point in the past.  If you’re a dude, you probably want to get “ripped.”  Here’s how it works: you have your bones, then muscle on top of your bones, then on top of the muscle you have fat, and then on top of the fat you have skin.

These are completely different materials.

Your muscle doesn’t turn into fat if you stop working out, and your fat doesn’t turn into muscle if you exercise all day long.  If you just eat better, you WILL lose fat but you won’t build muscle.  If you eat like crap but lift weights like crazy, you could have a body like Ryan Reynolds trapped inside a body that looks like Jabba the Hutt.

Suck.

What this Means for your Stomach

It is 100% impossible for you to spot remove fat. If you have fat on your gut, doing crunches all day long will NOT get rid of the fat.  Depending on your genetic makeup, your body stores fat in various amounts in certain locations.  For chicks, it’s usually thighs and butt.  For dudes, it’s usually the gut.  You have absolutely NO control where the fat gets stored, and you have no control where the fat comes OFF your body once you start eating right and exercising.

You know what that means? 10,000 crunches a day will do almost nothing to reduce your beer gut (other than help with the calories you’ve burned doing the exercises).  The crunches will build up the muscle under your fat, but the fat isn’t really going anywhere.  So what’s the secret?

Ehhhh, I don’t want to spill the beans…

Get on with it!  Yes, GET ON WITH IT!

Okay, I’ll tell you.  Your abs are a direct correlation of your body fat percentage!  (Boring, I know).

• Guys, unless you have a body fat percentage below 10%, you won’t see your abs.
• Girls, unless you have a body fat percentage below 12-14%, you won’t see your abs.
  

You probably have a great set of abs right now (if you do any sort of weight lifting), you just can’t find them underneath all the fat.  This means that if you’re interested in “toning up” or “getting ripped” it is 95% DIET.  If you’re serious about developing a good looking stomach, it all comes down to what you eat.  Because you need to get to a really low body fat percentage, you need to be extremely dedicated with each meal.  It’s boring, it’s a lot of work, and it’s really difficult.  This is why most people don’t have abs.

Here’s my advice for all of those ab machines: don’t spend a single dime on an ab machine EVER. It is a complete waste of time.  Planks, side planks, and crunches on a stability ball are more than enough to work your abs.  Exercises like squats and deadlifts work your abs and core like CRAZY.  These are the only two exercises I do to work on my abs.

Enough about exercises though, let’s talk about what you’re eating.

Here’s How to Fix Your Diet

Analyze everything you eat, and find out where you can cut calories. (Remember 500 less calories a day = 1 lb of body fat loss per week). You can’t target specific areas of fat on your body; as you exercise more and eat healthier you’ll lose body fat all over.  It’ll probably come off your stomach last, so be patient and stick with it.  Once your body fat percentage drops into the single digits, you’ll start to see those abs you’ve quested after for years.

Okay so lets review what you need to do if you want a good lookin’ stomach:

1. Eat less. Seriously. As they say “abs aren’t made in the gym, they’re made in the kitchen.”  Which is a really dumb phrase, but 100% true.  If you want to see them, you need to drop your body fat below 10%, so start by eating less!  This is 90% of the battle.  More important than eating less…is eating healthier.  You can do so by:
2. Cut the crap out of your diet. No processed foods, no liquid calories, lots of veggies and lean meats.  Fruits and nuts are good too.  Follow a Paleo Diet to drop your body fat percentage the quickest.  I cut my BF% almost in half in three months, from 11% down to 6% following this type of diet.
3. Sweat more. So you want to impress chicks on the beach huh?  RUN.  Better yet, SPRINT on days you’re not lifting weights or doing a body weight workout.  Have you ever seen an Olympic sprinter not have crazy abs?  Interval training for the win!
4. Build your core - Squats and deadlifts work your core like crazy.  If you’re not a fan of these two exercises (and you should be), do exercises like planks, side planks, stability ball crunches (not crunches on the ground), and jumping knee tucks.  Notice there isn’t a single mention of a normal sit up or crunch.  Your abs are muscles too, so don’t work them two days in a row, they need to recover.  Honestly though, these exercises are such an afterthought compared to your diet when it comes to your abs.

How can you tell when you’ve got abs? The easiest most accurate way to determine if you have abs is this: look in the mirror.  Do you see abs? You have a body fat percentage below 10%.  Don’t see abs?  You DON’T have a low enough body fat percentage yet.  It’s science.

Now, if you’re looking for a more accurate measurement of your body fat percentage, I recommend picking up an Accumeasure Body Fat caliper.  It’s super cheap, and it works just as well as any of the other way more expensive methods.

Good luck in your quest, brave knight.

-Steve

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photo: JoeBone