TRUTH about getting a six pack!
fitness·@george-topalov·
0.000 HBDTRUTH about getting a six pack!
<html> <p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmefjgg3UzoeZJCAuTmubnUthnusgWnUyGZQcBpegcXjRR/SixpackG3.jpg</p> <p>Sooner or later if you work as a Personal Trainer someone will come to you with the million dollar question: "So how do I get a six pack?" And it is a good question with way too many answers on the internet unfortunately. I just went through a CPD course/workshop for Core Training and Stability and we covered the subject of getting a six pack in exactly 1 minute.. Each and everyone of us knew how to do it and the trainer kept focus on a lot more relevant things, some of which I will share later on in the post. The problem is people don't know how because of all the myths out there that I am going to try and break. Another reason may be because people always look for the easy way and when they see that it is quite hard to achieve something (may it be fitness related or not) they look for a way to go around it. That may work in business or other places but not with anatomy.. You can't cheat your way through nature (unless using illegal or legal substances which will boost your performance but that is a totally different thing and I won't be going there today).</p> <p><br></p> <h2><center>So how do you do it?</center></h2> <p><br></p> <p>Well the truth is.. everyone has abdominal muscles and they may be worked on so they become stronger and maybe more defined but NO amount of ab curls or crunches will remove the layer covering them. If your abs aren't seen, there is fat covering them. It may be less or more, but in order for them to show through, you will need to burn that fat and there is one way to do that - DIET and EXERCISE! Yes I know you've heard that before.. Diet don't mean starvation though.. which is what most people associate it with. It means controlling what you eat.. you may end up eating a bigger quantity of food that has less calories in it and you'll still be on a 'diet'. Exercise is the thing that will help you spend the energy you absorb through food. </p> <p>There is a very simple formula:</p> <p> <strong>Energy Expenditure > Energy Intake = Weight Loss </strong></p> <p><strong> Energy Expenditure < Energy Intake = Weight Gain</strong></p> <p><strong> Energy Expenditure = Energy Intake = Body Maintains its Weight </strong></p> <p>Fast food industry and sedentary life has made the second equation a lot more common that it should be and a huge percentage of people are becoming overweight or obese. In order to change that, a change in the diet and eating behaviour needs to be made. We are surrounded with so many sweet temptations just taunting us through the stands in stores. I love sugar a lot but I try to implement it in my diet in a right way. You can treat yourself from time to time if you know how to. So we have to try and lower the calories intake to be less than our energy expenditure. I won't be putting any of the formulas for calculating any of these since Google has way too many calculators for them and it is simplified enough so you don't even have to do any maths yourself. But lets say we calculated what energy we expend daily and we saw that we are taking a lot more calories than what we should.. now what? Should you completely switch your diet? For most people this won't be that easy way or even possible to sustain. The best way from my point of view is to slowly cut and replace things in your current eating behaviour. Small things like using a sweetener in your coffee instead of these 2 sugars. Try and cut down fizzy drinks or change your afternoon snacks with fruits. Eventually you will get to that point where your calories intake is lower than your expenditure and you will start losing weight. Changing things one by one will make you more likely to keep up with the diet rather than drastically changing it to something completely different. If you have a set goal in mind and need to achieve it in a shorter amount of time.. depending on how determined you are you can try and go for a bigger change in your diet plan but it is more challenging and not everyone is ready to take that step. </p> <p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmRV3BpgZzkrejgSRotbsv4hoY4tsrv213uX4Rj48Luco2/IMG_2570.JPG</p> <p>So we got the diet down a bit.. <strong>What is exercise good for then?</strong> Well with your daily activities it is hard to get the energy expenditure required for you to burn enough fat. That's where exercises come into play. It is recommended for the average person to take part in a moderate to vigorous training activity for 30 min daily. Keep in mind<strong> you can't target</strong> a certain area while burning fat. This is a myth! You burn fat from every part of your body.. it is like an outer layer of skin that you take off.. it doesn't come just from your belly or hips. This is why it takes longer to clear the belly out. Cardio Vascular exercises like walking, jogging, running, swimming etc. will help you a lot with catching up to the energy intake levels. Another sort of exercise that will help is resistance training or strength exercise. Why is that? This will build your muscles and help support your body as well as prevent losing too much muscle mass while on a weight loss plan. Same goes for the abdomen muscles even though they are usually genetically set to have a certain form (this is why some peoples 6 or 8 packs look a bit unorganised, while others are in absolute symmetry). </p> <p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmWzkrXHEuybwZF2LZF3Cmtri2qTf3wb61nEvZdoEe2AEY/cardio-builds-muscle-main_0.jpg<br> Source google image</p> <h2><center>Tips for a healthy diet</center></h2> <p><br></p> <p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmNXFNxWmqg1WYrk7DMgToqTeruHLe6b7PnzL8YuWDJMPi/624-Eatwell-Guide-postcard-850.jpg<br> <a href="https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-matters/healthy-eating-toolkit/eatwell-plate">Source British Heart Foundation</a></p> <p><br></p> <p>The Eatwell guide by the British Heart Foundation is quite basic but it does help a lot with balancing a diet plan for someone that has never done it before. You can follow this to balance your nutrients in a diet and know you'll be alright if you even roughly follow the percentages. I will not be going in depth with macro and micro nutrients and this guide will help me in this regard since they are shown above. Instead I'll try and solve some of the problems people find in keeping a diet plan. </p> <p><strong>1) I don't have time to cook: </strong></p> <p>This is probably one of the most common ones and people tend to go for takeaways or eat outside getting fast food which is hard to track calorie wise and are usually not healthy at all. What I tend to do is supply myself with enough food for the week and do a meal prep. On one day of the week I spend about 2 hours to cook one main coarse meal for the next 5-6 days. Then I stick it in boxes and put half in the fridge and half in the freezer. Yes it means less variety but it is only one meal and I eat 6 times a day so I don't mind it. </p> <p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmcJZSo4our27yGfueDthPuWaYBftU7ubTuFJdLx5zX4gd/IMG_2399.JPG<br> https://steemitimages.com/DQmfEybUW2AK8YVXGuHRcyJzb42yEMEtxJubDg8xYnFMQwg/IMG_2461.JPG<br> <em>They don't look or taste too bad either. :)</em></p> <p>Another solution may be using a blender and blending some of your meals.. fresh food is always better than cooked and you can make some delicious shakes (sweet or salty). </p> <p><strong>2) I get bored of the same meals all the time:</strong></p> <p>This is something that is usually very easily taken care of.. All you need is a bit of creativity or.. Google? Look at body builders coming up with stuff like protein ice-cream or protein pancakes that are low on carbs and still very tasty and healthy. <a href="https://steemit.com/food/@george-topalov/healthy-pancakes-it-is-possible-healthy-and-delicious-1">(you can see my recipe for protein pancakes here)<br> </a>Variety is something you can never get enough of with food, you just need to look for it. </p> <p><strong>3) I don't enjoy healthy foods.. don't like veggies etc.</strong></p> <p>This one is a bit harder since it needs a change in the behaviour before anything else and it takes some time. But as I mentioned already taking baby steps helps a lot in this regard. You don't need to give up your FAVOURITE MEALS all together. Slowly change some of the unhealthy food you eat with healthy food and in time you'll find something that is close to your tastes. </p> <p><strong>4) Keeping a healthy diet costs too much!</strong></p> <p>This may or may not be true and I will make a post about having a balanced diet on a budget. Planning helps out a lot with this problem. I spend so little on food because I buy bigger packs of everything and I use it for longer. I try to eat the food I have rather than buy more and throw the old one because I don't use it. If you are going for a body building competition - then yes healthy diet may become a bit expensive but that is usually a different lifestyle.. and even then you can do some tweaks and make it affordable. </p> <p><br></p> <h2><center>Exercises for ABS</center></h2> <p><br></p> <p>This one is pretty simple too. There are exercises that work best and exercises that work but not to the full extend. Ab curls are by far one of the most effective exercises for the abdominal muscles. The thing is the movement is quite restricted: </p> <p><br></p> <p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmSamx4nRdcgd7HBMXfwEt1zZVU5CgmSqBAxv88NLBwmxT/Eccentric%20Abdominal%20Curl.png<br> <em>This is the movement. You've probably seen people go all the way up, maybe you do it the same way too. This is wrong.. or at least not doing anything for your abs. Anything above this point uses your hip flexors rather than your abs. You CAN increase the range of motion using a swiss ball. That way you can extend your back more and increase the movement you do with your abdomen.</em></p> <p>Another good exercise for abs is the plank. Finding the right position for this one is quite hard and most people drop their bottom too low which adds pressure to the arms and shoulders rather than the abdomen.</p> <p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmZS3jMi8mvB2kvBb26caXmnt3aAs7XSenEsWf6rCpvnqp/Eccentric%20Prone%20Plank.png<br> <em>The spine should be in a natural position and the tension should be felt in the abdomen. </em></p> <p><a href="http://www.physiowarzish.in/eccentric-abdominal-exercises.html"><em>Source </em></a></p> <p><strong>Leg raises: </strong>At the core training workshop, this was something I kind of disagreed and agreed at the same time with. The coach got us to the conclusion that any leg raise exercises (L seat, handing or laying) don't really work the abdomen. What they do is work the Hip Flexors. While that is true the abdomen plays a role as a stabiliser to keep your body positioned correct and your spine in a healthy position. What this exercise will do is define that V cut people really like seeing. That is the Hip Flexor muscles showing through and if you are in sports as martial arts strong hips may be something that can help you out a lot. </p> <h2><center>Conclusion</center></h2> <p><br></p> <p>With all that said the only way to make that six pack is to fix your diet and do exercises for burning energy. Probably everyone knew that and expected something special but the truth is.. there isn't. People made a up lot of 'special' things to sell their products. Fitness industry is way over complicated when it doesn't really need to be and the way to show the true way of doing things is to destroy the myths. I hope I helped out with some information. Keep in mind genes play a role in weight loss too and bodies treat food differently so that is something that can be a barrier as well. It all comes down to knowing ourselves or letting someone else do (like a nutritionist) and being determined enough to make the change. The change won't come on it's own so dig deep and get out there to do your best! </p> <p><br></p> <p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmPFQvd5zwtPfoXJLuuTKLUngQ8pZiu4JSNoGxL5ZiPB88/Follow%20Me1.png</p> </html>