I want abs! If only it were as easy as the fitness magazines would have you believe. Every magazine I see on the stands claims that their articles can get you there in record time. Titles like “30 days to a washboard stomach”, “Abs made easy”, ” Crunch your way to a six-pack”.  They sound great and they sell lots of magazines, but these catch phrases are very misleading. Unless you are one of the 2 or 3% of the population with naturally paper thin skin who can eat french sticks dipped in maple syrup for breakfast and store those carbohydrates for energy rather than fat like the rest of us, it is going to take hard work and a lot of patience to get there. But it is very doable.  If you are serious about seeing your abs, follow these tips as gospel and I promise you will get there.

1. Figure out approximately how many calories you burn on a daily basis. The vast majority of us burn around 10 times our body weight in calories just by sitting around on the couch doing very little. This is your basal metabolism–the amount of calories your body requires to exist. Then factor in your activity levels such as weight training, cardiovascular exercise, walking, etc. There are some tools available like Fitbit that can help you determine these numbers. Once you have an idea of what you burn, start cutting back by 300 calories a day to create a deficit. Give that a try for the first couple of weeks and use your bathroom scale and/or a mirror as your guide. If you are not seeing the results that you want, cut back another 100 calories.  You should lose 2 lbs a week at most. Make changes in small increments and avoid extremes.

2. Start lifting weights. Weight training speeds up your metabolism and puts your body in a constant state of repair. In order to repair broken down muscles, your body requires excess calories.  For every pound of muscle you add to your frame, your body will burn an extra 50 calories each day. Muscles need calories in order to exist. So start lifting weights 3 times a week (Mon, Wed, Fri). Stick with compound multi-joint movements. Presses, rows, squats and lunges are in; leg extensions, bicep curls and lateral raises are out. Keep the rest periods short and make sure you are finished in no more than 45 minutes. If it takes you longer than that, you are not training, you are making friends.

3. Get out and start walking. A trick I learned from a colleague a number of years ago is that “fasted” walking can accelerate fat loss. Get up first thing in the morning, have a big glass of water to get rid of any hunger pangs (I like carbonated water because the gas gives me the feeling of being full) and go for a one hour walk, preferably out in nature if you have that option. It is great for the mood. The premise behind fasted walking is that first thing in the morning your body is more prone to use stored adipose tissue (fat) to fuel your walk. I did this every morning for a month a few years ago and after 30 days I was significantly leaner, most noticeably in the midsection. Try doing this on days when you are not strength training.

4. Start performing sprints. The term sprints applies to any activity where there is an all out effort given for a specific amount of time followed by a specific period of rest. I use a stationary bike and I start with a 4 minute warm up at an easy pace to get the blood flowing to the working muscles. Then I perform 12 all out sprints at a 1:1 work to rest ratio (if a 10/10 effort is running for your life then work at a 9/10). In my case that is a 30 second all-out effort, followed by a 30 second cool down at a 1/10. Forget about target heart rates. The primary benefit of performing sprints is that they speed up your metabolism over the long haul. Don’t concern yourself with the amount of calories burned during the session. The harder you work, the more calories you will burn in the next several hours after your session. This is where the real fat loss occurs. The other benefit is that you will probably build some muscle while you are at it.

5. Eat more protein. The amino acids in protein are the building blocks of muscle. Aim to get 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight. For a 200 lb man that is an intake of 16o grams of protein a day, which can be accomplished easily. There are 50 grams of protein in a 6 oz chicken breast, so after consuming one breast you are already a third of the way there. There are a number of benefits from boosting your protein intake. When comparing the 3 macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins and fats), protein requires by far the greatest effort from your body to digest and absorb it. This greater workload causes your body to burn more calories, thereby speeding up your metabolic rate. High protein diets are known for their fat reducing benefits. One reason they work is that eating a lot of protein reduces hunger. Protein is very filling and when you eat more of it, you are more quickly satisfied, eating fewer calories in total.

You are probably wondering where all the fancy ab exercises are and how you are ever going to build that six pack without them. Ab exercises are the smallest part of the equation. We will get to that next week.