Truth About Abs

Getting a six pack seems like the ultimate way to show everyone you’re healthy and in shape. Having a nice set of abs lets the outside world know that you workout, care about your weight and eat healthy. To help you achieve this milestone, there are plenty of diets, books and contraptions out on the market. Unfortunately, most of these products don’t work and the ones that do force you to pay for the same basic idea: eat less and exercise more.

Layer of Fat

The reason why your abs aren’t visible is because they’re covered by a big, thick layer of fat. It’s like covering someone with sand at the beach. Once they’re under, you can’t see their body anymore. If you want to see who’s hiding down there, you need to get rid of the sand, or in your case, the layer of fat.

There are some specific diets that will supposedly help get your abs into shape. If they aren’t free, don’t bother paying for them because they all work off the same idea. The layer of fat that is covering your abs was put there because you eat too many calories.

Calorie Balance

When you eat more than you burn, your body will store excess calories as fat for later use. What all these ab diets will do, is create a calorie deficit (force you to burn more than you eat) so that your body will begin drawing on its fat stores for energy. You can use the calorie calculator to get an idea of how much you should be eating each day.

Ab Machines

If you’re a fan of infomercials, you’ve probably noticed a whole bunch of home ab machines. You can buy everything from a belt that helps you sweat your way to abs to a chair-looking device that will help you perform the perfect sit up.

What they don’t tell you is that you also must follow their diet plan to get any sort of results. When you buy ones of these products, you’ll also be sent some information telling you that if you only do sit ups and crunches without a calorie restricted diet, you’ll never see any progress.

You can do ab exercises all day and not see results because your main problem is excessive fat deposits. Sit ups, crunches and leg lifts do a good job building up your abdominal muscles but they don’t help burn very many calories. This is why in conjunction with even the best ab machines, you need a calorie restricted diet and a good amount of cardio.

The Bottom Line

The truth about abs is that there’s no quick six minute routine you can do or magic belt you can wear. There’s no special diet you can use or chair that will help. The truth about abs is that you need to put your body in a state that will allow it to burn more calories than it takes in. Only then can it get rid of the fat that is obscuring those nice abs.