Hello all, I jumped on Google and searched "Fitness Forums" this was the 1st link I got so I confide and trust in you all:cheeky:
Couple of weeks ago (or maybe a month an a bit?) I drunkenly made a $500 bet that I could have abs by New Years day, I was taken up on the offer and quickly went to work on loosing the beer belly.. With little effort put fourth and dieting (eliminating fat calories/saturated fats) I lost the beer belly and now jus have an undefined pouch going on..
I checked the calender and realised, damn New Years is approaching fast..
I was hoping someone (or all of you) could direct me to information, work out routines, books..etc that will help me generate this pouch into abs. This doesn't have to be abs I can grate cheese on.. jus some recognisable abs.. even if I have to "push" for them to be seen..
I'm like 5'8, 160pnds and lost about 20 pounds with really no effort and just dieting. Now I'm ready to push it to the limit to get these abs and half a K.
Any help would be deeply appreciated!
Cheers all,
-SS
One way or the other, with diet or with exercise you're going to have to pay a a "healthy" price to get that 6-pack.
Most people underestimate the amount of
"educated-directed" effort it takes to get "competition lean" or------- "personally 6 pack abs" lean.
Most people think getting abs are easy.
The ones that say this, are usually the ones that don't have them (but did at one point want them).
Some can sure talk, but can not walk the walk.
You walk with reality, and then carry a big stick of education to direct your walk, and pull in the personal resources to get the job done.
It's simple, but it's not easy.
Its simple in its educated basic premise.
Difficult in its function.
When your expectations come in line with reality, it doesn't get any easier physically, but mentally it's easier because you understand what must be done and all the confusion is lifted.................
It isn't easy, my friend.
The nature of this "easy" can depend on many things:
1. Personal Starting Point
2. Genetics
3. How strict one follows diet (and adapts to bodily feed back), variables in "overall" training (and adapting to this bodily feed back), and "how educated you are in reacting to adaption and your personal variables".
"If tissue loss is not done properly", too much precious muscle mass will be lost.
By "properly" I mean
"including weight training" to provide a reason to hold on to the muscle (and build and repair muscle tissue), and setting
"reasonable and calculated calorie deficits" with the purpose of preventing too much tissue loss, while allowing fat loss to continue.
You will have your work cut out for you: Take this from one who does in deed know.
You should consider a lifestyle change because the core values of the bet will tend to be short lived, and if you do achieve your goal,
have you considered what to do to maintain what you have worked so hard to self-create?
What do you plan to do then? Go back to old habits and erase in a few short weeks, what took twice as long to create?
Use the bet as a spark to entice a lifestyle change. Your health and physical fitness will thank you for it.
In its
"most basic premise": To reduce body fat you must either eat fewer calories or burn more calories by increasing your activity level, or a combination of both -- it's that simple (on a biologically normal person).
It simply begins with properly constructing a diet, and then supplementing this diet with sound resistance training, and then use eduction of diet logistics and education within weight training to adapt to your personal feedback.
Its the "function of the aforementioned" that can be difficult along with what the body does along the way.
But, don't expect getting ripped or "extremely lean" to be so easy. The first few days on a proper reducing body fat diet, you may lose several pounds.
Especially if you haven't deficit dieted before. In addition, if you haven't trained in years or in many months, you may gain weight and lose tissue (and water at the same time). In other words it is possible the "scale" wont claim a difference, when in fact there was because the loss/gain off-set one another.
Throughout the day, the body juggles a "balancing act" according to its design. A quality hour of throwing the iron around causes your muscle tissues to break down at a higher rate than normal. I say a higher rate than normal because the body is always repairing and rebuilding, however, progressive weight training taxes the system above the "norm".
The act of "progressive strength training" forces the body to perform biological processes "above homeostasis", and this can be a very biologically expensive process.
You have a
"biological and energy expensive" process going on within the muscles (and some organ function) themselves just through muscle repair/rebuild.
Protein/amino acid turn over can be energy expensive, and this occurs long after you have finished your workout. This muscle repair process effects the rest of the bodily system because other parts of the body have to be involved to complete the process.
If one does NOT workout (say at all), this process above norm isn't taking place, which means less energy (calories) and nutrition are being expended and/or used, logically.
In this EXAMPLE you have two stimulants impacting thermodynamics : 1. The hour of strength training, and 2. The biologically expensive muscle rebuilding/repair (and dependent on the progressive intensity of training, and how long training in the past, it go on for 48 hours or more, dependent).
When one
first begins a "program" this process (1 and 2) can be "least" expensive to the body. Extraordinary gains/losses can happen---until the body
"adapts and becomes more efficient"--to your external activities and feeding habits. Then it becomes "more" expensive as compared to the past, and its just a matter of time before the fitness person sees this materialize in one form or another on the outside.
In other words gains/losses can come rather fast at first, but tend to slow as the body adapts and overcomes the stresses applied and experienced.
I believe that getting the core extremely lean to reveal its structure is a matter of having a little bit of knowledge -- but most importantly, having a lot of "heart" in the steps of your path.
The degree of heart needed depends on how much the "body fights to prevent you from losing the important last fatty portion you want off that it covets and loves to keep as a safety cushion for its self".
IMO, core exercises shouldn't be in the same breath as diet and a full body routine, and should be an after thought after the first two are constructed, because quite simply,
working the core isn't the function that brings a good looking core. Actually, it plays a very minor role in the equation--
when considering a full body routine in the fitness activity equation.
Therefore, develop and construct a proper diet--that suites the goals you personal seek and adheres to your personal starting position.
Therefore develop and construct a proper full body routine, as best as you possibly can with what you have available to train with.
Lastly, give it time. Do not sacrifice health for: Speed of your goal.
Whether you make it to your January Deadline, largely depends on your starting position, and quality of choices made leading up to January 09.
Go here and begin educating yourself:
Diet construction:
Nutrition 101
Delaware Consumer Health Information Services (Originally Posted by Wrangell)
An Article on Diet and Cheating by John Berardi:
Bodybuilding.com - John Berardi - Damage Control: To Cheat Or Not To Cheat!
=========================================================
Solving the Pre and Post Workout Nutrition Puzzle, John Berardi:
Bodybuilding.com - John Berardi - Solving The Post Workout Puzzle - Part One!
Bodybuilding.com - John Berardi - Solving The Post Workout Puzzle: Part 2 - The Recovery Plan.
Various EXCELLENT John Berardi Nutrition Articles (a MUST READ):
John Berardi - Nutrition Articles
========================================================
Weight training and related:
Weight Training Technical Articles
Weight Training 101
http://training.fitness.com/weight-...inefficient-split-maybe-read-first-34522.html
Some Info on the ab core:
Abdominal Training
How to get abs guide
If you can not afford to hire a trainer, you have to be your own personal trainer.
Personal trainers are like selecting a cereal to consume.
Not all of them are put together the same. And, likewise one has to be careful in their personal selection.
Some are far too sugar coated while others are made solid with good ingredients.
Selecting a personal trainer doesn’t "necessarily" assume 100% accurate advice--or more importantly, that one will be personally successful.
While hiring a Personal trainer "can be" a wonderful idea and a good suggestion for some, it does not however, default to obtaining success.
And, when one is faced with not affording a trainer,
they have no other choice but to default to being their own personal trainer.
And learning what this person has a available to train with coupling this with what they want as goals, and their present starting position (and known medical and biological complications) plays a large role in ones advice.
And, if you do not hire one, then you have to get educated and be your own.
Get er' done!
And, ROCK ON!
Best wishes,
Chillen
