Strengthen your abdominal core muscles and lose your body fat. The concept may sound simple, but putting it into action can be quite challenging. It will take dedication, time and patience to get a six pack; but in the end, the effort is well worth it. To get six pack abs you need to do two things: lose fat and build muscle. You get this by dieting and exercising daily. You can have the most toned and muscular abs, but it will not show if there is a layer of fat over them. This blog post will discuss ways in which you can accomplish both of these goals.
Do Cardio Workouts:
Important step to get six pack abs: There is no way to target fat loss in any area of your body. You need to lose some of that extra fat over your abs. Even if you workout and get gigantic ab muscles, if there is still a layer of fat over them no one will ever get to see them. Cardio workouts are workouts that raise your heart rate for a given set of time. Some examples would be running, jogging, bike riding, dancing, and rowing.
Eat Smaller Dinners:
Large dinners tend to hurt a fat loss process because most people aren't very active after dinner. This is the basis for advice along the lines of "don't eat anything within a certain number of hours before going to bed". The claim that your entire dinner is stored as fat isn't entirely true. The process is more complicated than that, but the fact you don't move after dinner is enough to hurt your cause. You can offset this by eating a larger lunch or snacking heathily before dinner. Fresh fruits or vegetables are excellent choices for curbing appetite not to mention other health benefits. A handful of nuts might do the same. Drink a large glass of water before sitting at the table.
Eat Breakfast:
Many people skip breakfast because they don't have time for it. The harm of skipping breakfast from a weight loss perspective is it makes you eat a huge lunch since your body hasn't had anything in the past 12 (or more) hours. When you eat a huge lunch you get that after meal drowsiness so now you're both unproductive and inactive. Cereals don't take much time to prepare and consume, and most of them are very healthy nowadays. If you are extremely pressed for time, consider grabbing a box of breakfast bars or a smoothie and throwing one in your bag when you leave for work or school. Some breakfast bars out there are also excellent sources of fiber. Even an apple or a yogurt is better than nothing. Ideally, your breakfast should be the biggest meal of the day, lunch the second, and dinner the smallest.
Lift Weights:
The more muscle your body has, the more calories your body burns, even at rest. Plus, resistance training is important to limit the amount of muscle mass lost whilst reducing your calorie intake. If you only do cardiovascular exercises (running, playing basketball, football) without weight training then you may lose the muscle mass, including the muscle in your abs.
Keep Metabolism Steady:
Eating one small meal every three hours that you are awake will not speed up your metabolism, rather, it will keep it going. Your metabolism goes and slows with your food intake and eating something small every three hours will keep that metabolism burning calories and will help you lose weight. Every meal should include lean protein, so that your body won't need to break down your muscles for fuel, which would shrink your abs as well as slow down your metabolism.
Drink More Water EVERYDAY:
To find out how much water you need to drink as a minimum per day, halve your weight (in pounds) and that is how many ounces of water you need to drink. So a 150lb person would need to drink a minimum of 2.2 liters a day. It sounds like an absurd amount of water, but you get water from the food you eat, and you can drink teas and pure fruit juices to make up some of the quota.
*Drinking too much water (several liters, especially while sweating) can dangerously dilute certain salts and minerals. If you are exercising heavily and sweating a lot, you will need to replace your salts as well as fluids. Supplement your water drinking with a sports drink or potassium rich fruits such as bananas and apples*
Switch out refined grains for whole grains:
In a scientific study, people who ate all whole grains (in addition to five servings of fruits and vegetables, three servings of low-fat dairy, and two servings of lean meat, fish, or poultry) lost more belly fat than another group that ate the same diet, but with all refined grains. A diet rich in whole grains changes the glucose and insulin response in your body, which hastens the melting of fat, and visceral fat, that deep layer of fat, is easier for your body to burn than the subcutaneous fat under your skin (the fat that you can see and grab).
Do Crunches:
Lie on the floor (with or without a mat) with your arms in front of your chest or with your hands lightly touching your temples (never behind your head). Bend your knees. Raise your shoulders (upper torso) towards your knees, using strictly your abdominal muscles. It is very important to not lift your entire back off the floor, as this can cause back strain, and the extended movement does not help you develop six pack abs any faster. The most important part of the crunch is the initial flexing of your abs as you lift your shoulders off the floor. As soon as you begin lifting off the floor exhale through your mouth, ending with a gasp once your shoulders are off the floor. Then pause for a second once you are at the top of the crunch and exhale the last bit of air from your diaphragm while flexing your abs. Now lower back down slowly and controlled while inhaling through your nose, just until your shoulder blades touch the ground. Do not let your head touch the ground.