How to get abs - Advice and Information to cut that midsection "What can I do to lose this flab around my waist?" "What exercises do I do to get my six pack to come in?" These are probably the most frequently asked questions I get from my clients. Unfortunately, the only simple answer I can give creates only more questions and is often more difficult for many than a few crunches every other day. When it comes to developing that all important six pack look, what you eat will play a much larger role in your success than any ab routine you may have read in the latest muscle magazine. I know very few lean physiques that don't possess a nice set of abdominals to go with. While it is true that exercising your abdominals regularly they become more developed and chiseled muscle, what good is all that work if your gut is covered with fat? When I prepared for my first bodybuilding show in March of 1999, I didn't even begin training my abs until a month before the show (after my training partner convinced me I needed to). I was, however, very conscious of the food I was taking in. I think what most people fail to appreciate is the relationship between calories in and calories out. Unless you're burning about 500 calories more than your taking in on a daily basis you're not going to lose fat to any significant amount. I say 500 calories a day because if you burn 500 calories each day for seven days, guess what. That would equal 3500 calories burned, the same amount of calories in a pound of body fat! If your can burn those calories doing ab exercises great, but I doubt many of us can. Most will need a piece of cardio equipment that involves the larger muscle groups. Larger muscles equal larger calorie expenditure. My favorite is the Precor EFX, but if you have a different type of elliptical trainer that's fine. The Freerunner by Stairmaster is also a good piece of equipment. Ok, so we know we need to adjust our diet somehow and do cardio. What now? First, I have my body fat checked. I need to know where I'm starting from so that I can monitor my progress or lack there of. I continue to check my body fat periodically to see how I'm doing as I strip the fat off. What I have found the most useful is to find out what I'm taking in for calories. I do this by writing down everything I eat for about 3-5 days. During this time I don't binge and I don't skimp on my foods either. I just try to eat as close to normal as I can with the exception that I measure and weigh everything so I know exactly how many calories I've consumed at the end of the day. After I've nailed down my daily calorie intake I make a daily goal of eating exactly 500 calories less than that everyday. I don't hit the cardio equipment yet and I don't go nuts eating all the diet foods I can find. I simply drop 500 calories from my daily intake. I stay very true to measuring everything to insure I give myself correct data. If for some reason I am not losing fat I need to be able to look back on my records to see how I've been eating and fix the problem. Every two weeks I check my body fat. This way I can tell if I need to make any adjustments in my program. If I am losing fat at an acceptable rate I just continue to do as I'm doing. Eventually, my body will adjust to my new way of eating and my metabolism will slow down and my progress will cease. This is when I implement my cardio sessions. I keep the same caloric intake, but add 3-4 20 min cardio sessions a week. This not only gives my metabolism a little boost but it also helps burn additional calories. Through out the remainder of my fat cutting program all I have to do is make adjustments to my original game plan. When my metabolism adjusts I change something. I can add more cardio (I seldom do more than an hour a day). I could split my cardio sessions up throughout the day to give my metabolism a couple of boosts. I can alter my diet plan. Altering my diet is almost always the most effective tool for me to strip off fat. I need to give my body a reason to use body fat for fuel. When calories are cut to drastically your body responds by holding on to the fat and eating muscle. This is your body's survival mechanism kicking so you don't starve to death. Your body is saying, "Hey this guys not eating enough, we must be starving. I'd better not use up all this fat because we might need it later. We'll use this muscle instead, he's not using all of it right now anyway." Sounds silly, but it's true. In time of need your body would rather eat excess muscle than excess fat. Anyway, I battle this trend by not going too low on my daily calories. What I can do though is lower my weekly calories. Lets say I'm eating 3000 calories a day down from my 3500 maintenance calorie intake. I can eat 2700 calories for two days and on the third day up it to 3200. This way I've convinced my body that I'm not going to starve and yet in a three-day period I actually dropped another 400 calories from my daily intake! You can make all kinds of variations of this to suit your needs, 1 high and 1 low 2 high and 3 low, whatever as long as at the end of the cycle your in a caloric deficit.