There’s no harm in wanting to look good as a fitness goal. Wanting to look good becomes your motivation and also, when you achieve your dream body, you’ll have a sense of achievement which can be a huge boost to your self-confidence too.
Contrary to belief, doing 100 sit ups a day won’t make your abs more defined. The washboard abs you want is going to take lots of hard work not just at the gym but also the kitchen! One thing to remember is that ‘short cuts’ like fat loss pills or crash diets won’t have long lasting effects and may even harm your health.
According to bodybuilding.com, your diet is actually 90 percent of the effort in your journey to six pack abs. Here’re a few pointers to help you on your way.
Post-workout carbohydrates
Keep in mind that carbohydrates are not evil and won’t make you fat. Sure, eating too much carbohydrates will make you gain weight but that’s the general rule of thumb when consuming too much of anything!
Eating carbohydrates after a workout will ensure that you replenish the glucose burned up to power your movements and also to prevent your body using your own muscle tissue to replenish your glucose stores. On your quest to a six pack, natural sources of carbohydrates are recommended such as sweet potatoes, brown rice and oatmeal.
In addition to eating carbohydrates after your workouts, with every meal, have one to two cups of vegetables in order for your body to be nourished with vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre.
Pack on the protein
Abs are made in the kitchen and protein will be your best friend. Protein can help you build lean muscle and also burn body fat because your body burns calories while breaking it down. The amount of protein you need depends on your weight, goals, lifestyle and also whether you have pre-existing conditions.
The Recommended Dietary Allowance for sedentary adults is 0.8 grams per kilogramme of lean bodyweight and this is to be increased if you do intense workouts or have a very physically challenging job.
Protein is also important to general body function and health because it plays a role in repairing red blood cells, hair and fingernail growth, regulating hormones, muscle movement, blood clotting and more.
Fat friends
It sounds like we’re bluffing but in order to get the six pack of your dreams, you’ll need a little fat too! Eating healthy fats such as polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats found in nuts, fish oil and olive oil is a great way to incorporate health fats into your diet. These healthy fats keep your insulin levels steady which is important when trying to lose belly fat.
Stop with the crunches
To promote total fat loss in order to bring your abs to the surface, do compound, multi-joint and total body movements. Compound exercises are much better for total fat loss because it involves multiple parts of your body and pairing your exercise with weights will help burn more fats. Try doing more pushups, pullups, barbell squat, dumbbell lunges, barbell deadlifts and more to help maximise the burn!
Cardio correctly
Sure, benching iron and lifting heavy is the way to get muscles but cardio plays an important too. However, it’s a common belief to do long periods of cardio at a slow to medium pace to burn fats. Instead, why not try interval workouts interspersed by abdominal exercises?
Try running for 30 seconds at your maximum speed then hopping off the machine and performing a set of 20 crunches. Once you’re done, hop back on the machine and run pedal to the metal for another 30 seconds and repeat this five to eight times with other abdominal exercises like reverse crunches and also planks.
