Claim Your Six Pack Abs

Table of Contents Page Introduction Chapter One - Truths You Must Understand If You Are Ever Going To Lose
Your Belly Fat And Acquire Six Pack Abs

The 10 Greatest Myths about Fat Loss and Abdominal Shaping Myth Myth Myth Myth Myth Myth Myth Myth Myth Myth #1 If I lose weight my abdominals will reappear #2 I just need the right ab cruncher to carve my six pack #3 To lose belly fat requires doing tons of crunches and sit ups #4 - You cannot get lean because of your genetics #5 Abdominal muscle is different from regular muscle #6 If you have a bad back, training abdominals will worsen it #7 You must eat a low carbohydrate diet #8 Hours of cardio activity strips the fat like nothing else #9 Anyone sporting a six pack has strong abdominal muscles #10 Crash dieting will reveal your abdominal muscles 1
6 9 9 11 13 16 17 18 18 19 20 20 21 26 26 38 46 47 48
Chapter Two - The Midsection Matters

5 Tips To Help You Lose Fat and Gain Six-Pack Abdominals Tip Tip Tip Tip Tip #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 Nutrition Is King Strength Training Workouts Make The Best Fat Burners You WILL Be Required To Put Some Effort Into It You Will Be In It For The Long Haul Do Not Buy Useless Supplements
Page Chapter Three - Abdominal Exercise Routines

What do our abdominal muscles really do? They call it core training now The core is the foundation of the human body Protect yourself from a back injury How do I strengthen my body core? How to work your abdominal muscles without directly working them Here are some of the most common abdominal exercises 51 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 61 62 63 67 68 70 78 82 86 87 88 91 95 114 115
Chapter Four - The Fat Burner Eating Plan

Why it works How your body processes the food you eat Understanding Fast Carbs and Slow Carbs The difference between Fast Carbs and Slow Carbs How to make a Fat Burner Meal Protein Portions Fast Carb Portions Fruits Carb Rich Dairy Free Carbs Fat and the Fat Burner Meal Vegetarian Fat Loss Meal Summary of the Fat Burner Eating Plan
Resources
Introduction
Hi there. My name is Carolyn Hansen and I have written this guide to help people get into shape so that they can achieve that elusive flat stomach that we all start out with in our youth, but have a heck of a time trying to hold onto as we advance beyond our 20s and begin losing all of the advantages that youth confers. Maybe you have recently noticed that your waistband is getting tighter and you have found yourself looking in the bathroom mirror a little more often than you would like to be doing. You find yourself subconsciously wondering, Whats up with this? Where did all this fat around my tummy come from? Is this how other people see me as being fat?
It is a sobering day when you finally begin to realize that something is amiss in the house of YOU. Sure, maybe you are a little less active than you used to be, which might explain a few of the extra inches around your waistline. But what about the additional 20 pounds reported by the needle on the bathroom scale? Yikes. Definitely something going on here. But you are not eating any more than usual. In fact, you have been dieting much of the time. So there must be another reason that you have become larger and heavier. Right?
www.claimyoursixpackabs.com 1 All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen
Indeed there is a reason. If you are carrying a few extra kilos of excess body fat around your belly call it what you will: love handles, a spare tire, a beer gut, or potbelly you are not alone. Many people young and old notice an increase in tummy fat that makes their clothes feel tight and uncomfortable. The fat in this location is particularly unhealthy when compared to other locations on your body. There are many reasons why it has stubbornly piled itself on to your waistline. It could be due to heredity or to changes in your hormonal levels, or even because you have become less active and your metabolism (your bodys fuel burning engine) has slowed while your eating habits have not. You could well be eating the same amount of food that you were 10 years ago. Although the number of people worldwide who we would consider overweight has increased dramatically in recent years, this is one case where following the crowd is by no means your smartest move. Extra weight, especially if it is stored around the belly, can be downright risky. Gaining weight around the abdomen does more harm than simply making your waistband feel too tight. There are serious health risks that come into play here. Associated with an increase in abdominal fat is a corresponding increase in the likelihood that you will develop any number of a multitude of unpleasant conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, and various forms of cancer and other degenerative diseases. Many people accumulate excess belly fat as they grow older, first noticing their increasing waistline in their 30s and 40s while gradually putting on more pounds as the years go by.
www.claimyoursixpackabs.com
All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen
For many, the eating and exercise habits that kept them slim in their youth are just not enough to keep the weight off as they get older. Add to this the fact that we tend to become less active and more sedentary as the years go by, and you can see why the flab starts to gather around your waist. Are our busy modern day lives to blame for excess tummy fat? Many of us are so busy and have so many responsibilities in life that we sometimes forget to take care of ourselves. The end result is our health often gets pushed down the totem pole of priorities. So, how important is proper exercise, and what will happen if you simply avoid it? For starters, if you do not keep your muscles strong and toned, and you allow them to become flabby and weak, the outside of your body will lose its youthful shape and your energy levels will drop. But the real damage occurs on the inside where it cannot be seen. A lifestyle devoid of proper exercise inevitably leads to an increase in fat on the inside of your body. In particular, fat accumulates around the organs inside the belly. You will not notice this at first, as it will not show on the bathroom scales. Studies have shown that just six months without exercise can lead to a 9 percent increase in this dangerous fat. It does not sound like much, but it can amount to 4 pounds of extra fat per year. So it adds up! Even though you may only be concerned about the fat out in front that you can grab with your hands, it is really the stuff deep inside that you do not want hanging around for any length of time.
Yes, we live in a world that worships and reveres the abdominal six pack, but the reality is that an ever-increasing number of people are watching their once svelte abdominals disappear beneath fat. With the loss of apparent health when you lose visible abdominal muscles, so goes real health. The two tend to go hand in hand, which is probably why we place such a high premium on potential partners with flat tummies. Belly fat is more than a mere hindrance to your appearance. It does more than just force you to buy bigger clothes and cut another hole in your belt every other year. That darn fat is steadily working to remove years from your expected lifespan and could well take you away from the people that love you. Researchers have found that the fat cells inside the abdomen are not just sitting there, loaded with dormant energy that is waiting to be burned up. The cells are active, producing hormones and other chemicals that can disrupt the bodys normal chemical balance and affect your health. When excess body fat collects around the tummy rather than on the limbs, it is an outward visual sign of hormonal and metabolic turmoil within. And once that abdominal fat has increased to a hard rounded appearance, it is almost guaranteed that hormonal imbalance is driving its growth. In particular, it is generally due to the condition known as insulin resistance which occurs when the body begins to stop taking notice of the blood sugar regulating hormone insulin. This condition is the precursor to the life-threatening disease known as diabetes.
The insulin molecule.

The good news is that a few lifestyle changes, mainly in the form of a proper exercise program that will target and increase your metabolic engine, along with a healthy eating plan, will help in your battle of the (belly) bulge. Muscle tissue is really the key to getting a handle on your fat loss efforts. It is primarily in muscle cells that fat is burned for energy, so having more of it means more fuel burned in a given period. In other words, adding muscle increases the size of your bodys fat-burning engine from that of a family saloon to that of a turbo-charged sports car. What this means is that you will be able to increase your fat burning engine so that you can burn more calories every minute of the day even when you are sleeping or resting. Even without dieting of any sort, this will give you greater fat burning power. Gradually your waistline will reduce in size, taking with it the health risks. So how do you do this and increase the mass and quality of those abdominal muscles at the same time? The remainder of this report is designed specifically to answer those questions. But first, we need to address a few common misconceptions about abdominal fat, as these tend to impede most peoples efforts to strip the excess fat from their body to reveal that magical six pack that will have the opposite sex unable to peel their eyes from you. We will address these common misconceptions in the next chapter.
Chapter One -
Truths You MUST Understand If You Are Ever Going To Lose Your Belly Fat And Acquire Six Pack Abs
Despite the fact that you may currently see an absence where you would like to see a sexy-looking six pack staring back at you when you look in the mirror, the truth is that both you and everyone else already possesses that six pack. The trouble is, in most cases that six pack muscle is buried deep under a layer of fat that hides those muscles from public view, keeping them out of sight and out of mind. The desire to acquire those 6-pack abdominals that regularly grace the pages of fitness magazines today has evolved into something of a craze. No other part of the human body seems to get quite the level of attention. Whether you call it a washboard, a 6-pack, or an 8-pack, it seems like everyone wants visibly defined abdominal muscles. Not without good reason either. Those fortunate enough to possess them get more than their fair share of attention from the opposite sex. But this aside, there are compelling health-related reasons as well which on their own justify the pursuit of that wash board tummy. But there is a lot more to acquiring a trim waistline with defined abdominal muscles than most people suspect. It is not a question of simply being able to focus your attention on your mid section day after day when you workout.
Possession of a 6-pack by an individual is a genuine hallmark of being in what is called good physical shape. You cannot fake this mark of distinction, because as you get out of shape fat will accumulate around the mid section first, and is the very last place that it will disappear from when you burn fat off again. So, when the day arrives that you can see your abdominal muscles again your body composition (which is to say, your muscle/fat ratio) will be at a very low and healthy level. Some people are able to see visible abdominal muscles at 12 percent body fat, while others need to get below 10 percent. It will depend on your natural level of muscularity. Either way, you are going to be in good physical shape before you see them again. This much I can promise you, and this book will show you what you need to do to get there. Belly fat is the most stubborn type of fat to get rid of For most people, fat from the midsection is the last to be lost as the body works to burn excess fuel in an attempt to keep up with the energy demands that are placed on it. Moreover, you will never really look or feel your best until you reach the point where that store of fat is called upon by your body. People who are in great shape always look great as well because their shoulder to waist ratio has increased, creating a more shapely physique. There is no denying that the broader your shoulders appear to be in comparison to your waist, the more in shape you look. Basically, the more of a "V" shape from your shoulders down to your waist the more physically fit you appear to be. This look is commonly seen in the bodies of active developing teenagers and is present as we enter the decade between the ages of 20 and 30 years. But as we pass beyond this point, and our level of physical activity lessens with the demands of life, we tend to lose this shapeliness. So that V shape is associated with youth and health, and if you reacquire the shape you automatically acquire a youthful appearance that others around you will find hard to ignore.
So, the bigger your waist, the more vertical the line down from your shoulders to your hips, and the less of a V you will have. Go beyond that point and you acquire the appearance of a barrel, and being in shape is the absolute last thing you will appear to be. Whether you are in your best clothes or at the beach, people immediately know how healthy or in shape you are by just looking at the ratio of your waist to your shoulders. I am sure I do not have to belabor the point any more than I have about the advantages of getting into this level of shape, given that you have already expressed an interest in acquiring your own set of six pack abdominals by taking action and reading this book as a first step in the process. But before we can put you on the path to that flat tummy with its pleasant rippled muscle appearance, we need to address some of the more important myths about this subject that are floating around. Everyone seems to have their own ideas about how one can achieve the desired result. Unfortunately, much of what passes for fact on this subject is just plain wrong. So for the remainder of this chapter we are going to bust the biggest myths out there about getting washboard abs, and in the process I will teach you what the truth is and what it is that YOU need to begin doing to secure your own shapely physique that sports a six pack at its center.
The 10 Greatest Myths about Fat Loss and Abdominal Shaping

The Biggest Myth Of Them All Myth #1 If I lose weight my abdominals will reappear Truth #1 It is not about losing weight it is about losing fat We have all seen them the diet claims that promise super fat weight loss. The mainstream media is full of advertisements for diets that focus on the number of pounds that your bathroom scales report each time you venture to stand on them. We are literally assaulted by the magical claims: Lose 20 pounds in 20 days Lose 8 to 15 pounds in your first two weeks The Weekend Diet: Be 10 pounds lighter by Monday And so it goes, endless variations on the same old theme abs in seconds, muscles in minutes, 30 pounds in 30 days, 11 pounds every nine days, and on and on. The truth is you cannot lose 8 to 15 pounds of body fat in two weeks. Yes, you may be able to lose that much weight in that time span, but it will be made up of fat, muscle, and a lot of water, which is not the result you are really hoping to achieve. What you really want is a program that helps you lose just the fat, and which retains your precious muscle tissue, as this is the core of your fat burning machinery. Any loss of muscle tissue will simply leave you wide open for serious rebounding weight issues. Moreover, by losing muscle mass you risk messing up your metabolism, which will make fat loss difficult if not impossible in the future.
There is no mainstream diet program that comes close to what you really need to be doing to master long term fat loss. To do that you need to be able to adopt a plan for eating and exercising that you will be able to stick with for the rest of your life. Not just 30 days, or the next 12 weeks, but forever. This is the only way that you can effectively lose excess body fat and keep it off for good. One of the most important elements associated with this type of lifestyle change is the change in your mindset. You will need to learn to think differently. You will need to reprioritize your goal and realize that it is not about changing your weight so much as it is about changing the ratio of muscle to fat in your body. Nor should you become preoccupied by the time it will take to achieve your goal. You will need to understand that the time will pass regardless and that the important result is the acquisition of the end point, and not the swiftness with which it can be obtained. Think of it this way, if you are offered the choice between one fat loss plan that takes three times as long to achieve your end goal, but will allow you to maintain your new body indefinitely, or a second plan that will seem to get you similar results in one third of the time, but which is unable to stop you from rebounding back to your former body shape shortly thereafter, which will you elect to follow? To lose fat properly the only method that has been proven to work reliably and consistently is one that involves healthy eating and proper exercise. Despite the many diet claims, there is simply no other way, and failure to realize this fundamental truth is one of the most limiting beliefs that keep people from getting into great shape. Unfortunately, each of us has to battle our natural tendency towards impatience and laziness. It is a failure of our human nature to want to get what we want right now, without having to put in any effort to achieve it. We live in what is becoming more and more of an instant gratification society, but the rewards of a real life cannot be obtained instantly.
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Like it or not, our just rewards require an element of work. But they are almost always within reach. What matters most is how much you want to achieve them. If you want that flat tummy you can have it, but you must first acknowledge that to get there you will have to discard any current obsession you have about your weight and focus instead on changing your ratio of muscle tissue to body fat. Myth #2 I just need the right ab cruncher to carve my six pack Truth #2 Using the latest gadget will not get rid of the fat You have seen the late-night infomercials with their enticing promises of easy abdominal magic You can obtain visible 6-pack abs quickly and effortlessly using the latest abdominal gadget. Maybe the latest product is a variation of that special belt you can strap on that, with the flick of a switch and a mild but pleasant tingling sensation, can give you rock hard abs without any exercise at all. 10 minutes with this little gem, they say, is equivalent to 600 sit ups. Our belts use electrical current to stimulate your abdominal muscles even while you sit still. Do not believe it. If the solution was that simple fitness centers across the globe would go out of business tomorrow. Trust me, I own two of them and see no signs that my clients have found an easier way to get into shape than to do it the old fashioned way with resistance training. Never fall for those infomercial ab contraptions, whether they be ab-rockers, ab-loungers, or ab-whatevers. These convenience devices merely offer yet another variation of performing what are basically just ab crunches, but with much less resistance. These gimmicky contraptions might as well be lazy boy chairs for all the good they will do you. Certainly they will never be effective at uncovering your hidden abdominals.
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Even exercises that work the abdominals directly, such as crunches and sit-ups, are actually the LEAST effective method of acquiring that six pack for you. It is a shame that, because of these distractions, most people will never learn how to really strip their belly fat away to reveal their abdominal muscles. Because of the bombardment of misleading information and bogus claims from multi-billion dollar so-called health and fitness companies that will say and do anything to maximize their profits, the truth about how to achieve the visible six pack is likely to remain a secret from most people. Fortunately you will not be one of them because you have already taken steps to head down the correct path, the first step of which is to devour the information in the book you are reading right now. People spend millions, if not billions of dollars, each year on the quest for a flat stomach. Right now there are over 200 or more abdominal exercise devices out there. You would think that with the easy availability of all of these amazing new products that most people would be walking around with that nice, lean midsection they have always dreamed about. Unfortunately, as I pointed out earlier, this is not the case. Most, if not all of these products will do little or nothing to flatten your stomach, simply because these exercise contraptions cannot eliminate the layer of fat that lies on top of your abdominal muscles. In order to be successful at trimming your waistline you must have a basic understanding of how the abdominal muscles function and how your body burns fat. The first thing that needs to be understood with clarity is the distinction between fat and muscle. Fat is the physical manifestation of excess calories that your body has taken in but not yet found a reason to burn for fuel. This fat is primarily stored in layers on top of muscle tissue. Muscle is made up of fibers that contract, or shorten, to produce movement. Fat cannot turn into muscle and muscle cannot turn into fat despite anything to the contrary that you may have heard!
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Most importantly, if you do the right things you can GAIN muscle tissue and you can LOSE body fat. When this happens, it will NOT be because of some fancy ab contraption that you have picked up from Channel 99 or wherever. And when it happens you will begin burning fat at an elevated rate one that can only lead to a lower body fat percentage and the eventual appearance of your abdominal muscles. We will see later how to pull this off the right way. Myth #3 To lose belly fat requires doing tons of crunches and sit ups Truth #3 It is more about fat loss than building abdominal muscles The idea that spot reduction is possible which is to say that fat loss can be confined to a specific part of the body only has not been seriously entertained by anyone knowledgeable on the subject of fat loss for many years now, yet many people still believe that working a certain area of your body burns fat from that specific area, and that, by extension, abdominal exercises will remove fat from the midsection. In fact, this idea is so pervasive that I think it is worth going into this in a little more detail than I will do for the other abdominal myths addressed in this chapter. The bottom line is that the idea of spot reduction is a fantasy. You cannot get rid of the fat over a muscle by repeatedly exercising that body part alone. This is the same idea that you will lose fat on your legs if you pump your legs all day long. Unfortunately, it just does not work this way. Although our bodies DO tend to store fat more towards the center of the body, it is not the case that fat will be removed ONLY from the center if we restrict our workouts to the abdominal area. The truth of the matter is that your body decides where to put fat and where to remove it from, and it is a system that is largely determined by your genetics. Your body wants to distribute fat based on a few clever strategies pioneered by your distant ancestors.
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First of all, your body stores fat in your midsection (your abdomen, hips or buttocks) as this is the most efficient place to keep it. For one thing it takes less energy to carry it around when it is centralized. The storage of extra fuel is a basic survival strategy, so your body wants to maximize energy efficiency in the creation, storage and use of body fat. Our bodies have evolved over the millennia to store fat to help us survive long periods of famine, which usually occurred in the months of winter and early spring when our ancient ancestors could not hunt for months on end. So, given that your body wants to store fat as a way to have portable energy, it makes perfect sense that it would prefer to store that fat in your midsection where it is easy to manage and access, and where it does not get in the way of physical movement of the limbs. In other words, it would not make much sense to have a lot of extra body fat stored on your arms or legs because you would have to swing those around when you move, and that would require extra caloric expenditure. Belly fat is difficult to lose because it is the body's stored extra energy, and millions of years of evolution have trained the human body to be reluctant to let go of its emergency energy source. Our ancient blueprint has not yet cottoned on to the fact that most of us have a fridge full of food in the next room. A second evolutionary strategy that favors collection of fat in the midsection relates to the ongoing functioning of the basic biochemical processes that keep us alive. Having fat stored in the midsection means that the critical organs will be well insulated in the event that the body is subjected to falling temperatures, as normally happens in the winter months. This means that the proper functioning of the essential metabolic processes that sustain us, carried out by organs such as the liver and the pancreas, will not be significantly interrupted.
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Finally, healthy levels of body fat and the places it is located has some implications for mate selection. This is especially true in women, where fat is stored in locations like the hips, buttocks and breasts to create a more attractive looking body in order to attract a potential mate. In this way, body fat is stored in predetermined locations on the human body for much the same reason that a male peacock has brightly colored feathers it is part of the mating game, so to speak. So, abdominal fat is in our genetic blueprint. Therefore it is up to us to outsmart the heavy hand of evolution if we want to see the muscles emerge from beneath the ordinary layer of fat found in the midsection. When it needs energy, your body will burn fat from throughout your bodily stores. This is why crunches and sit ups will not exclusively burn your belly fat. In fact, crunches and sit ups are amongst the LEAST effective fat burning exercises because crunches actually burn very few calories per minute. When you perform crunches, they will work to strengthen the abdominals but they will not do a lot to help shed the layer of fat covering the muscles. It is this layer of fat that prevents them from looking defined and will keep them hidden under the fat. What you really will need to focus on is removing that layer of fat if you are to get the visual results that you (and your potential admirers) are hoping for. This is perhaps one of the most common mistakes that people make when they decide to go after that six pack look. They focus on their abdominal region when working out, which is not at all required. It is the total conditioning of the ENTIRE body and the reduction of the body fat percentage that gives you those dreamy-looking six pack abdominals.
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Myth #4 - You cannot get lean because of your genetics Truth #4 Hereditary traits never rule out physical improvement The idea that you are somehow born with a condition that precludes the ability to get lean is more than anything else just a silly excuse used by people who have given up their effort to slim down. It is each persons lifestyle, and not their genetics, that plays the biggest role in determining how fat or how lean they can become. If someone is overweight and their parents are also overweight, what that person has inherited is more than likely not a set of extra fat genes, but rather the habits of poor diet and a lack of respect for what proper exercise can achieve when adhered to regularly. If you have been heavy all of your life, think hard for a moment about the kind of diet that you were subjected to in your youth. Presuming that you currently know the difference between a lifestyle founded on healthy eating and one founded on the convenience of fast foods, was the food you ate prepared daily for you in the kitchen, or did it come out of a box or a microwaveable package? Did french fries, pizza, pasta, and all manner of sugary foods play a strong role in your eating habits? Even someone born with a faster than normal metabolism will eventually succumb to the fat accumulating directive that years of unhealthy eating will set in motion. But you can change this outcome at any time by revising the manner of foods that you eat. You will always only ever be one meal from getting back on track, and genetics alone can never dictate what your next action will be. You, and you alone, have the power to decide to eat the right foods, not your genes.
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Myth #5 Abdominal muscle is different from regular muscle Truth #5 A muscle cell by any other name is still just a muscle cell Your abdominal muscles are just like every other muscle in your body. The sheet of abdominal muscle is different only in location, and, unlike biceps or quads, does not rest on a bony surface. So you should train them the same way you would train, say, your biceps or your pectorals (chest muscles). The basic laws of physiology apply to all your muscles, including your abdominals. This means that you have to do exercises in the correct plane of movement to effectively work the muscle. Many people also think they need to train their abdominal muscles every day, but this is incorrect. The rules of weight training state that you should give your muscles at least a day of rest after training so that they may recover. This applies to your abdominals as well. They need a break just like the rest of your body. The trick is to train your abdominal muscles hard. For some odd reason it has become common for people to think that they need to perform high repetitions (15-20 or more muscle contractions) to make gains. But this is not true. As I have just mentioned, your abdominal muscles are just like every other muscle in your body. This means that you should train them the same way as the rest of your muscle groups. To make strength gains in any muscle group you have to overload them. This means adding more resistance (weight) to challenge them, so they become stronger in exactly the same manner as do the other muscles in your body.
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Myth #6 If you have a bad back, training abdominals will worsen it Truth #6 Ab training strengthens the core to support the back If you suffer from a bad back, the lack of a strong core may contribute to this, so you can benefit from strengthening your abdominals. This will also strengthen your back because the opposing muscles in your body always support and assist each other. So if you have weak abdominal muscles, the share of the work normally reserved for the abdominals falls on the back. The moral of the story here: strengthen the front of your body and your back will become stronger as well. Myth #7 You must eat a low carbohydrate diet Truth #7 You cannot build muscle if your energy is sapped Low carbohydrate diets are extremely popular and have been for some time. Many people believe that a low carb diet is essential to stripping the fat from their midsection. While these types of diets do offer a number of benefits, including hunger control and reduced water retention, many people end up feeling tired and lethargic when they strip out this necessary fuel source. While carbohydrates are indeed the food type that most strongly encourages the uptake of fat within the body, the reality is that your nutrition plan whatever it may be must support your exercise program. If you severely reduce your total carbohydrate intake to the point where you are consistently experiencing low energy you will find that your will and physical ability to train hard is diminished too. You NEED to maintain an exercise plan that supports the building of muscle, because it is muscle that does the job of burning fat within your body, not just during your exercise sessions, but at all other times of the day too.
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If you cannot maintain your exercise schedule, muscle will atrophy, your metabolism will suffer, and you will find it harder, not easier, to lose fat. Therefore, on the whole, it is better to stick to a balanced nutrition approach, as this is what you will be able to live with long term and so is required for sustained fat loss. Myth #8 Hours of cardio activity strips the fat like nothing else Truth #8 Cardio activity slows fat burning to cover up that six pack Another classic myth that surrounds exercise is the thought that you need to be doing hours and hours of cardio (walking, jogging, cycling, or cardio machines) in order to get clearly defined abdominal muscles. To reduce body fat the metabolism needs to be elevated so it is burning more fuel (calories) every minute of the day and night. Only a proper program of strength training exercise will do this, because this is the only kind of exercise geared toward maintenance of existing muscle and the building of new muscle. It is the muscle in your body that does the work of burning fat for energy use. The higher the percentage of muscle mass in your body, the larger your metabolic rate. In contrast to the cardio philosophy which proposes that you spend endless hours of you time following low impact movements that burn fat only while you are in the process of performing them, modern exercise programs are more concerned with what happens after the exercise session is over with. When you work to build muscle you benefit from the fact that muscle cells burn from 2 to 5 times as much fat per unit time as do fat cells.
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Myth #9 Anyone sporting a six pack has strong abdominal muscles Truth #9 The six pack effect is primarily a result of fat loss only Many people are under the impression that in order to get a six pack, they will need to develop strong abdominal muscles. Working on building strength in the abdominal core is always a smart move because it will help prevent injuries and help you perform other physical activities better, but it is not a requirement. For example, in young boys around 7-9 years of age the abdominal muscles are often fairly visible. Yet, if you were to test their abdominal strength, it likely would not be all that high. The reason this is possible is because these boys have not yet accumulated much body fat over their abdominals, making it easy to see the muscles clearly. All of us have abdominal muscles, so it is just a matter of reducing body fat to a level sufficiently low enough to see them. Myth #10 Crash dieting will reveal your abdominal muscles Truth #10 The key to the six pack effect is fat loss, not weight loss When you go on a crash diet and severely restrict your calorie intake you will lose weight for sure, sometimes fairly fast. But that kind of weight loss strategy involves the loss of muscle mass, water weight, and a little body fat. It is loss of fat that is important to bringing out the abdominals, and not simply a high total weight loss. In fact, if you drop your calorie intake too far you will precipitate the opposite effect, with your body quickly going into survival mode as it attempts to conserve fuel in the face of the threat of starvation. So, going on severe calorie restricted diets is NOT the way to thin out your waist line (in the long run it will actually make you fatter).
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Chapter Two -
The Midsection Matters

Gaining weight around your abdomen does more harm than simply making it really difficult to slip into your skinny jeans. While putting on weight in general can have negative effects on your health, abdominal weight gain is particularly unhealthy. Too much belly fat increases your risk of: Heart disease Cancer Diabetes Metabolic syndrome And many other medical conditions
Researchers have also found that abdominal fat cells are not just idle containers of dormant energy waiting to be burned up. The cells are active, producing hormones and other substances that can affect your health. For example, some fat-cell-produced hormones can promote insulin resistance, a precursor to type II diabetes; others can produce estrogen after menopause, which may increase your breast cancer risk. Researchers are still sorting out how the excess hormones affect overall health, but they do know that too much body fat can disrupt the body's normal hormonal balance. Measuring your body composition (muscle/fat ratio) The bathroom scale can be helpful for measuring your progress but, if it is the only thing you use to measure your progress it can be very misleading. This is because it cannot distinguish between fat and muscle. It simply reports your total weight.
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This point reminds me of new gym goers who, when they come to that section of the registration form that asks them what their primary health and fitness goal is for the next six months they write something like: I want to lose weight. Even though I may understand their general intention, what they have told me is far from being a well-formed goal. I want to permanently burn off 24 pounds of body fat and get my body fat percentage from 20% down to 14% within three months. That is what a well-formed goal sounds like as you have now made the distinction between fat and muscle, and you have given yourself a deadline. My recommendation is that you make sure you have the necessary tools available to track the difference between the total fat and muscle content in your body. There are a number of methods which can be employed to do this. One common way is to perform the pinch test with skin-fold calipers. This measurement will tell you your overall percentage of body fat. If you convert this percentage into the corresponding number of pounds of body fat, you can then deduct it from your total body weight to give you your lean body weight, which includes your muscle tissue. It is a good idea to have this done every 2-4 weeks to track your progress. Your local gym or fitness centre will be able to do this for you and is usually offered as part of a gym membership. A very good idea is to keep a chart of your measurements so you have a visual of your progress. This also works as a kind of accountability tool. With this information, you get a much better picture of what is really happening with your eating plan and exercise program. Are you losing fat or are you losing muscle? Your focus should be fat loss, not weight loss. It is a good idea to get yourself your own skin-fold caliper. One caliper designed especially for home self-testing is called the AccuMeasure, and can be located at http://www.accumeasurefitness.com It costs around $20 and is used to perform a one-site pinch test.
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One of the problems with getting a body fat test in the past was that you needed someone else to test you because the measurement involved taking readings at multiple skin-fold sites. For example, to get your total body fat percentage, you would have to measure your thigh, the side of your waist, the back of your arms (your triceps), and your upper back. Unless you are a human pretzel, you cannot take the measurements yourself. Fortunately, somebody came up with a caliper that measures your body fat based on one skin-fold site. It may not be as accurate as the other methods, but pure accuracy is not as important as reliability and consistency from one measurement to the next. So in the privacy of your own home, you can get this caliper, take a skin-fold measurement on the side of your waist, and see how thick the skin-fold is in millimeters (because most of your body fat is right below your skin).
Log the skin-fold thickness, fat percentage, total body weight, and lean body mass onto your progress chart, then go to work for the next week and measure your body fat again at the end of that period. Do this repeatedly, and regularly, and you will get a really accurate picture of your progress. Ultimately, the best way to chart your progress is to record body composition (muscle/fat ratio) and to know the difference between fat and muscle. But I also recommend that you use as many different methods for measuring progress as possible.
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You can use your clothes size, for example. You can do measurements: your waist measurement, hips, arms, legs wherever you want to measure. The more feedback you get, the better. Waist measurement is particularly valuable because it does correlate strongly with overall body fat and it is a strong indicator of disease risk. Measuring your middle Suppose that you know that you have gained some inches around your torso. How can you know whether this represents an unhealthy amount or not? Well, the truth is that once you reach the point where you consider yourself to be overweight, any extra amount of abdominal fat that you add around your waist is bad for you. You can calculate your body-mass index (I will discuss your BMI shortly) or waist-hip ratio, or you can have a body composition test (muscle/fat ratio) taken. Researchers have found that simply by measuring your waist you can tell whether you have an unhealthy amount of belly fat. In fact, your BMI may not be an accurate measure of body fat percentage or fat distribution. To measure your waist, run a tape measure around your midsection at about the level of your navel. Breathe normally, do not hold your tummy in, and do not pull the tape so tight that it presses your skin down. In a woman of healthy weight, a waist measurement of 35 inches or more indicates an unhealthy concentration of abdominal fat. Furthermore, research is showing that a measurement of 33 inches or more in women, no matter what you weigh, increases your health risks. In men a waist measurement of more than 40 inches is associated with a higher risk of disease than for people with smaller waist measurements. Of all the body fat to be saddled with, a rounded, apple shaped abdomen is damaging to health and has the greatest potential to kill.
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Be patient If you are really serious about reducing body fat and you want to get rid of your abdominal fat, you are going to have to embark on a whole-body approach. You are going to have to get used to the idea that abdominal fat is probably going to be the last fat to go. This is probably not what you wanted to hear, but it is the truth. For women, this means the last place from which you are likely to lose fat is from the hips and buttocks. This is something you may have already observed for yourself if you have ever tried to lose body fat, or if you have made some progress but could not seem to get rid of that last bit of so called "stubborn" body fat. Years of research has also shown that it is virtually impossible to lose body fat if you do not engage in routine physical exercise. Strength training (or muscle building) exercise must be included in your workout regimen. By engaging in strength training you will end up burning fat for hours and even days after your exercise session is over. There are also a lot of steps you can take which relate to controlling your consumption of carbohydrates and altering natural hormone levels in your body to help reduce body fat. You are never going to have total success with fat loss unless you also engage in regular physical exercise and pursue a healthy diet. When it comes to abdominal fat there is just no way to eliminate that fat by itself without taking a holistic, whole-body approach.
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5 Tips To Help You Lose Fat and Gain Six-Pack Abdominals

All right. I have busted down some of the more common myths about six pack abdominals and filled you in on the truth about abdominal muscles. Now it is time to clue you into some of the more useful pieces of information about how to get your own six pack program into gear. The following tips will reveal the important things to keep in mind as you work to strip down your body fat level to a place that it has likely not been since early in your youth. Are you ready for some higher abdominal learning? I am betting that you are! So lets get started.
Tip #1 Nutrition Is King

The first and the most important thing you must do in order to lose your belly fat is to clean up your diet. Proper exercise is important, but what you eat and do not eat is the key when it comes to losing stomach fat, so that you can reduce that layer of fat and get to see your muscles again. Getting chiseled and defined abdominals is mostly about nutrition. If your diet is poor, or just mediocre, then you cannot support your training or maintain a healthy metabolism. If your diet is a mess, put the most focus on fixing that first. The most important thing is that your diet should be as natural and unprocessed as possible. It almost always comes back to the over processing of food that makes it unhealthy and which ends up unsettling the delicate hormonal balance that controls your metabolism. This then results in your body storing more fat. The most important factor in your diet is the balance of macro-nutrients. These are protein, carbohydrates, and fats. This allows you to get a variety of nutrients so your body can function at its best. You have to be healthy to lose fat and if you continually feed your body refined foods that lack quality nutrition your hormone levels remain out of balance and your body will not give up its fat stores.
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If you eliminate certain macro-nutrients, such as carbohydrates, it will work against your body. Sure you can cut out refined carbohydrates such as white flour and sugar, but you still need complex carbohydrates as in vegetables, fruits and whole grains. It is important not to go on a restrictive diet of any kind but it would be to your advantage to increase the quality of your nutrition. Try to eat between 4-6 small meals every 2-3 hours with 20-30 grams of protein at each feeding. Add lots of vegetables for a perfect meal of between 250 and 350 calories. Focus on what you should be eating, and then what you should not be eating will not even be a factor. These small meals will further increase your metabolism and the rate your body burns fuel (calories). They will also give you lots of energy so you can put more effort into your exercise program for even faster results. Both your exercise program and your improved eating will work together to whittle that waistline back down to its optimal size. To lose abdominal fat you need a good plan If you want to reduce body fat, you need to start consuming slightly fewer calories than you expend on a daily basis. In other words, have a calorie deficit but only around 10-15 percent. That way you stay under the radar and do not trigger your bodys starvation response which happens when calories are cut too much. This will get your body to start converting fat into useable energy, and by doing so, fat stores will begin to vanish across your body. If you decide to focus solely on the exercise part of the fat loss equation, without cutting back on your food at all, you might achieve that perfect abdomen that you are looking for, but it will likely take you forever. Eating those 4-6 small meals every day is a good way to boost your metabolism, giving your fat burning mechanism a tune up.
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This also gives you more energy so you can become more active. The small meal pattern also helps eliminate food cravings that trigger binges and overeating. Just get the basics right first Most people just do not know where to start when it comes to getting their nutritional needs sorted out, and they often attempt to launch into an advanced level of dieting when they have not even mastered the basics of nutrition and exercise. So lets take a moment to cover some of the fundamentals of good nutrition. That way you will be able to see why it is important to clean up your diet in the manner I suggest in this chapter. My aim here is not to overwhelm you with the minutia of nutritional knowledge, but to reinforce just the few ideas that carry the greatest weight when it comes to implementing a dietary approach that focuses on fat loss as the inevitable outcome. The fundamentals of good nutrition, when people hear them, sound so much like plain common sense that they tend to disregard their importance. Usually they are expecting some profound new breakthrough in food science, which would be nice, but it just does not happen. So, the fundamental ideas that relate to healthy eating are as follows It all starts with calories - calories in, versus calories out. There are some people who dispute the calorie theory, but energy expenditure is easily measured, and energy balance is a simple law of physics. If you want to lose body fat, you need to burn more calories than you take in, period. It all sounds so simple. Sometimes it is not easy to exploit this basic fact to our advantage, but it is simple to understand. The lesson here is to watch your portion size. Do not overeat in one sitting.
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Many people do not realize, especially when eating in a restaurant, that their meal may contain up to 1,000 calories or more. Compare this with the typical meal size for a woman attempting to lose body fat, which is probably going to be in the neighborhood of 300 to 350 calories and for men the number is a little bit higher at 400 to 450 calories. The balance of a meal is of vital importance for fat loss If you are eating healthy foods, natural foods, lean proteins, unprocessed carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables, the actual volume of food you consume can be quite high. So you do not ever have to go hungry if you choose the right foods. You are unlikely to experience any uncomfortable hunger pains or cravings when the right balance of macro-nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fats) are provided, as your body will be getting all the building blocks it needs to keep it satisfied. You will never feel intense hunger when eating properly. Most people are surprised to discover how much food they can eat, when it is clean, healthy unprocessed food. The reason for this is that most of us have allowed ourselves to fall into the trap of becoming accustomed to restaurant food, packaged food, and fast food, almost all of which is highly concentrated and calorie-dense. So you need to pay attention to calorie density. Refined foods tend to have more calories packed into a smaller unit of volume which makes it easier to over consume calories. It is a good idea to count calories at the beginning of any period of a planned fat loss strategy. You can do this by creating a kind of calorie menu that allows you to keep tabs on yourself. When you use a meal planning worksheet you will be able to put in front of you a blueprint for the day that has all the calories proteins, carbohydrates, and fat all tallied and totaled so that you will have a visual guide that makes meal planning really easy to follow.
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Your worksheet will provide your eating goal for the day, and you can either take it with you or keep it on hand in the kitchen where it is right in front of you for the day. Your goal is to spread your calories throughout the day in four, five, or six small meals, as opposed to two or three big meals. Next you need to balance your macro-nutrients in every meal so you have the correct ratio of protein, carbohydrates, and fats in each of those meals. If we are talking about dinner, your meal will consist of a lean protein food like salmon, chicken breast, or lean beef. Protein should always be looked at as the foundation of your meal. To this, you then add a natural carbohydrate like brown rice or sweet potato. Finally, you should add a fibrous carbohydrate, like asparagus or broccoli, or maybe a green salad. And that basically is your meal. Simply use an online macro-nutrients calculator to determine how much of each of these macro-nutrients need to be added to your plate. By keeping a record of the serving sizes and the number of calories consumed with each meal you will be able to monitor just how much energy is feeding your metabolic engine every day. More importantly, your perfectly balanced meals will have you burning off body fat the moment the food gets past your lips. Your lean proteins include all meats, poultry, fish, eggs, and low fat dairy products. Then you are just combining them with a source of natural carbohydrate. Some people make the mistake of lumping all carbohydrates into the same category, believing them all to be fattening. What you need to do is make the distinction between processed, refined carbohydrates, and natural carbohydrates. Natural carbohydrates are the foods that grow in the ground or on a plant or tree, and are still mainly in their natural state when they appear on your plate. Examples of natural carbohydrates include all the vegetables, whole grain, legumes (beans), brown rice, and fruits.
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So now we have a protein food and a natural complex carbohydrate added to your dinner plate. You can complete the meal with small amounts of the healthy fats. Sources of healthy fats include flax oil, fish oil, flax seeds, fatty fish, seeds, nuts, and olive oil. You now have a well-balanced meal of macro-nutrients proteins, carbohydrates, and heart healthy fats. Now, the higher number of small meals that I recommend (4-6) can sometimes represent the biggest challenge for people new to the frequent-meals concept because they wonder how on earth they can eat every three hours. In all honesty, you do have to be organized and prepare your meals the night before so that you can take them with you wherever you go the next day. If you are traveling, you can substitute missed meals with meal replacement bars or drinks and keep emergency supplies handy, like almonds or other nuts, fruit, protein bars, and ready-made protein drinks that require no refrigeration. With a bit of practice it becomes second nature to think ahead and be prepared for most situations. We do not need any more diet programs A large fraction of the population has been sold on the idea that the answer to their fat loss problems is somehow going to be found in another diet program. But the truth of the matter is that the world does not need more diet programs. Instead, what we need is to change our eating behaviors. The problem with diets is they typically try to starve off the fat by cutting calories usually with daily calorie reductions that are far too drastic. Yes, often the diet appears to work for a time, and you think you are onto something when you see that gratifying initial drop in your body weight on the bathroom scale. But what happens to everyone eventually is that they plateau, and the weight loss comes to a screeching halt. The reason for this is that when you place your body on a diet it thinks you are starving and it quickly adapts. It begins burning fewer calories by adjusting your metabolism to match the reduced food intake.
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What happens next is that your energy levels plummet and your desire to be physically active drops away. Eating less food is therefore self destructive, as you end up with less strength, less fat burning, and less crucial energy to allow you to pursue the activities of day to day life. Pretty soon you have abandoned the diet because your life is stressful enough without having to deal with it when you feel constantly sapped of energy. So these quick fix methods rarely work, and we are often left with a sense of failure when the experience does not produce the results we expected. At the very least, the diet fails to maintain any achieved fat loss beyond anything but a short time after the diet is abandoned. So many people try to lose weight on their own with the latest miracle diet program. Unfortunately, most only end up suffering the consequences by negatively altering their metabolism and hormonal function. This then leaves their metabolic engine running at a slower speed, making further attempts at losing weight even more difficult than before. The true secret to fat loss is a very simple one, but it can be a challenge to implement. Without resorting to the expense (both financial and physical) of fad diets and dangerous pills, you can make just a few changes to your every-day lifestyle to begin losing the extra pounds. Be wary of the many so-called "health foods" as these usually turn out to be cleverly disguised junk foods that can actually stimulate your metabolism to help you gain more belly fat. This is yet another instance of the diet food marketing industry misrepresentations that do nothing more than help maximize their own profit line.
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Stick to your own healthy snacks. By adopting the do-it-yourself attitude, you can make healthy treats at home that will help you burn body fat, not STORE MORE OF IT!
Stable blood sugar levels are the key to reducing body fat To burn off body fat it is vital that you are able to maintain a stable blood sugar level. To do this you must feed your body frequently; like every 2-3 hours throughout the day. You should never go more than four hours without eating as your blood sugar level will drop, and if you eat too much at the next meal it will go shooting up again. Your small meals eaten often not only fuel your energy levels so you can put some effort into your exercise program, they also keep the metabolism cranking every minute of the day and night. So the food fuels two things your levels of effort with your exercise and making the body work hard at processing the natural foods. One of the biggest benefits to keeping your blood sugar level stable is that you never get ravenously hungry, so you avoid those intense food cravings which can lead to binges and overeating. Long periods without quality food will keep you on a roller coaster and work against the very thing you desire a firm, defined sexy mid section. If you find yourself experiencing extreme hunger (which you want to avoid) take a look at your meal frequency and food choices. Remember hunger is a pretty good indication that you need to eat. Your body is sending you signals for a reason. The reason could be that you missed breakfast or had a skimpy breakfast like a cereal out of a box that contains little to zero protein and that is not a substantial meal.
If you elect to eat a substantial breakfast - in fact, make it the biggest meal of the day - and then eat a mid-morning small meal, to be followed by a lunchtime balanced meal with a quality source of protein, then you will already be on meal four in the middle of the afternoon. When you get to dinner, you are not going to have those ravenous hunger pains and cravings that can cause you to overeat in the evening. If you are combining the foods properly, and you are avoiding refined sugar, then you are not going to be yo-yoing all over the place an eating pattern that triggers that type of hunger. Your food choices have a tremendous impact on your appetite and level of hunger. So if you are experiencing really severe hunger, you might want to ask yourself, Whats the cause? Am I skipping meals? Am I eating too much sugar? When I am starving later on, am I overeating as a result of that? Or am I feeding myself, like stoking a furnace, in small amounts at regular intervals throughout the day, keeping my blood sugar and insulin on an even keel and my hunger under control? When you are in too great a calorie deficit your body can perceive that as starvation, and it begins to fight your efforts to lose fat by decreasing your metabolism. Your rate of calorie burning slows down, your appetite increases and all kinds of hormonal and enzymatic changes take place that will make it more difficult to lose fat in the future if you keep cutting calories even further. So it is actually a very good idea to eat substantially more food every few days, or to have a day each week when you eat more. You only have to get it right 80 percent of the time for great results Try to live by the 80/20 rule. By this I mean that you try to eat right 80 percent of the time and you can have freedom in your food choices 20 percent of the time. If you try to be too strict and you limit yourself to totally natural food groups and you do not allow yourself that free meal every once in a while, you may be setting yourself up for cravings and bingeing. You may be setting yourself up for failure.
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If you build into your program a little bit of flexibility, and give yourself a few free meals each week, you allow yourself some leeway for things that just happen in life. Things like birthdays, holidays, and parties. Let yourself enjoy those occasions and you are more likely to stick with your plan the rest of the time. It becomes more do-able because you have allowed yourself that wiggle room, because you have said it is okay, and given yourself permission in advance to eat what you want 20 percent of the time. When you take this approach you will be much more likely to stick with the plan for the long haul than if you place yourself on a totally rigid diet. The most important idea to take from all the information presented so far is that you should stop looking for a magic bullet, or magic pills, and stop looking for the next big thing, and just take the time to master the fundamentals first. But knowing about them and abiding by them every single day are two completely different things so you will need to work at it and try to stick to: Eating a little less food than you are burning Eating small meals (5-7) every 2-3 hours throughout the day Eating some protein at each meal Getting rid of the processed and refined so called foods Eating as much unprocessed, natural clean foods as possible
The details do matter; everything helps or hurts. Whatever you do or do not do every single day is going to have some effect on which direction you go toward your goal or away from it and there really is no such thing as maintenance, technically. But to set a direction and get moving toward the body you want, you have got to master the fundamentals first and those things will give you 80 percent or even more of your results. You will not get there by continuing to search for a pill, some new breakthrough, some new diet plan, or some new research in the coming years.
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The only thing that is going to achieve what you are looking for is YOU! How to start burning more calories starting today When trying to lose fat and build some muscle so you can reshape your body, you need to find simple tricks to eliminate or burn more calories, whether it is through your exercise program or nutrition plan. Here are some simple things you can do to boost your calorie burning for faster fat loss. 1) Eat more vegetables. Try mixing and matching fresh vegetables for variety. Besides the numerous health benefits, most vegetables are full of fiber which will fill you up as well as burn more calories than eating other foods. If you do not like vegetables you are just going to have to find ways of including them, otherwise you will be denying your body many beneficial vitamins and nutrients. Just get over it and learn to like them. 2) Go ahead and snack. But snack on the good stuff, like raisins, nuts (especially almonds), vegetables, dried fruit, or your own homemade snacks from the recipes found here. Remember the importance of going no more than four hours without eating if you want to reshape your body and uncover your abdominals. Going too long between meals will burn off muscle and cause your body to store fat. Also what tends to happen is that you will have to endure intense food cravings which can send you spinning your wheels to the nearest drive thru without a second thought, so hungry have you become. Eating often and eating high quality food will eliminate these cravings and will make staying on your healthy eating plan so much easier. 3) Speaking of nuts, add nuts to anything you can. For example, yoghurt, on top of fruit salad, or even in green salads. Carry them around in your pocket for a snack or keep some in your car so you can grab them in a hurry. All nut varieties contain heart healthy fats which will help your fat loss.
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4) Specific food combinations can help to burn calories by ramping up your metabolism. Eat carbohydrates that are rich in fiber (not white flour and white sugar) as they take longer to digest and you will feel fuller for longer periods of time. Carbohydrate foods that are rich in fiber include sweet potatoes, yams, brown rice, and whole grains. Partner them with lean protein and you will have your metabolism humming. Your body burns more fuel (calories) when you eat protein than it burns digesting either fats or carbohydrates. The key to less abdominal fat is to speed up your metabolism By now you are starting to understand the principle of losing excess body fat through increasing your metabolic rate (which is the rate your body burns fuel) through exercise. When we perform exercise that works our muscular system, our bodies require more energy and our metabolism increases in order to supply it. The idea is to burn more calories every hour of the day and night even when doing very little, like sitting around or even sleeping. To make this happen not just any old exercise will do the job. It has to be the right kind of exercise one that involves strength training for at least 60 percent of the program, and some cardio interval training as well. When performed correctly, strength training increases energy expenditure during a training session using a high number of calories. Energy use continues to be elevated for a period ranging from two to fifteen hours depending on the intensity of the exercises performed and the resistance of the loads used. The increased energy demands are obtained by burning more calories every minute of the day and night, and a good portion of those calories are coming from stored fat. The addition of lean muscle tissue will cause an increase in the number of calories that are utilized at rest. So it is comforting to know while one is exerting oneself through a strength training session that the hard work will result in an increase in metabolism that continues to burn calories hours after a workout.
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This is a much easier way to lose that excess weight than deprivation diets; this way allows you more of everything more food, more energy, more strength, more fat loss, and more out of your life. Dieting and food restriction is the opposite less food, less energy, less strength, less fat loss, and less you. If you stick to your exercise program over a period of time you will find it gets easier and easier as you will benefit from positive hormonal changes. The feel good hormones will make you feel great, food cravings will be controlled with lower insulin levels, and you will have a higher metabolic rate burning calories around the clock. Unlike dieting, which few people can tolerate for long, increased strength and fitness quickly becomes a way of life. The stronger and fitter you become, the more you are inclined to move. Seeking daily activity becomes an almost instinctive habit, and when you feel like that you know you are truly there.
Tip #2 Strength Training Workouts Make The Best Fat Burners

Many people fail to get visible 6-pack abdominals because they spend entirely too much time focusing on training them at the expense of the rest of the body. As we have already discussed, getting yourself a visible six pack is all about getting down to a low body fat percentage. In order to do that, your workouts must focus on stimulating a fat burning hormonal environment in your body, and increasing your fat burning machinery your metabolic rate. That just does not happen when you focus too much time training a small muscle group like the abdominals. You need to focus on working the entire body with big exercises that work big muscle groups such as the back and legs. The very best exercises you can use are ones like dead lifts, all forms of squats, rowing exercises, standing overhead pressing, dips, and chin ups.
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You will be working your entire core when doing these BIG exercises. Your abdominals will be working hard to stabilize your whole body during these movements and you will get a better workout than by doing any little itsy bitsy crunch type movements. Many people gravitate towards working small muscle groups like biceps and chest as they are EASY. You hardly have to put in any effort at all when doing them. To get under a loaded squat bar and take the weight on your back and start squatting up and down, or hoist a heavy dead lift off the floor, takes courage and effort. But to get the metabolic response to burn off that stubborn body fat this is what you have to do. We now know that you only need to perform strength training exercise for the ultimate fat burning exercise. You could use it exclusively to burn fat, but the more you water down and turn your strength training into circuit type training for fat burning, the less strength and muscle growth you will get and the further you will be getting away from truly rebuilding your metabolism. There is a happy medium for people with weight loss and general fitness goals, where properly performed strength training can kill two birds with one stone. But you would need to kick up the intensity (degree of effort used) to get a double banger effect. What type of exercise do you think will help you shed fat faster? The one thing that can help you lose nasty abdominal fat in the fastest manner may surprise you. Are you ready? It is strength training exercise. Thats right. A growing body of proof shows that strength training can help you ditch that belly fat faster than doing just cardio exercise alone or by dieting without exercise.
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Here is why If you are an average adult who does not do enough muscle building and maintaining activity (six out of ten adults do not) you will be losing 5-7 pounds of muscle tissue every decade of your life. If you are fairly physically active you may lose a little less muscle tissue. If you diet frequently, you will undoubtedly lose significantly more which leads to a lower metabolic rate. The human body is made up of approximately 50 percent muscle tissue which is highly active with high fuel (calorie) demands, so losing even a little bit of muscle means a reduction in the metabolic rate. As the years pass by, this results in a cumulative slowdown of the metabolism for most people. Less energy used by your muscular system means more calories stored in your fat cells, which is the underlying cause of the gradual fat gain experienced by 75 percent of the western worlds population. So, to reverse this situation you need to re-build back your fat burning mechanism (your muscular system) and improve your metabolic health. There is only one way to do this and it means you will have to give your muscles the work they need to stay strong and healthy. When they are challenged with proper physical activity like strength training exercise, they are stimulated to release growth and repair hormones that rejuvenate your body at the cellular level. This is what will boost your metabolism to burn more fuel every minute of the day and night. For the last few decades people have been mislead into thinking that if they wish to burn body fat and become fitter that long slow aerobic activity (walking, jogging, cycling etc) is what they need to do. This type of activity does not work the muscular system through its ranges of movement under a load and is considered too low intensity to stimulate a long term increase in metabolism. This type of activity is now considered unnecessary and obsolete if a lean, strong, healthy body is what you wish to achieve.
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Only a regular strength training program can rebuild muscle tissue lost from inactivity so as to shrink an expanding waistline. The more muscle tissue you have the more calories you use round the clock, and the more efficient and effective your metabolism (your bodys engine) becomes. This not only helps you lose belly fat but will ensure you keep it off. It is best that your strength training program be set up and monitored by a fitness professional. It is important that you not only learn how to do the exercises correctly, but that you perform them with the right level of intensity (degree of effort) otherwise the results will be minimal. So get yourself started now on your strength training program and you will soon feel and see the positive results all over your body. And once you do, you will be inspired to build even more feel-good metabolic synergy into your health and fitness program so you are burning fat rather than storing it a much better option for long term weight control. To achieve the biggest results possible with your strength training exercises you should always be looking to increase the intensity by adding more resistance (weight), or getting more work done in less time. If you keep performing the same exercises with the same weight, and do the same number of repetitions, you will never progress. Never add more and more repetitions, get up to 8-10 and then add more weight to take you back to a maximum of 6 or so. Then work your way up again, and add more weight when you get there. Use short, hard cardio sessions to increase metabolism For cardio, forget long, slow, low intensity activities. Instead, most people will get great results using interval training. When you perform compound exercises and interval training, your muscles work harder and boost your metabolism higher than high-volume abdominal training or slow and steady cardio sessions.
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Secrets of high intensity interval training High intensity interval training will help you burn fat faster and with much less overall training time. Even so, most people today still perform endless amounts of low intensity aerobic exercise and wonder why they are not making the fat loss progress they desire. This happens for two reasons: First, most people still are not aware of the incredible fat burning potential of high intensity interval training. Secondly, this type of cardio fat loss training is very hard work. It is much easier to walk on a treadmill or spin a stationary bike for an hour than it is to do 10 or 15 minutes of interval training. It is not for the faint hearted and will push you right out of your comfort zone. With a typical aerobics fat burning program you perform your exercise (treadmill, stationary bike, elliptical trainer, etc.) in a steady state manner at around 60 75 percent of your maximum heart rate for at least 30 minutes. With interval training your workout sessions are much shorter and you can add a lot more variety into your program. High intensity interval training is just like it sounds, you alternate all out aerobic exercise with active rest. Always warm up before starting your intervals. If you are not in the best of shape break into it lightly, starting with more low or moderate intensity cardio. Interval training has been shown, in study after study, to be a much more effective fat burner than steady state aerobic exercise. You will: 1 - Burn more calories by elevating your metabolism so you lose fat faster 2 - Increase your power 3 - Increase your speed 4 - Increase your endurance
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No matter what your fitness goals, interval training is one of the best ways of helping you achieve them. And the variations are endless. You can vary the training parameters (exercise to rest ratio, number of intervals) to make the workouts harder or easier, and it is good to mix it up and keep changing the workout so your body never adjusts to the same old thing so results will keep coming. You can also use any number of exercises for your training, such as cycling, sprinting, treadmill, elliptical trainers, jump rope, rope climbing, hill sprints, and more. An example of this would be 10 seconds of sprinting then 30 seconds to one minute of walking. Repeat 8-12 times. This type of exercise can be done on a stationary cycle or any other cardio equipment for more comfort if one is overweight and cannot run easily. Here is an example of how you can do an interval training session. 4 minute warm up 30-60 seconds all out followed by easy recovery of 30-60 seconds. Start with 4-5 "sets" and work up to 8-10 then perform a 4 minute cool down Here is another example. Choose any type of activity and perform the interval session as follows once or twice each week. 4 minute warm up 20 seconds all out followed by 1 minute at easy pace. Perform 8 "sets" followed by 4 minute cool down Interval training burns more calories and fat long after you have finished your exercise session when compared to steady-state traditional cardio training that only burns fuel (calories) while you are doing them. Therefore, interval training will skyrocket your metabolic fitness and help you shed more fat while you are resting, sleeping, or parked on the couch watching a great movie.
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Another great interval training program is jump rope. You may need to practice a bit on this one. After a brief warm up, jump rope as fast as you can for about 1020 seconds followed by a slower cadence for about half to one minute. This form of interval training is brutal and will get your heart rate up fast! Abandon doing endless hours of aerobics that are not helping you reach your goals anyway. You will get more out of your cardio workout when you incorporate interval training. In fact, it has been said you get three times the results in half the time, and this may not be far from the truth. The ultimate hard body exercises As you may have already discovered, the squat along, with its mate the dead lift, is at the top of the heap when it comes to the most effective overall exercises for stimulating body composition changes (muscle gain and fat loss). This is because exercises like squats and dead lifts use more muscle groups under a heavy load than almost any other weight bearing exercises known to man. Hence, these exercises stimulate the greatest hormonal responses (growth hormone, testosterone, etc.) of all the exercises. Whether your goal is gaining muscle mass, losing body fat, building a strong and functional body, or improving athletic performance, the basic squat and dead lift (and their variations) are the ultimate solution. The best 5 seconds you can spend in your life The best way to transform your body is simple: Pick up a heavy weight and put it back down again. Squat down with a heavy weight on your back and stand up again. Nothing could be more basic and functional to the human body than these movements and nothing or no other exercises will get you results quicker than the squat and the dead lift will.
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These movements are as fundamental as walking. In daily life we all sit and stand, and pick things up. Squat and dead lift training is nothing more than the application of biomechanics to ensure these most primal of human movements are effortless, painless and efficient. These two movements have the power to enhance your health and vitality when practiced regularly. Both of these exercises have functional qualities that transfer over to virtually everything we do in our normal daily lives. These movements are called life movements and were not created by any trainer, coach, or exercise specialist. They are part and parcel to every human being. With the regular performance of these two basic exercises which every human being on the planet should be doing to keep their metabolism cranking to prevent the build up of excess belly fat you get to destroy belly fat, increase longevity, enhance healing through the hormonal response, boost athleticism, maintain top physical function, and prevent and rehabilitate a whole host of biomechanical disorders. In short, these exercises help to get you into fantastic shape and keep you there. A bit of dead lift history In the late 1800s, a simple exercise called the health lift the original lift was believed to provide the only physical fitness a man needed. The health lift was a very simple exercise. Pile heavy objects onto a machine, and then lift it. Workout completed, fitness and health improved instantly.
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Today we have another name for that exercise: the dead lift. And it is still king for developing total-body strength and muscle. But most 21st-century men avoid dead lifts because we have been told, rightly so, not to lift with our backs. Sure, you can lift without your back, much like you can speak without your tongue. But it is not very efficient or effective. The dead lift works wonders on your physique for the exact reason the move's opponents avoid it: It requires a team effort from hundreds of muscles, including those in your lower back. As a result, you become more proficient at a basic human movement. Need to pick your kids off the floor dead lift. Shift the lounge room furniture around dead lift. Take out the trash dead lift. Pick up a heavy object dead lift. In fact, it is a well known fact that the inclusion of squats and dead lifts as a staple in a training program increases upper body development in addition to lower body development, even though upper body specific joint movements are not performed during these two exercises. So if you train your legs properly your biceps will grow as well. Now that is real bang for your buck.
Tip #3 You WILL Be Required To Put Some Effort Into It

To get really lean you are going to have to get strong. When you are strong you will have the metabolism of a race horse chewing into those fat stores. But to get strong does require some high intensity training. The quickest way to add this intensity or degree of difficulty is to use the most demanding exercises, such as the ones discussed above. This will ensure you get three times the results in half the time.
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Wasting time with isolation exercises like abdominal exercises and small muscle groups will do little to stimulate the hormones that will change your metabolism and kick it into high gear. If low intensity activity was able to achieve this then everybody would be walking around with defined abdominal muscles. In reality this is far from the truth. The reason that the six pack is rare is simply that most people are lazy and they just do enough to get by in the gym. Do not expect to ever see your abdominal muscles if you have an attitude like this.
Tip #4 You Will Be In It For The Long Haul

If you are not really thinking about long term permanent fat loss, then ultimately you are wasting your time. There is no problem with people losing weight. The problem is the inability to keep the weight off. Around 95 percent of the people who do lose weight gain it back within a year. These people are going about it the wrong way losing weight with pills, crash diets, and other quick fixes. The right way is to burn the calories with exercise and support your proper workouts with good nutrition. You should look at these strategies for achieving lean abdominals as a lifestyle change, not as a temporary change. If your perspective is, Okay, I am going to be on this diet for 12 weeks, and you say, This is going to take 12 weeks of my time, then it is not really a long term plan, and you could be setting yourself up for failure. What happens on day one of week 13? You must adopt the long-term perspective. You really need to make this plan for success a part of your life. Ultimately, when you want to maintain your weight loss (fat loss) results for the rest of your life, you will need to do the SAME things you would do when attempting to shed body fat.
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The only difference is, when you want to lose fat, rather than simply maintain your current level of body fat, you are going to eat a little bit less, you are going to eat smaller portions, and you are going to exercise more. What you ultimately want is for the things you need to do every day to get and remain lean to become habits completely ingrained in your lifestyle. Especially on the nutrition side of things, you want to get to the point where you do not have to think about them consciously anymore. So, you just reach for the right foods at the right times and take the right actions automatically just as easily as you would take a shower, or brush your teeth, or get dressed in the morning. These are behaviors that are ongoing and part of our lives. It should be the same way with exercising correctly and eating quality nutrition. So try not to look at the learning period for this lifestyle change as a time investment that you cannot afford. You have to eat and stay strong anyway in order to live a long and healthy life, so this is something that is well worth the time and energy.
Tip #5 Do Not Buy Useless Supplements

You DO NOT need to waste your money on expensive extreme fat burner pills or other ripped like bogus supplements. There are a lot of so called experts who say that controlling appetite with various compounds (drugs or natural supplements) is a completely acceptable and effective way to help people lose weight. That may be true if you are talking about temporary weight loss and if you are okay with using drugs and a lot of people are OK with it. This is totally short term thinking though, especially when you figure that you can control appetite just by eating properly and avoiding the types of junk food, refined sugars, and harmful chemicals in most so called foods today that make your blood sugar go haywire.
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The importance of body fat percentage for visible abdominals The most important factor in developing eye-catching abdominal muscles is having a low body fat percentage, plain and simple. If you want to show off your mid section at the beach, you have to get lean. In fact, if you did nothing else but lower your body fat levels through nutrition and proper training, then you would be 90 per cent of the way to having to die for abdominals. To have abdominals that are defined and visible you need to get your body fat below 10-12 percent if you are a male, and in the range of about 13-19 if you are female. To assist you with this goal it is important to monitor your body composition (muscle/ body fat ratio) on a consistent basis to make sure that you are heading in the right direction. So if you can, have your body fat tested every 3-4 weeks by a fitness professional under the same conditions each time (i.e. before a workout, at the same time of day, on the same day of the week, and after eating the same meal each time). You would be surprised how small fluctuations in these simple variables can influence the outcome of body fat tests. Getting your body fat tested regularly will help you evaluate your progress both with your nutrition plan and exercise program, so that you can alter either of them as you make your way to the best beach body you have ever had. Here is a secret that you will loveThe more muscle you have, the better the odds you have of getting your abdominals to show through, even if your body fat is at 12-15%. A male bodybuilder with loads of toned muscle might be able to get away with a 4-pack at that level. To get fully in shape complete with visible abdominals, you have to build muscle and lose fat. Fortunately, the training methods for lowering your body fat are simple. The number one principle is that you have to work hard at strength training, do your cardio interval training, and eat high quality nutrition. As you can see, there is no such thing as an overnight lean abdomen. But that does not mean you have to undergo a long and painful process either.
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In summary, getting lean abdominals can be broken down into these 3 simple steps: [1] Limit or even lessen the excess fat storage by controlling your diet. [2] Burn ever more fat by raising your metabolic rate through full-body strength training exercises. [3] Add 1-2 interval training sessions each week for 15-20 minutes to boost your fat burning rate.
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Abdominal Exercise Routines

We could call our abs buried treasure because most people already have fairly well developed abdominal muscles without realizing it. But you can uncover your prize and reveal your six pack with a combination of good quality nutrition, strength training exercise, and of course some specific exercises to give your abs some fine tuning so you can present them at their best.
Chapter Three -
What do our abdominal muscles really do?

Your six pack (or two pack or four pack) is a group of four sets of muscles with tongue twisting names like rectus abdominus, transverse abdominus, external obliques and the internal obliques. These muscle groups are positioned on the front and sides of your torso and are attached to bony surfaces on the rib cage and the pelvis. The six pack look that most of us desire is created by thin bands of connective tissue.
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The function of these muscles is to bend and flex the spine forward bringing your chest down towards your pelvis such as you would need to do when tying your shoe laces. This is why we do the ever popular crunch exercise so we can strengthen the muscles in this plane of movement. The deepest of the abdominal muscles are the transverse abdominus. They act like a corset wrapping around the trunk holding all of your insides inside. They provide stability to the core of the body and are the muscles that give you a tight, flat, tummy. Last but not least the internal and external oblique muscles that run diagonally across the torso so you can rotate and move at different angles following the paths that the muscle fibers run in. When you twist your upper body or bend sideways these are the muscles that allow you to make these movements. When you think about it everything we do involves twisting to some degree, at work, around the house or in most physical activities there are many combinations of bends and twists. There are also many sports that require rotation by the middle of your body often at top speed to generate maximum power such as tennis, golf, or cricket. When you add a long lever like a tennis racket or golf club driving the torso around at high speed takes skill and superb muscle conditioning to twist a human body that hard without creating some kind of injury to the spine.
They call it core training now

This is the latest buzz word for abdominal exercise. This involves specific exercises for all of the above muscles along with the muscles in your back, chest, hips, pelvis and upper thighs. The core is then exercised as a complete unit as opposed to the old fashioned way of isolating and working just the muscle that is known as the six pack the rectus abdominus. Even the lower back is exercised as part of the core as there is a very important relationship between the lower back muscles called erector spinae and the abdominals. They work together but in an opposing fashion, one complementing the other. One group cannot work effectively unless the other is working effectively also.
For example, say you bend over to pick something off the floor. Your abdominal muscle action allows you to bend, and then the lower back muscles allow you to return to the upright position again. To keep this alliance working well it is important to therefore exercise these muscle groups together. Neglecting to do this and focusing on, say, just the abdominal muscles, means they become stronger than the lower back muscles. This upsets the balance and sets the stage for poor posture and injury to the weaker lower back muscles. It has been estimated that two thirds of back strength comes from the abdominal muscles so it is vitally important to work the back muscles equally to stop any imbalance from occurring.
The core is the foundation of the human body

All of our movements originate from the body core. Whether we are brushing our hair or climbing a mountain. If the strength, stability, and flexibility of this important central part of the body are allowed to deteriorate it will have a limiting effect on all physical capabilities, whether in sport or simple every day tasks and activities. The addition of core strengthening exercises to your whole body workout routines will result in the beneficial spin off of improved strength and flexibility for the limbs. Each time movement is initiated, the abdominal muscles fire up first to stabilize the body before the leg or arm muscles fire up so stability around the core is paramount to safe movement. Not only does core strength and stability confer an advantage in most sports, it helps with the repetitive movements of every day life, making chores and tasks easier by reducing the amount of effort required.
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The more we understand the human body, the more we see that by isolating and emphasizing any single body part or group of muscles during exercise, the less we are able to benefit by treating the body as one whole unit. The prevailing wisdom today says that abs should no longer be viewed as a separate body part, but as part of a group whose united purpose is to move and protect the spine and pelvis. Thus the best way to train your abdominal muscles is to train them as part of the core unit. So if you wish to build yourself a visible six pack the recommended approach is to avoid the pursuit of endless repetitions of crunches, and to incorporate multiple exercises that will take your ab training to a whole new level.
Protect yourself from a back injury

When we suffer a lower back injury, often we are not aware that the likely cause of the injury is weak back muscles and that this has caused a loss of stability of the entire group of core muscles. After all, it is the job of the lower back muscles to support and stabilize the spine and if they become weak they will be unable to maintain the correct posture that your body needs for everything to work efficiently. Strength in the mid-section of the body is what gives the entire skeleton support, holding bones in place and reducing strain on the joints that allow the bones to move. You get a bonus when you train all of the muscles around your midsection. Any postural imbalances will be corrected, reducing the risk of lower back injuries. Everyone from occasional exercisers, weekend warriors, to elite athletes, can benefit from keeping their mid-section strong and stable. The pattern of our movements in life is universal, no matter what tasks or activities we engage in, so we need to keep strong to decrease our risk of injury and improve our physical performance.
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How do I strengthen my body core?

There are many different exercise routines and products that work the core muscles. Many of the products work to strengthen the core by creating resistance, or by introducing instability so that these muscles must respond to maintain balance. Many of these exercises feel gentle but are actually intense, and you can quickly feel the muscles being used. Other exercises imitate natural moves we use in every day life or sporting activities, so the core becomes stronger, reducing the strain on our limbs. One of the popular products to strengthen this area is the Swiss Ball, which is also known as a Fitness Ball. The Swiss Ball provides an unstable platform so the bodys core is forced to compensate and employ strength to maintain balance and stability. On a normal gym bench or even on the floor the body is supported, so these muscles do not need to be engaged. A Swiss Ball is also excellent for sitting at a desk for long periods of time, making it a good alternative to a chair. Keeping the muscles moving gently with the unstableness of the ball means that circulation is maintained and stops blood from pooling in tissues that are generally squashed in a normal chair. It also means that blood, which carries oxygen and nutrients, continues to get pushed to areas like the spine to maintain its health. There are other tools that can train your abdominal muscles. These add variety and some of them are fun to do. Changing exercises frequently is a good practice because then the body does not get used to the same old exercises that become ineffective when the body adjusts to them and therefore has no need to compensate any longer. The other tools that can be used to strengthen the core include gym equipment, such as standard flat benches, cable exercises, pin and plate loaded machines that work the lower back and the front abdominals, plus machines that twist and add resistance to strengthen the oblique muscles.
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There are also simpler, portable pieces of equipment that can be used, such as: Medicine Balls Kettlebells Stability balls Bosu ball, balance/wobble boards Dumbbells and barbells Body weight exercises
How to work your abdominal muscles without directly working them

Strength training exercise is great for your core too A strong mid-section is essential to correctly perform your main strength training exercises so that you can lift a maximum amount of weight to produce the biggest muscle tissue gains while at the same time also reduce your risk of injuries. You may not realize it but when you perform big strength training exercises like the squat, dead lift, overhead press, chin ups and dips with free weights, you are giving your mid-section a workout at the same time. For example, when you do a squat exercise with a loaded barbell across your upper back you are working much more than your legs. Your entire body has to brace itself to remain stable while you perform the actual movement. Your midsection in particular is working extra hard just to keep you upright as the weight is directly on the top of your back trying to push you into the floor. The same happens when you perform an overhead standing barbell press. Your abdominal, lower back, and oblique muscles are contracted to create the stable base you need to press from. You are also holding your breath during the lifting part of the exercise, bracing and creating a solid protective belt around your entire mid section. As you press overhead you can feel the weight fighting to move your body back and away from it and your core (of muscles) is the army working hard to stabilize your body.
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If you are already implementing a proper strength training program and performing it at the right level of intensity (degree of effort) it is optional whether you add extra core exercises into your program. Every single strength training exercise is working the area to some degree and if you choose not to do any isolation or core exercises it means you can devote more energy and effort to your big exercises, which are going to get you in good shape all over. Many competitive bodybuilders do not do any, or they do very little, abdominal work year round. Then just before a competition they will add some to their routine to ensure they squeeze every bit of definition from their six pack.
Here are some of the most common abdominal exercises

The basic effective abdominal crunch is simple
Lay on your back on the floor with your lower back pressed firmly into the floor, feet flat on the floor and knees bent, and hands placed behind your head to support your neck. This is really a very small movement; you are just lifting your shoulders off the floor a couple of inches. Your head should not come forward rather, imagine you are lifting it up towards the ceiling. Pause, then gently lower back down to the floor.
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You can also place some weight in the form of a dumbbell or weight plate on your chest if you wish to make the exercise more intense. You can also do this movement on a Swiss Ball as shown.
Shown below is a twisting crunch variation. Bring an elbow to meet your opposite knee. Pause, and alternate sides for a great exercise that works the front and sides of your core.
Plank The plank is a body weight exercise that works your entire mid-section. Lie face down then lift your body off the floor so that your weight is on your forearms and your toes.
(You are in a pushup position but on your elbows rather than on your hands.) Keep your body in a straight position without any sagging in your abdominal area. One repetition of lift, hold, and lower should be done slowly and take at least ten seconds. Hold each repetition for 30 seconds to one minute You are using your abdominal and core strength to hold your body in a straight line. It will also work the deep lying core muscles that support your lower back. Perform one or two sets of 8-10 repetitions and rest 30 seconds between each set.
More intense variations of the plank: Rise up into a push up position with your arms straight. Lift one arm up or one leg and hold. Here is a tough one Take a Swiss ball then put your elbows, just your elbows, on the ball then walk your feet back into the standard plank position as you would do on the floor. Keep your buttocks tight and do not allow your lower back to sag down towards the floor. If you cannot keep holding your body straight, terminate the exercise, have a rest and try again for however long you can hold the correct position. The instability of the ball makes this exercise a lot harder. Vee-sit and hold This one really targets the abdominal muscles and all of the muscles in your core. Lie on the floor on your back and bend upwards at the waist bringing your legs and arms into the air to form a V shape.
Hold this position for a few seconds, rest and repeat a couple of times.
Here is an exercise that you can do anywhere Abdominal Bracing Here is an easy exercise you can do anytime or anywhere that requires no equipment to keep your core muscles strong. You can do it while sitting at a desk, while driving, walking, or standing in line somewhere. Pull your tummy button in towards your spine and hold for a few seconds. This action primarily recruits your six pack muscles and will keep them strong. You can start with 6-8 repetitions of 8-10 seconds daily to build strength around your midsection. This simple exercise will improve your posture along with strengthening your abdominals, and can even enhance digestion. Make sure you keep breathing evenly and avoid holding your breath. Overall strength is important at every age and fitness level. Whatever your health and fitness goals you need to include some mid-section strengthening whether indirectly with your strength training program or directly with abdominal exercises. Being stronger will allow you to do all the every day tasks and activities you need and desire to do easier.
Chapter Four -
The Fat Burner Eating Plan

Elsewhere in this book we have covered the exercise aspect of how to get into the sort of shape that is needed to reveal your abdominal muscles and show off a sexy set of six-pack abs. But this is just half the story. The reason your abdominal muscles are currently covered with a layer of excess fat is because you have, over a period of time, consumed more calories daily than your body requires to get by in the short term. So to accelerate the rate at which that fat comes off, and to keep it off for good once you have reached your ideal body weight, you are going to have to adopt a plan for eating that sits well with your new body. In this section of the book you will learn how to modify your eating habits and eat healthy not ALL the time, but often enough that it makes a real difference to your ability to shed fat and keep it off for good. Fortunately, if you want a lean body, complete with visible and defined abdominal muscles, you will not need to starve yourself to get there. Unlike a traditional diet where you deprive yourself of the food you love, the Fat Burner Eating Plan that you are about to learn is a more practical approach to weight loss one that allows you to use food to lose fat. It is a simple plan that allows you to eat all the foods you love maybe all the same foods you are eating right now, but with a few tweaks that will speed up your metabolism (your bodys engine) so your body burns off unwanted fat instead of storing it.
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There will be no restrictions, no starving, no uncontrollable food cravings, no having to count calories and no prepackaged diet food. You will discover that there are some small changes to the way you eat your normal and favorite foods that will give you great fat loss results. You will also discover how to eat to be lean and healthy for the rest of your life. On the Fat Burner Eating Plan you do not eat less food you actually will be eating more. Not only will you eat three full meals each day, you will also eat healthy snacks in between each meal. This ensures that your bodys fat burning engine is running on high both all day and all night long, burning off that unwanted layer of fat around your mid-section. On this plan you should never go longer than three hours without eating. The trick is to eat your food in the right combinations of macro-nutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) and in amounts that keep your body in a favorable fat burning state.
Why it works
The Fat Burner Eating Plan is perhaps the single most important aspect of the Secrets to Sexy Abs program. In fact, the secret to eating in a way that will cause you to lose excess body fat rather than continue to gain it lies in the simple food proportions of this plan. What makes the Fat Burner Eating Plan so effective is that it combines the two most successful strategies for shedding excess body fat.
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Strategy Number One Naturally accelerates your metabolism With the correct proportions and combinations of Protein, Fast Carbohydrates, and Slow Carbohydrates, your blood sugar and insulin levels remain stable which is the right environment for your body to burn up stored fat. You will discover that you will still be able to eat your favorite foods, which include Fast Carbohydrates like bread and pasta, sweets, and even alcohol, without switching your body into fat storing mode. Powered by small, frequent meals eaten throughout the day, your metabolism will be running as fast as possible all day long to burn unwanted fat from your body. Strategy Number Two Calorie intake is reduced naturally To be able to lose body fat you have to create a calorie deficit which means you have to burn more calories than you are taking in. Normally you would have to count calories to achieve this but with this simple plan you dont need to do this as the proportions of the foods in the portion charts will keep you in the desired favorable range of calories that will allow fat loss. Since the Fat Burner Eating Plan meal automatically accomplishes both of these strategic objectives, by following its simple proportions at each meal it becomes easy to lose all the weight you want and keep it off for the long term.
How your body processes the food you eat

To understand how the Fat Burner Eating Plan works it is important to understand what your body does with the food you eat. Everything you eat and drink is made up from one or more of the following macro-nutrients and they each play a different and important role in nourishing and helping your body work more efficiently.
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Proteins Protein should form the basis and the center piece of every single Fat Burner Meal. It is the most important macro-nutrient and the very first thing you choose when putting together and creating a meal for fat loss. Protein comes primarily from animal sources meat, poultry, fish, and dairy, as well as soy. It is a major source of the amino acids which are the building blocks to rebuild and replace our bodys tissues. Protein, from the Greek word protas, which means of primary importance, has a leading role in the formation of muscle tissue and also has the ability to increase your energy levels, keep you feeling full and satisfied. It also has other benefits, elevating your mood, increasing mental focus, supporting your metabolism, and strengthening and protecting your immune system. Many people who go on weight loss programs mistakenly reduce their protein intake thinking that it is loaded with fat, which is a big mistake. Our muscle tissue which is responsible for an efficient fat burning metabolism is comprised of amino acids that we get from the protein we ingest. If you do not maintain adequate protein intake you are likely to lose lean muscle tissue instead of body fat. Balanced meals rich in quality protein have the ability to provide long lasting fullness, freedom from hunger and cravings for hours after eating. This makes protein the shining star of any fat loss plan. Protein, as part of a balanced meal, also slows the release of carbohydrates into the bloodstream. This keeps your blood sugar stable which is a requirement of a fat burning metabolism.
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In addition to its role in the renewal, repair, and regeneration of cells and tissues, our good friend protein also boosts our metabolism and the rate we burn fuel (calories). Your body has to work extra hard to break down protein, and approximately 30 percent of its caloric value is lost during the conversion into energy. Wherever or whenever you eat, whether it is at home, eating out, at work, on the road, or on the go, make the selection of a source of quality protein your first task then everything else about eating fat burning meals is easy and will quickly fall into place. Carbohydrates These come primarily from plant sources, and include all fruits and vegetables as well as foods made from processed grains and sugars like bread, baked goods, sweets and alcohol. All carbohydrates are converted by the body first to glucose (blood sugar) then they can be used for energy or stored as fat. Some carbohydrates are converted very quickly to sugar and enter the bloodstream fast. These are known as Fast Carbs. Others, because of their higher fiber and nutrient content are converted more slowly and enter the blood-stream slowly and are therefore known as Slow Carbs. The type of carbohydrates eaten at any given meal (which determines the rate they are converted into sugar) and the total amount is of utmost importance to any weight loss plan and will determine whether your body burns fat or stores fat.
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Fats Fats are found in almost all of the proteins all animal sources. Other foods that contain fat are nuts and seeds, whole grains, vegetable oils and dark green vegetables. The fats found in fish, nuts, and grains contain essential fatty acids necessary for critical body processes as well as healthy skin, nails and hair, and the health of our joints. Many traditional weight loss programs not only restrict food, but they also ask people to give up one of the macro-nutrients (protein, carbohydrates or fats) to hasten weight loss. Some even focus on cutting out so much fat or lowering carbohydrates to the point of eating totally unbalanced meals. Not only is this approach very unhealthy your body really needs all of these macro-nutrients for proper healthy functioning of all of its systems the bigger problem is that nobody can stick to these unbalanced approaches for long because they are so limited nutritionally. How can we live the rest of our life without enjoyable and delicious foods that may include bread, pasta or cheese, or treats like wine or chocolate? The good news is on the Fat Burner Eating Plan you do not have to give up any of these important macro-nutrients and you do not have to give up any of your favorite foods. You may not be able to eat as much of them as you would like, but you can still include them and that does make a big difference to our enjoyment of life. Once you discover how each of these macro-nutrients work in your body and how you can eat them in a way that stops insulin spikes and surges that shunt glucose into fat stores, you will know forever how to eat in a way that will not cause you to gain weight.
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Understanding Fast Carbs and Slow Carbs

Whenever you eat a meal, a complicated series of chemical reactions takes place that convert the food you eat into energy your body can use. This is what your metabolism is responsible for, and some of these reactions cause your body to store fat and others cause it to release fat. The reaction that we are mostly concerned with when it comes to fat loss is the conversion of carbohydrates into glucose (blood sugar). This particular reaction is very important, because if your blood sugar level gets too high your body releases a fat storing hormone called insulin to clear the excess sugar from the blood stream. And guess where it puts it, on your mid-section or onto the other fat storage depots in your body. What the Fat Burner Eating Plan does is ensure that you do not eat in a way at any time that allows your blood sugar level to get so high that your body has to release a flood of insulin. You need to eat in a way that keeps your blood sugar and insulin levels low and stable, so you keep your body in fat burning mode. There are three important factors that determine whether a meal will put your body into a favorable fat burning mode or whether it will spike insulin levels and send it into fat storage mode. Factor One The type of carbohydrates you eat Different types of carbohydrates convert into glucose at different rates, and the faster a carbohydrate converts to sugar in your body the more likely it is to increase insulin levels to signal fat storage.
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Factor Two Combine carbohydrates with other foods When you eat a meal your body reacts to the makeup of all the calories in all the macro-nutrients in the entire meal so how you combine them is important for you to achieve your fat loss goals. For example, by combining your Fast Carbs (bread, wine, pasta etc) with high-fiber Slow Carbs (vegetables), proteins, and healthy fats, you can slow down the conversion of the Fast Carbs in the meal. This will help keep your blood sugar levels from rising too quickly and causing a spike which triggers a surge of insulin. Factor Three Watch the total number of calories in a meal Too many calories from carbohydrates, or simply too many calories overall will simply overwhelm the bodys systems. When this provides more sugar and more fuel (calories) than the body can use in the short term the body will have no choice but to release insulin and store the excess calories as fat. All of these factors have to do, to some degree, with how the food you eat affects blood sugar levels. The purpose of this simple plan is to show you how to properly control your blood sugar. Once you discover how you can control this easily you will be well on the way to unveiling those abdominal muscles.
The difference between Fast Carbs and Slow Carbs

Fast Carbs: generate a faster and higher increase in blood sugar levels usually provide higher total calories with less fiber per serving often are found in highly refined and processed foods are usually low in protein and fiber and high in starchy foods are found in most fruits, with the exception of tomatoes, avocados, berries and cherries
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Slow Carbs: generate a slower and smaller increase in blood sugar levels usually provide lower total calories and more fiber per serving often are found in most vegetables and legumes (peas, beans and lentils) are found less often in processed or refined foods, but are richer in fiber and closer to their natural state are higher in protein and fiber with little to no starch Understand fiber in your food and how it can help you lose body fat The higher the fiber content in a given food the less impact it has on your blood sugar levels. This is because fiber reduces the digestibility of carbohydrates and therefore limits the amount of sugar that can be easily extracted. Fiber is the indigestible portion of your food. Vegetables especially are generally loaded with it, and although it is passed through our body as waste, it is vitally important to overall health. It also aids in the slowing down of the conversion of carbohydrates to glucose in the body which means that it is of critical importance to losing body fat. Why fiber is great for fat loss zero calories but takes up space in our stomach giving us a full feeling binds with fats in our food preventing some from being absorbed slows the conversion of carbohydrates to sugar which keeps us burning fat How you can eat Fast Carbs and still lose weight So, how do you eat carbohydrates without sending your body into fat storing mode? That is easy; you simply eat them as part of a Fat Burner Meal and never on their own.
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The proportions of your Fat Burner Meal are set out in the following portion charts and will ensure that you always have enough protein, fat or fiber to slow the conversion of carbohydrates into sugar. The way these meals are made up makes sure you do not spike your blood sugar levels, flooding your body with that pesky fat storing hormone insulin.
How to make a Fat Burner Meal

The first question you ask yourself is What is my protein going to be? Every Fat Burner Meal starts with one portion of protein, which is meat, fish, poultry, or soy products. A portion is generally about the size and thickness of the palm of your hand. Next you ask yourself What is my carbohydrate going to be? A carbohydrate is generally anything that once grew in the ground like some sort of plant or tree or is made from something that once grew in the ground. It is not animal based like protein. There are two types of carbohydrates Slow and Fast Carbs. As I have mentioned in the previous section, Slow Carbs are found in foods like fibrous vegetables, greens, beans and berries. Fast Carbs are found in foods like sweet fruits, starchy vegetables like potatoes and rice, as well as foods made with processed grains and sugars, like bread, pasta, cookies, cake, candy and alcoholic beverages. Once you have identified your protein and your carbohydrate, making your Fat Burner Meal is easy. The most basic Fat Burner Meal is one portion each of protein, a Fast Carb, and a Slow Carb. There are several different combinations that you can enjoy that will cause your body to burn fat.
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The three basic versions There are three basic versions of a Fat Burner Meal. To maximize your fat burning metabolism and get it running efficiently at each of your meals make sure you have one portion of Protein and any type of the following combinations of Fast and Slow Carbs. Version A Protein + Fast Carb + Slow Carb The classic Fat Burner Meal This classic is simply one portion of each. Contents = 1 portion protein + 1 portion Fast Carb + 1 portion Slow Carb Examples: Piece of beef steak, baked potato and vegetables Or chicken, asparagus, side salad and a glass of wine Or spaghetti and meatballs with side salad Or piece of fish with baked sweet potato chips and green beans
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Version B Protein + Slow Carb (NO Fast Carb) If you do not feel like having a Fast Carb with your meal, you can leave it out but then you will need to increase the amount of your Slow Carb to three portions. This scenario is common for big salads with meat or chicken and stirfry dishes as they are made up of a protein plus mainly vegetables which are Slow Carbs. Contents = 1 portion protein + 3 portions Slow Carb Example: Salmon and vegetables or chicken and large salad
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Version C Protein + Fast Carb (NO Slow Carb) Often when on the run, or maybe for breakfast, it is hard to always get a Slow Carb into the meal. In these cases you can simply omit the Slow Carb although the fiber in Slow Carb has so many benefits it is best to try and get them into your meals where you can. Content = 1 portion Protein + 1 portion Fast Carb Example: Protein shake or scrambled eggs on toast
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Version D - Meals that are made up with combined ingredients Not every meal has all three macro-nutrient components Protein, Fast Carb, and Slow Carb neatly separated. Sometimes a meal will come with two or more of the components combined together. When you have a portion of Protein and a portion of Fast Carb combined into one item like a sandwich (bread = Fast Carb and meat = Protein) you have a complete Fat Loss meal in a single food item.
Examples of combined meals Lasagna = protein beef, Fast Carb pasta, Slow carb vegetables Beef stew = protein beef, Fast Carb potatoes, Slow Carb - vegetables Bowl of cereal = protein cereal/milk, Fast Carb milk/cereal, Slow Carb none Soup made with meat (protein) and vegetables (Slow Carbs)
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How to eyeball portion size Having the proper portions of each of the types of macro-nutrients your protein, carbohydrates and fats, is critical to maximizing weight loss for two reasons. First, having the right amount of protein and a fibrous Slow Carb combined in the right portions with your Fast Carb will keep your body out of fat storing mode. Additionally, the simple easy-to-eyeball proportions on the following pages naturally make sure that you are eating enough calories at each meal to optimize the burning of body fat as we need to eat enough food to coax our body into giving up its fat stores. These portion charts mean you do not have to count calories, points or fat grams and you do not have to weigh and measure your food. The only reference you will ever need to be able to estimate the proper portion size of any food you eat is something that you have with you every moment of the day your own right hand. Eyeballing protein portions Most proteins are measured using the palm of your hand. The measure is from the heel of your hand to where your fingers begin.
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Some protein portions that are lower in fat are measured from the heel of your hand to the your first knuckle
A portion of protein is also the approximate thickness of your hand.
Eyeballing carbohydrate portions Most Fast Carbs and Slow Carbs are estimated with your fist and sometimes half of a fist. A fist size is approximately the height and width of your clenched fist. A half fist is equal to the top half of your fist down to the bottom of your knuckles including your thumb.
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Note on portion sizes: Foods that are high in processed grains, refined sugars, and fats, tend to be very calorically-dense essentially they pack huge amounts of calories into small portions. Therefore the portion size of these calorie dense foods tend to be smaller to maintain the effective proportions of a Fat Burner Meal. Eyeballing Free Carb portions Some Slow Carbs such as vegetables are so high in fiber and low in calories that it is virtually impossible to eat too many of them. They are marked Free Carbs on the portion charts, and you can have as many of these as you want at any meal. Note: If your meal has no Fast Carbs (meal version B) you need to make sure that you have at least 2 portions of Slow Carbs to ensure you are getting enough food to keep your metabolism firing on all cylinders. Polish your portion estimating skills One of the best ways to ensure that you are always getting the right portions of each type of food to maximize weight loss is to start to get a good feel for what is a correct portion. Take a measuring cup and measure out a portion of breakfast cereal, a portion of milk, a portion of cooked pasta, a portion of rice, and any other food that you are likely to eat often. What you will likely find is that a cup of cereal measures less than you would expect. Similarly, to get an accurate sense of what a portion of protein or meat really looks like get a kitchen scale and weigh 4 ounces of steak or 6 ounces of chicken. This will help you form a picture in your mind of what an accurate portion size looks like. Then you will find it is much easier to estimate portion sizes in the future, especially when away from home.
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Protein Portions
Lean meats Portion sizes visual cue 1 palm down to the first knuckle on your fingers. Males 4-6 oz Women 3-5 oz Extra lean ground beef Flank, sirloin, fillet steak Pork tenderloin or center loin Lean lamb cuts (leg, loin) Venison, rabbit or any game meat Low fat and fat free deli type meats
Light Meat Poultry Portion sizes visual cue 1 palm down to the first knuckle on your fingers Males 4-6 oz Women 3-5 oz Chicken breast Turkey breast Ground chicken breast Cornish hen Low fat and no fat luncheon meats
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Fatty meats Portion sizes visual cue 1 palm size to base of fingers Men 4oz Women 3 oz Regular ground beef Ham Hot dogs, sausages and bacon Spareribs Cured meats like salami and ham
Dark Meat Poultry/Game birds Portion size - visual cue 1 palm size to first knuckle on fingers Males 4-6 oz Women 3-5 oz Dark meat chicken - thigh, leg meat Dark meat turkey - thigh leg meat Duck Pheasant Quail Goose
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Fish / Seafood Portion size visual cue 1 palm size down to first knuckle on fingers Men 4-6 oz Women 3-5 oz Albacore tuna Halibut Snapper Swordfish Herring Lobster Crab Clams Mussels Fatty Fish Portion size visual cue 1 palm size to base of fingers Salmon Sardine Lake trout Herring Rainbow trout Orange roughey John Dory Mahi Mahi Mackerel Shrimp Prawns Oysters Scallops
Whole Eggs/Egg Whites Portion size Males 2 whole eggs with 2 egg whites Women 1 whole egg with 2 egg whites
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Egg Whites/Egg Beaters Portion Size Males 5-6 oz Women 3-4 oz Other Protein Rich Foods Low fat cottage cheese Portion 1 fist Males 1 cup Women 1 cup
Whey Protein Powder Choose a protein powder that has at least 15-23 grams of protein and no more than 3 grams of sugar per scoop. Men 1 scoop Women 1 scoop
Soy/Tofu Portion size visual cue 1 palm to first knuckle on fingers Men 4-6 oz Women 3-5 oz Premium Tofu Tempeh
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Fast Carb Portions

Bread Portion size visual cue 2 palms Men and women 2 slices bread, 1 English muffin, 1 bagel, 1 flour tortilla, 2 corn tortilla, 2 halves pita bread Bread (sliced) Bagel (3-4 diameter) Corn tortilla (6) Dinner rolls English muffin Flour tortilla Pita Bread
Pasta Portion size visual cue fist Men 1 cups (cooked) Women 1 cup (cooked) Couscous Egg noodles Linguini Macaroni Rigatoni Spaghetti
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Potatoes and other tubers Portion size visual cue fist Men 1 cup (cooked) Women 1 cup (cooked) Beets Butternut squash Onion Parsnips Potato Sweet potato Squash Yam
Rice and other grains Portion size visual cue fist Men 2/3 cup (cooked) Women cup (cooked) Barley Brown rice Corn Corn meal/polenta Grits Quinoa Rice noodles Wild rice
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Hot Cereal Portion size visual cue fist Men 1 cups (cooked) Women 1 cup (cooked) Oats/oatmeal
Wine / Beer / Liquor Wine 5oz Beer 12 oz Liquor 1.5 oz
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Cakes / Sweets / Chocolate Portion size palm Cakes Candy Cookies Muffins Pie
Depending on fat and sugar content, these foods can have a very wide range of portion size. When eating sweet foods as part of a Fat Burner Meal choose a portion size of between 100 to 200 calories for women and 100 to 300 calories for men.
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Fruits
Melons Portion size visual cue 2 fists Men 2 cups Women 2 cups Cantaloupe Honeydew Papaya Watermelon
High Sugar Fruits Portion size visual cue 1 fist Men 1 cups Women 1 cup Cherries Grapes Passion fruit Pineapple Plantains Quince Medium Round Fruits Men 1 large Women 1 medium Apple Banana Mangoes Orange Peach Pear Persimmons Pomegranates
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Small Round Fruits Men 3 medium Women 2 medium Nectarines Plums Dried Fruits Portion size visual cue - fist Men 1/3 cup Women cup Apple Apricots Cranberries Dates Figs Prunes Raisins Sultanas Tangerines Kiwi
Carb Rich Dairy

Portion size - Men 1 cup Women 1 cup Ice cream low fat Skim milk low fat Yoghurt low fat Low fat dairy is primarily Fast Carbs so choose products lowest in fats and sugars.
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Free Carbs
Unlimited amounts eat all you want Vegetables Cauliflower Celery Chili peppers Cucumbers Leafy greens raw uncooked Bok Choi Cabbage Endive Lettuce Radicchio Spinach Watercress Mushrooms all types Radishes Sprouts
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Other vegetables Portion size 1 fist Men 1 cup Women 1 cup Artichoke Asparagus Bell peppers Broccoli Brussels sprouts Carrots Green Beans Leeks Mushrooms all types Okra Pumpkin Rutabaga Summer squash Tomatoes Turnips Zucchini Berries and low sugar fruits Portion size 1 fist Men 1 cup Women 1 cup Apricots All berries strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, boysenberries Grapefruit Lemons Limes
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Beans, peas & lentils (legumes) Portion size half fist Men 2/3 cup Women cup Black beans Cannellini beans Garbanzo beans Kidney beans Red and brown lentils Lima beans Navy beans Pinot beans Soy beans White beans Black eyed peas Chick peas Green peas Snap peas Snow peas Cooked greens Portion size 1 fist Men 1 cup Women 1 cup Beet tops (greens) Collard greens Dandelion greens Kale Mustard greens Swiss chard Turnip greens
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Fat and the Fat Burner Meal

The macro-nutrient proportions of the Fat Burner Eating Plan make sure that you are eating in a way that keeps your body in a fat burning mode all day and all night long. And, by following the guidelines for eyeballing portion sizes in the food charts, you will never be eating significantly more calories at one meal than your body needs for the short term. However, there is one more variable to consider and that is fat. How fat can make you fat While your body needs fat to function properly and many fats have beneficial effects for your health, the problem with fat when it comes to weight loss, is that it is very calorie dense and a little goes a long way. One gram of fat has more than twice as many calories as a gram of protein or carbohydrates. That means one pat of butter can easily have as many calories as a whole bread roll, and a slice or two of cheese in a sandwich can have as many calories as all the rest of the sandwich. Additionally, many high fat foods contain large amounts of saturated fat and trans-fats (a man made fat) which can be very unhealthy. Fat occurs naturally in food, particularly meat, poultry, fish, and eggs, as well as many whole grains, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Even if you were to eat as lean as possible you would still get plenty of fat from your protein and carbohydrate sources to keep your body running smoothly. Because it is so calorie-dense and has a tendency to slow down your metabolism, it is recommended you choose to eat fat sparingly.
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How to use fat in your food You should always eat some fat. Many people cut fat from their diet thinking that they will lose body fat and then are left wondering why that does not happen. Your body requires a certain amount of healthy fat to function properly. Healthy fats, like the fat found in quality protein will also keep you feeling full and satisfied for longer. Keep in mind though, that even good healthy fats have nine calories per gram which is more than twice the number of calories found in protein and carbohydrates, so just use them with caution. Do not make the mistake of thinking that because it is a healthy fat, you can eat as much as you like. Eating too many calories from any source will put the brakes on fat loss. Healthy fat sources include foods like nuts, seeds, avocado and olive oil. In terms of a Fat Burner Meal think of any added fats (cheese, butter, oil, dressings and sauces) as condiments to flavor and make your food taste better. Remember a little extra fat can often have as many calories as the entire meal. So just watch how much you have. Try to limit your fat intake for any one meal to: 1 tablespoon mayonnaise, oil, high fat dressings and sauces, or 1 oz, or one thin slice, of full-fat cheese.
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Fat portions 1 tablespoon (about the size of an egg yolk) Oils for cooking (olive oil, safflower, canola oil, coconut oil, grape seed oil etc) Sauces High fat salad dressings (more than 50 calories per tablespoon) Mayonnaise Butter/ghee Peanut/almond or any other nut butter Cream cheese Olive spread Whole olives Men 2/3 cup Women cup Avocado (guacamole) Men 2 oz Women 2 oz Low fat dressings and cheese 2 tablespoons (about the size of two egg yolks) Low fat cheese part skim ricotta cheese Light cream cheese Low fat/low calories salad dressings and dips Full fat cheese Portion size ounce Blue Cheddar Feta Jack Mozzarella Parmesan Swiss
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Nuts Portion size 1 ounce (28-30 nuts or cup) Almonds Brazil nuts Cashew nuts Hazelnuts Macadamia nuts Pecans Peanuts Walnuts Seeds Portion size 1 ounce - or cup Pumpkin seeds Sesame seeds Sunflower seeds Walnuts
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Note: These portion guidelines are specifically for adding fat to a Fat Burner Meal. You can enjoy a handful of nuts or cheese and crackers for a snack. Just keep in mind that proportions count (100 to 200 for women and 100 to 300 for men).
Vegetarian Fat Loss Meal

The Fat Burner Eating Plan works for everyone, no matter what foods you enjoy or do not enjoy or what special dietary requirements you choose to live by. This plan will teach you to eat all the foods you want to eat in a way that causes you to lose excess body fat or maintain your weight. That holds true for any food or diet alternatives whether you are simply trying to avoid red meat or eat no animal products whatsoever. In fact some of the greatest successes on this plan have been made by people who follow a strict vegetarian or vegan diet. The principles for making a Fat Burner Meal are fundamentally the same for vegetarians as they are for anyone else. Every meal is still a combination of protein, Fast Carbs, and Slow Carbs in the right proportions to keep your body in fat burning mode. The three factors that vegetarians and vegans need to pay special attention to are: how to get adequate amounts of protein from non-animal sources not consuming too many fast carbohydrates at any meal or snack keeping the balance of the meal
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As you will soon see, dealing with these requirements is really quite easy and you can follow these steps to achieve that. Where do I get my protein? The biggest challenge usually is making sure that as a vegetarian or vegan you are getting adequate protein from non-animal sources to keep the portions of the Fat Burner Meal balanced and keep your body in fat burning mode. There are basically two scenarios: 1) If your meal contains an obvious protein source like soy, tempeh, tofu, texured vegetable protein, or protein powder then it is simple. You follow the portion guidelines for the Fat Burner Meal and add Fast Carbs and Slow Carbs as you normally would. 2) If your meal does NOT contain one of the proteins listed in the protein portion chart, then you will construct your meals from Fast Carbs and Slow Carbs exclusively. But you would need to make sure that those foods give you a total of at least 15 grams of protein at every meal. The optimum range for protein in a single Fat Burner Meal is 20 to 40 grams for men and 15 to 30 grams for women. While achieving this goal may sound challenging at first, you will find it is much easier than you expect. Something that many people are not aware of is that many grains, vegetables, and other plant sources contain significant amounts of protein.
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For example, on average, a slice of 100% whole wheat bread has around 4 grams of protein. If you add a couple of tablespoons of peanut or any nut butter at 4 grams per tablespoon, then finish it off with a cup of refried beans at 6.9 grams of protein, you have got a meal that contains 23 grams of protein which is enough to make a complete and balanced Fat Burner Meal. A cup of quality high fiber cereal has around 8 grams of protein. Add a cup of low fat milk at 12 grams of protein and again you have got a quick meatless meal with a total of 20 grams of protein. This is plenty of protein to keep your body in fat burning mode. Note: That while the recommended serving size for peanut butter (or other nut butters) is one tablespoon, vegetarians will sometimes need to exceed advised fat levels to get adequate amounts of protein into their diet. Because of this, it is particularly important for people following a vegetarian diet to keep careful watch on the total daily intake of fat. Nut based protein sources, as well as soy (and dairy), can be very high in fat. Try to stay within the fat guidelines if your goal is fat loss. Use the following chart to gauge the protein content of common non-animal based foods. If you find yourself short by a few grams, a good choice is always to add a bit of high quality protein powder. They are available in soy, rice or hemp and come in a variety of flavors. Each tablespoon generally has 4 to 5 grams of protein.
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Protein rich vegetarian food Serving Soy protein powder Seitan Tofu Veggie dog/burger Tempeh Soybeans Kasha Go Lean cereal Textured soy protein Soymilk Lentils Pasta Peanut butter Chickpeas Refried beans Sunflower seeds Oatmeal Brown rice Broccoli Potato baked Walnuts White rice Almonds Kale 1 scoop 3oz cup 1 3oz cup 1 cup cup 1 cup cup 1 cup 2 tblsp cup cup cup 1 cup cup 1 cup 1 med oz cup 1/2oz 1 cup Protein (grams) 18-23 22.5 10-20 6-18 15.5 14.3 13 10 5-10 8.9 8 8 7.5 6.9 6.2 5.9 2.5 4.6 4.5 4.3 2 3 2.5
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Controlling the carbohydrates The other challenge that vegetarians face is that, since a meal is often made up of foods that are primarily carbohydrates (even if they do contain some protein) it is very easy to consume too many Fast Carbs and therefore not adhere to the proper proportions of the Fat Burner Meal Plan that will keep your body in fat burning mode. In fact, since the primary component of so many vegetarian meals is a Fast Carb, like pasta or rice, often with no protein source to balance it out, it is very easy to see why vegetarians can run into trouble with the waistlines. But with the Fat Burner Meal Plan it is no longer a problem. In situations where your Fat Burner Meal does NOT include a protein listed on the Protein Portion chart like soy, tofu or eggs, use additional Slow Carbs to provide the additional protein you need rather than adding more Fast Carbs. Ideally, increase your Slow Carbs which are highest in protein, like beans, peas and other legumes. Remember it is the Fast Carbs that are most likely to switch your body into fat storing mode and these are the ones to limit. As long as you keep your Fast Carbs to one portion (as defined in the portion charts) and then get your supplemental protein from additional portions of Slow Carbs, you will still maintain the right balance of protein, and both fast and slow carbohydrates.
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Example of a balanced vegetarian Fat Burner meal Fast Carb Rice + Slow Carb Beans + Slow Carb Chick peas total protein = 2 grams total protein = 7.5 grams total protein = 7 grams
Total protein count for the meal is 16.5 grams A simple and successful strategy By following these simple guidelines, you will be able to eat all the foods you enjoy, avoid eating all the foods you do not want to eat, and still lose all the body fat you want and keep it off for the rest of your life. If you have already been following a vegetarian diet and have been continuing to gain weight, by tweaking your menu to avoid the two common fat traps listed above, you could change your metabolism so quickly that you may actually lose weight faster than your meat-eating contemporaries. Breakfast Breakfast is the most important meal of your day so do not skip it. However you can skip your vegetables for breakfast if you wish. All you need to jump start your metabolism first thing in the morning is to enjoy a Fat Burner Meal within 30 minutes to one hour of waking. Eating your breakfast as soon as possible after you get up is one of the easiest ways to jump-start your metabolism and start burning fat. One of the reasons that so many people skip breakfast is because of the perception that so many of the breakfast foods they love will make them gain weight.
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And the fact is, if you are not careful, some of them can. This is primarily because: 1) So many breakfast foods are mostly or are all Fast Carbs (cereals, sugar, pancakes, sweet rolls etc) without enough protein or Slow Carbs to keep from switching you to fat storing mode and 2) Many breakfast proteins (bacon, sausages etc) are very high in fat which means they are high in calories and have the potential to overwhelm and slow your metabolism, putting the brakes on fat loss. But it does not have to be that way. With a couple of simple tweaks you can turn all your favorite foods into a Fat Burners breakfast. Tips for making a Fat Burner breakfast Eggs While egg whites provide one of the best proteins for fat loss, the yolks are high in fat. One egg white contains 17 calories while the yolk has 64 calories, or more than three times as much. A good way to get the low fat nature of the whites and the delicious richness of the yolk is to use say 2 or even three extra whites for every yolk. So if you were going to scramble your eggs use 2 whole eggs and two or three extra egg whites. Omelets are a great Fat Burner meal; add vegetables of your choice, ham, or a slice of bacon for a taste treat.
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Breakfast cereals High quality cereals combined with low fat milk are unusual in that they both contain almost equal amounts of protein and Fast carbs, and together they make a perfect Fat Burner breakfast. Look for protein rich (at least 9 grams per serve) whole grain, high fiber, low sugar cereals and add low fat or skim milk and you have an easy and delicious breakfast you can make in literally seconds. Make your oatmeal or any other cereal into a Fat Burner meal by adding a scoop of whey or soy protein powder in your favorite flavor for a quick easy anytime meal. Just mix it with milk and pour over the cereal or let cooked oatmeal cool and add in and stir. Smoothies Creamy cool satisfying smoothies have to be near the top of the list for quick easy to prepare breakfasts. Be creative and try different fruits although berries are a good Fat Burner meal choice. You can use low fat or soy milk as the base or simply water and ice. Add a scoop of your favorite flavor protein power and whizz it up. You can even use cold cooked oatmeal to make a thicker more filling shake. Tips for a Fat Burner Lunch Lunch is an equally important meal for keeping your metabolic fires stoked. Many of us skip lunch when time is short but skipping this meal is a surefire way to put the brakes on fat loss.
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Some lunch ideas Nothing can ever replace good old fashioned sandwiches and there is no reason why you cannot make them into a Fat Burner meal with a few tweaks. It is just a matter of increasing the amount of protein so it becomes a more balanced meal. If, say, you increase the amount of meat you include in any sandwich you will have just the right proportions of protein and Fast Carbs. If you like, you can always add a salad or some beans to add a Slow Carb which will make a hearty lunch. Try to substitute whole wheat bread for white bread. Also check out some of the whole wheat, high fiber wraps, tortillas and pita pockets. Available now are really low calorie rice, corn, wheat, or rye mountain bread as alternatives to the usual slices of bread. These wraps and pockets are great for filling with meat, fish, tofu, eggs with some vegetables or rice or bean salad and are very portable. Be creative and design your own. The wraps keep well in the freezer so you can just take one out and split it off the rest of the layers in the packet when you need it. Everything from grilled chicken, pineapple, and salad, to bacon and egg or smoked fish make delicious wraps. You will never have to have the same one twice. Just make sure you have your portion of protein and you cannot go wrong with your custom made healthy wraps.
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To hold the wrap firm so you can hold on to it just wrap tightly in cling film. Eat like an ice cream pushing the cling film down as you go.
Leftovers Think ahead when you are preparing an evening meal. Try to increase the ingredients so you will have some left over for your lunch. Spaghetti, grilled meat, casseroles, or yummy dishes like lasagna or meat pie all make a great leftover meal. Just store it in some handy reusable containers and simply pop in the microwave and reheat for a delicious couldnt be any easier; Fat Burner meal. A couple of examples to get you going Bean wrap 1 rice or wheat wrap topped with 1/2 cup cooked bean, 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, 1/2 cup shredded romaine lettuce or other salad vegetables, 1/4 avocado (sliced) salsa or pickle to taste. Chicken and avocado wrap 1 rice mountain bread wrap topped with 4 oz cooked chicken, 1/2 avocado, 1/2 cup shredded lettuce and 2 tablespoons salsa.
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Another easy lunch idea Cook a small potato and mash (around cup) mix together with a small tin of salmon or tuna. Make into 2 patties with your hands and cook in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat for a few minutes on each side. Could add onion, tomato or other vegetables to the mix, or eat with a salad or salsa. Be creative and make your own version of this quick, easy, perfect healthy Fat Burner meal that is very portable. Tips for making a Fat Burner dinner We may say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day when it comes to fat loss but for most people dinner is the meal they enjoy the most as it is a shared time with family or friends. Meat and poultry For many people a dinner is not complete without a piece of steak or other meat. Nothing is off limits here but the leaner cuts of beef generally have loin or round in their name. Eye of round and sirloin steaks are both good choices. When it comes to poultry, white meat is the leanest part of the bird and you can eat more of this than if you choose the fattier legs and thighs. Most of the fat is in the skin though, so if possible trim this off and any visible fat from your meats and poultry. Cooking with oil Be careful when adding oil or butter just to keep your food from sticking to the pan when you cook it. Instead of using butter or oil to grease the pan consider getting yourself a good non-stick pan or saut or stir fry in wine, stock or even water. Just by changing this one method of cooking you can save lots of calories from ending up on your waistline.
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Crock pots and slow cookers Coming home to a ready cooked meal after a long day away from the house is a pleasurable experience. Crock pots or slow cookers as they are sometimes called are one of the handiest creations for busy people. You just prepare your favorite recipe in the morning, pop on the lid, turn it on low and at the end of the day a mouth watering meal is ready to eat. This is one of the easiest ways to come home to a prepared Fat Burner Meal. If you think ahead and make a bit extra you will have a bonus meal or two leftover for the next few days to come. Wine If you enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, there is no reason why you cannot have one as part of a Fat Burner meal. Just remember that your glass of wine is your Fast Carb. So when making your Fat Burner Meal you will just need to remember that you have already chosen your Fast Carb. Dessert You can still have your dinner and dessert too but the way to do it to keep your body in fat burning mode is to leave your dessert for 2-3 hours after your meal. To have it with your dinner would most likely put the brakes on fat loss so just by separating it means you can still have it later. It will be just as satisfying and you will not be uncomfortably full as when you eat both meals together. You are also less likely to spike your blood sugar and insulin levels sending a torrent of glucose to be stored as fat.
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Treat fat as a condiment In terms of a Fat Burner meal, fat is considered a condiment or an extra flavoring to a meal. You will get all the fat you need from the protein and other foods you will be eating so fat is not a required component. But it can be used to flavor and enhance a meal not to smother or disguise it. Limiting fat reduces a lot of calories and if you cannot really taste it in a meal it is probably not necessary to include it. Make sure you can taste it. If the butter, cheese, bacon, mayonnaise is not a key ingredient for the flavor of a recipe leave it out. If you feel you must have it make sure you can taste it so it will be worth using it. Use strongly flavored foods like cheeses A mere tablespoon of a sharply flavored cheese can be enough to give the flavor they desire. Put cheese on the top of your food rather than mix it in. That is one way of getting the taste of the cheese first so your taste buds think they are getting the cheese taste through the whole dish. How many meals and snacks On the Fat Burner Eating Plan you will eat 3 meals and 3 snacks so you will be eating every 2-3 hours throughout the day right up until one hour before bedtime. We have been over how to make a Fat Burner Meal and now we are going to talk about snacks. Fat Burner Snacks The Fat Burner Eating Plan is about using food to lose fat and one of the most important ways to do that is to eat often.
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While many people think that to shed that excess body fat they need to develop the discipline to stop snacking between meals in actuality the exact opposite is what works best. If you want fast and lasting fat loss results you must eat at least 4-6 small meals or snacks throughout the day to accomplish three things: to keep the body in fat burning mode by creating stable blood sugar and insulin levels to maximize the Thermic Effect of Food which is the term used to describe the energy expended by our bodies in order to process food. Each time you eat it raises body temperature increasing the rate your body burns fuel (calories) to help control hunger and food cravings that can cause you to binge or overeat Snacks between meals and eating the right combinations of food at meal time are the two most important features of the Fat Burner Meal Plan. These are proven effective methods to lose fat and keep it off. Just as eating too many Fast Carbs at any one time can increase blood sugar levels and switch you into fat storing mode, going too long without eating can have the same effect. This is because having blood sugar levels that are too low is as big a problem for your body as having blood sugar levels that are too high. Sugar (glucose) in the blood is where our body gets its energy from to function and keep our systems running. When you go long periods without eating your blood sugar levels decrease to a point where the body must do something to get it back up and avoid a dangerous situation.
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Hormones are released that tell the liver to release some glucose and put it back into the system because it is needed. This then triggers another release of insulin to try and clear the bloodstream when sugar levels go back up. It is this constant cycle of wildly fluctuating levels of sugar and hormones that keep people on a fat storing merry-go-round for much of the day. So, by snacking or eating often you keep your blood sugar levels even throughout the day which then keeps your body burning fat and prevents your body from going into fat storing mode further covering your abdominal muscles. Unlike a Fat Burner Meal, when it comes to snack time, what you eat is not nearly as important as how much. Your snacks need to have enough calories to keep your blood sugar stable, but they also do not want to be so big that they cause a spike in insulin levels. On the Fat Burner Meal Plan the only time we mention calories is when it comes to snacks. This is because many snacks and treats are packaged and have a nutrition label which makes finding a good snack for fat loss simple. The ideal calorie range for a snack is: Women between 100 - 200 calories Men between 300 - 400 calories 1) If it does not have a food label just eat it. Examples are whole food (apple, carrot, piece of chicken, pear, etc.) 2) If it does have a food label it means it has been processed. Eat anything you like as long as it fits into the calorie guidelines above.
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Just be sure to check the portion size as something like sunflower seeds or nuts may seem like a great healthy snack until you discover that one cup of them is actually several servings and may contain a whopping 1000 - 1200 calories. If you choose something that does not have a food label something that is not processed, like an apple or some leftover chicken from dinner, just eat it. One portion of any whole or natural food is a perfect and healthy Fat Burner Snack. Try to have a portion of protein with your Fast or Slow Carbs for the healthiest snack choice. Here are some great examples: Apple wedges or banana with 1 tablespoon peanut or any nut butter cup cottage cheese mixed with yogurt, berries, and a few nuts 1-2 hard boiled eggs with carrot and hummus 1 slice whole grain with nut butter and berries Pineapple pieces with a handful of nuts cup cottage cheese with cinnamon, apple slices, and nuts Protein shot serving of whey protein powder with ice and water Small salad (1 cup) with 1 oz chicken Peanuts or almonds (1 oz) with 1 medium orange cup low fat yogurt mixed with cup cottage cheese 1 cup low fat milk with 1 serving whey protein powder and ice Celery with 1 tablespoon any nut butter 2 crackers or rice biscuits with cup cottage cheese and tomato 1/2 protein bar 1 oz dark chocolate and cup yoghurt 2 oz tuna or salmon on crackers
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Try to stick with "clean" foods Clean foods are those that are as close to nature as possible. They have not had excessive processing and been altered by humans to the point you can no longer recognize what the actual food is. Your foods should not have excessive amounts of chemicals added and if you cannot pronounce the names of the chemicals avoid the food if possible. Whole foods are good examples of what is the perfect food for us humans. Items such as a tomato, a carrot, a sweet potato, a piece of grass fed beef, or fish from the ocean. A plain chicken breast is clean, but a chicken nugget is not. Choose clean or minimally processed and refined foods to keep your diet healthy. Try to stay away from packaged foods in pretty boxes as they are generally poor choices that contain little nutrition. Whole foods cooked from scratch will always give better fat loss results as your body cannot process them easily. Tips for eating out You can still eat out and keep your body in fat burning mode. When dining out in a restaurant or driving through a fast food window you can still make a Fat Burner Meal. Even though you are not in complete control you can still apply the basic principles that will keep your metabolism running at full speed. It will always be possible to find the right combination of a Fat Burner Meal as most restaurants have now become savvy to health conscious diners. Many of them already have food options which they consider a healthy choice. You can always ask if your healthy grilled chicken breasts come smothered in a butter laden sauce so you have the option to tell them to leave it off. Do not be afraid to ask them to prepare your food in a way that you know will keep you moving in the right direction with your fat loss goals.
After all they are there to serve you and make your dining experience enjoyable so they are likely to want to please you. Stick to the basic principles The main thing you need to remember whenever you are eating out is your portion-size visual cue. A portion of protein is approximately the size of your open palm, and a portion of Fast Carbs and Slow Carbs are approximately the size of your fist. Try to order sauces and salad dressings as an extra separate side dish. This way you have control over the amount you use. Instead of pouring a dressing over your salad, try dipping your fork into it then spear some of the salad. You will get the desired flavor while limiting the excess fat or oil. Many restaurants tend to offer very large portions loading up this way will cause your metabolism to slow down and become sluggish. To avoid this, ask for a takeout container at the start of the meal, then you can put any leftovers into the container to take home. This could mean another meal or snack later that you do not have to prepare. What to drink when eating out Every dining establishment will have a range of suitable drinks. Water, tea, diet sodas, and coffee will be some of the basic choices. Or you can sip on a mineral water with a slice of lime or lemon. If you do choose to have an alcoholic beverage, remember that they are Fast Carbs and that more than a single serving as part of your Fat Burner Meal can slow down fat loss. Try to focus on the social aspect of dining out, such as good conversation with family or friends rather than eating and drinking. This will help you have an enjoyable time without slowing down your fat loss progress.
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The top 12 best foods you should eat regularly Lean red meats from grass fed animals Free range poultry and eggs (organic if possible) Fish and shellfish Brown rice Nuts and seeds Vegetables both cooked and raw Fresh fruit Oatmeal or other cooked grains, such as barley, rye, amaranth, millet, buckwheat etc Low fat dairy products (yoghurt, cheese, milk etc) Olive oil, flax seed oil, and butter from grass fed cows Yams or sweet potatoes Whole wheat bread and 100% whole grain products, sprouted wheat bread. The top 12 worst junk foods Ice cream and frozen treats Fizzy drinks, energy drinks and soda Candy and sweets Hot dogs, fast food burgers Cookies, biscuits, cakes Potato chips and other man made snacks Fruit drinks and packet fruit drink mixes Doughnuts and pastries White bread and buns Sausage and luncheon meats Processed meats such as chicken nuggets Sugar laden breakfast cereals that pretend to be healthy
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Summary of the Fat Burner Eating Plan

I have provided you with quite a lot of information about food in this section of the book. Probably more than you can take in the first time though. So try to keep in mind the principles you have learned, and then come back to these pages when you need to remind yourself how to put together a Fat Burner Meal. Remember, the essence of the fat burning meal is to balance a quality of protein against a combination of fast carbs and/or slow carbs. The importance of protein to a fat burning meal is that it moderates the rate at which carbohydrates are broken down and absorbed into the blood-stream as glucose. It is high levels of glucose in the blood that promotes fat storage, and which can lead to long term health problems as well. Choose your source of protein first, then look to balancing it with carbohydrates, which provide your body with its main source of energy. It is the blend that matters here. Provided that each meal, whether it be large or small, is properly balanced, your body will be encouraged to burn fat rather than store it. Eat 5 or 6 small meals over the course of the day to stimulate your metabolism, and make each of those Fat Burner Meals, and you will be well on your way to achieving the trim waistline your desire.
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Resources
Congratulations, you have completed your initial reading of Claim Your Six Pack Abs and now you know everything you need to lose weight in a sustainable way, and bring out your abdominal muscles so that you can show them off to the world! The great thing about working towards this goal is that you cannot achieve the endpoint without securing a lot of great health benefits along the way. When you work to rid yourself of belly fat you cannot help but give your body a complete makeover, so that by the time you have molded your midsection you will also have dramatically improved the rest of your body. To help you reach that goal I am going to recommend in this section several related fitness and nutritional information products that can serve as resources. The first of these is 21 Days To Healthy Eating, which is another ebook of mine that I put together on the subject of nutrition. The truth of the matter is that putting together healthy meals can be very confusing today for the average person. We are presented everywhere we turn with processed foods, and the decision to grab something convenient rather than prepare a nutritious meal is very easy to make. But we do so at a cost, sometimes a significant one. In 21 Days To Healthy Eating I teach you how to select foods in a way which guarantees that what you put into your body will serve you well not just in the short term, but the long term as well. The decisions we make daily about what we eat have long term consequences for our health in old age. I will show you how to make the healthy choices so that you can live long, feel better about what you are eating, and turbo-charge your body so that you have almost limitless amounts of energy to burn daily.
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If you think that it is hard to eat healthy for an extended period of time without going off the rails and indulging in some delicious, but unsavory snacks, I will concede that some care does need to be taken to ensure that your sweet tooth does not get the better of you. It is for this reason that I point you toward another of my books which addresses this exact subject, and shows you how to create your own healthy raw snacks that provide all the nutrition that you could possibly hope for from something that tastes fantastic and quells whatever food cravings you might be suffering from. In 100 Healthy Raw Snacks and Treats you'll find more than 100 recipes straight from my kitchen. These are the same treats and desserts that I prepare for myself on a weekly basis. If you have ever wondered whether it is possible to have your cake, and eat it too then this is the book for you!
Inside I will show you how to prepare such delights as Cashew Cream Bars,
Blueberry Slice, Coconut Orange Chocolate Squares, and Date Nut Dreams. And that's just for starters. In 100 Healthy Raw Snacks and Treats I have over
100 more no-bake recipes to share with you, all constructed from raw, healthy ingredients.
With the recipes that I have provided you will always have a treat on hand that can serve as a tasty and nutritionally satisfying pick me up. But if you find that food cravings are getting the better of you I have just the ticket. In Stop Food Cravings Fast I show you how to conquer your food cravings once and for all. The truth is, cravings are simply the body's way of telling us that we haven't been eating properly. When your body does not get enough of the natural sugars it derives from healthy foods, rich in vitamins, nutrients and protein, it sounds the alarm bells in the form of cravings. Unfortunately in this day and age it is all too easy to satisfy this form of hunger with entirely the wrong kinds of sugars. This simply leads to weight gain and even more cravings.
However, when you give your body exactly what it really needs, your brain stops sending out those cravings and you can live a healthy life free from the addictions of junk food and empty calories.
Having said that you can control your food cravings, there is nothing wrong with indulging yourself a little if you go about it the right way. That is why I love the ice-cream alternative known as Protein Freeze. This is a brilliant dessert alternative to real ice-cream that replaces the high fat, caloriedense, cream-based processed treat that we are all familiar with, with a highprotein food that is derived primarily from whey. As you have learned, protein is the secret ingredient to all fat-burning meals, and this is how you are able to eat ice-cream without packing on the pounds in response. Simply mix equal parts of this protein powder and water, add a scoop of your favorite nut butter (such as peanut butter), place in the freezer for a few hours, and you have your fat-burning ice-cream alternative ready to go.
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Not bad, huh? I wish I had thought of this myself! You can grab a sample here:
Protein Freeze Fair warning, though this is a processed food (as of course are
most ice-cream and protein powders) so don't make it a staple of your diet. But for the occasional treat it will do you no harm. Well, that's it for now. Please remember that the only way to really make use of the information in this book is to start putting the ideas into effect. You have exercise and nutritional tips for getting six pack abs that will serve you correctly and deliver results IF you just put them into practice. So now is the time to get started. Good luck!
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Table of Contents Page Introduction Chapter One - Truths You Must Understand If You Are Ever Going To Lose

Your Belly Fat And Acquire Six Pack Abs

Chapter Two - The Midsection Matters

Page Chapter Three - Abdominal Exercise Routines

Chapter Four - The Fat Burner Eating Plan

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

The insulin molecule.

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All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

The 10 Greatest Myths about Fat Loss and Abdominal Shaping

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All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

The Midsection Matters

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All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

5 Tips To Help You Lose Fat and Gain Six-Pack Abdominals

Tip #1 Nutrition Is King

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All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

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All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

Tip #2 Strength Training Workouts Make The Best Fat Burners

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All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

All rights reserved. Carolyn Hansen

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Tip #3 You WILL Be Required To Put Some Effort Into It

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Tip #4 You Will Be In It For The Long Haul

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Tip #5 Do Not Buy Useless Supplements