Saturday, February 7, 2009

How To Get Abs Faster Than Your Friends

By Robert Casewood

Many fitness newbies who sign-up for expensive health club memberships soon learn that getting six pack abs takes more than just plunking down cash and doing mindless reps on pricy state-of-the-art ab machines. Actually, the process of getting six-pack abs has less to do with gadgetry than physiology.

The human body is designed to store surplus energy from food in the form of fat cells. These are stored mainly around our lower body- our bellies, butts and thighs. This is the main reason eliminating beer bellies and love-handles have been a source of consternation for fitness aficionados since the early days of bodybuilding.

In fact, the muscles around our midsection aren't any harder to develop than say, the chest or the biceps. It just seems that way because belly fat is the most stubborn- always the last to go because of the body's predisposition to store excess fat there.

Doing the proper combination of exercises optimal for burning body fat as well as adopting healthy eating habits are the real secrets to getting six-pack abs in the shortest amount of time. The key word in the fight against The Flab is metabolism.

Doing set after set on that expensive ab machine in your pricy home gym or local health club will just be a waste of time if bringing out those ab muscles are your goal. Neither is trying to shrink belly fat by skipping breakfast as this will only slow down your metabolism and make you lose weight from muscle instead of fat.

Fitness experts specializing in fat-loss all agree that incorporating total body cardio exercises into regular weight-training is the best workout scheme optimal for burning body fat. Remember that loss of body fat means less belly fat ergo, sexy six pack abs.

Another way to accelerate belly fat burn is to compliment your workout regimen with healthy eating habits. Timing your consumption of the different food types (proteins, carbs, etc.) can aid the body's ability to absorb nutrients and keep it from packing on the pounds from body fat.

Skipping meals (especially breakfast) is a big no-no as this causes our body to slow down our metabolism and this can actually lessen the calories we burn from belly fat. Experts say eating small meals throughout the day (yes, with snacks) is ultimately better than trying to cut down on caloric intake by foregoing meals. - 17944

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