Six pack abs can be bought– really? I know what you’re thinking right about now- “You’re crazy Dawn.” Here me out though.
All of my clients have abdominal muscles, trouble is- they’re hidden from view by a layer of fat that they want to eliminate and don’t know how. I train all of my clients very hard, it’s how my personal training got the nickname “Hardcore”. Regardless of how hard you train though, if you want six-pack abs you do have to make some changes to the foods you eat in the kitchen. The food in the kitchen came from where? That’s right- you picked it up at the grocery store. Hence, that’s where you begin your quest for a leaner you.
The two main changes I normally advise my clients to make are to reduce their sugar intake and the amount of carbohydrates that they are eating.
The first change should be rather obvious. Sugar is a major contributor to the obesity epidemic facing the United States. “Here in the United States, the average person consumes more than 126 grams of sugar per day, which is slightly more than three 12-ounce cans of Coca-Cola. That’s more than twice the average sugar intake of all 54 countries observed by Euromonitor. It’s also more than twice what the World Health Organization recommends for daily intake, which is roughly 50 grams of sugar for someone of normal weight.” (Source: The Washington Post)
Reducing your sugar intake can have additional health benefits. Sugar is the #1 cause of inflammation in the body. “Diseases that are obviously inflammatory in nature include asthma, Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, tendonitis, bursitis, laryngitis, gingivitis, gastritis, otitis, coeliac disease, diverticulitis and inflammatory bowel disease,” says Dr Carolyn Dean. (Click here to read more)
Clients train with me however not just to lose weight, my clients want to build muscle and shed the fat layer hiding the muscles that they already have. So, how do you promote not just weight loss but fat loss? Here’s the skinny on fat loss, pun intended- and I’ll point you to some research that backs up what I’m telling you here so that you could research it further yourself. If you want to promote weight and fat loss you have to reduce the amount of carbohydrates you are eating. Plain and simple, forget your low-fat diet fads, ignore the silly food pyramid, ignore your friends trying to get you to try their latest “supplement” or diet pill, and ignore your doctor who’s pushing you to eat more fiber in the morning.
There is a growing body of research showing that low-carb diets are more effective at promoting both weight and fat loss as a percentage of body mass. In one randomized, parallel-group study- 60 participants were put on a low-fat intervention and 59 participants were put on a low-carbohydrate intervention for a year with no restrictions on their caloric intake to evaluate the effects of both interventions on their weight and fat levels.
Participants on the low-carbohydrate diet had greater decreases in weight, fat mass, ratio of total–high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and triglyceride level and greater increases in HDL cholesterol level than those on the low-fat diet (1).
Bottom line is this, the participants in the low-carb diet group lost more weight AND more fat after a year than their low-fat eating counterparts. So, the carbohydrate content in the foods you eat plays a larger then life role in your physical fitness. Where does the food you eat come from? For most in the developed world- it comes from the grocery store. Therefore, yes- you can buy six-pack abs. You either buy them or you don’t every time you shop at the grocery store with the choices you make and the food you out into your cart. That is why I say, six pack abs can be bought– yes, literally!
References
1. Bazzano LA, Hu T, Reynolds K, Yao L, Bunol C, Liu Y, et al. Effects of Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets: A Randomized Trial. Ann Intern Med. 2014;161:309-318. doi:10.7326/M14-0180. See: http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1900694%20)
