The Surprising Truth About Your Abs

It seems that everyone wants “nice abs”. I put that in quotes because, everyone has a different idea about what “nice abs” are. Some like a flat stomach, some want some nice lines through their midsection and some folks want abs that really “POP”! You know, the kind that inspire you to do laundry. Anyone out there old enough to remember washboards? No? OK. Let’s move on.

You have nice abs

Whether you know it or not, you have nice abs. I know some of you just grabbed your midsection in disbelief. Others are wondering how I can see them. (It’s that little lens above the screen). Sorry. Time to get serious. The reality is, we all have nice abs. The problem is, many of us have covered them up with excess body fat. In order to see these beautiful, physical attributes, what we need to do is, reveal them.

It occurred to me today that abs are like talent. It’s true. We all have talents of some type. We may not even know what our talents are, and those around us will not realize we have these gifts either. No one will ever know what talent you have, until it is revealed.

Reveal what you were born with

I don’t want to get off subject here, but this is one of the reasons I always preach, getting out of your comfort zone, when I give motivational talks. Trying new things, especially things we are afraid to try, can often reveal to us talents, passions, and joys that we never knew were out there, or inside of us. Once we find our talent, it will take time and effort to reveal our talents in their truest form.

This is how it will work with revealing our beautiful abs. You see, our abs already have the natural shape that we find so appealing. We just need to be patient enough to take the time and do the work to bring them forth. This is what we would do if we found we had the natural ability to, let’s say, play the guitar. We wouldn’t expect to be able to play a full song after only one or two lessons, right? (With the exception of “Smoke on the Water”.) Likewise, we can’t expect to see our abs after a few workouts.

How do we bring forth those vaunted abs?

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Now that we know we already have nice abs (in there somewhere) how do we get to them? Well, let’s look at our situation. If we know the abs are there and we can’t see them, then something must be in the way. As stated above, that something is, stored body fat. OK. We have identified the problem. And, the solution is . . .? Burn off the fat.

Great. In what way is this information helpful? (I’m glad you asked.) This is important because knowing this, will prevent many frustrating and painful hours doing the wrong exercises. Here’s why. Most people, spend hours doing sit-ups or crunches and all manner of ab exercises to get to their abs. The problem is, what they are doing is working the abdominal muscles. That’s great, but the effect will only be, strong abdominal muscles.

They are attempting to create “spot reduction”. This does not work. You cannot train fat off of a particular area of the body by training that area. That’s not how the body works. Working out, burns calories. When we burn off the calories taken in as food, then the body will begin to burn stored calories (AKA Body Fat). Your body, not you, will decide where that fat comes from.

So, with all of this in mind, what we really need to do is simple. We need to burn off more calories than we take in. This can be done by doing the kind of workouts that burn the most calories. It doesn’t matter what muscles are at work. We just need to burn as many calories as possible. (Spoiler alert, legs burn the most calories. We’ll discuss that another time.) We need to continue doing this on a regular basis for as long as it takes. Eventually, there will no longer be any body fat covering up our beautiful abs. THEN, we can work our abs to shape them as we like.

I will go into the myth of spot-reduction and the values of target training in future blogs. I will also give you great tips for burning fat faster than ever (legs) and eating a healthy diet without starving yourself.

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