Six Pack Stomach

Tricks and Techniques To Achieve Your Dream Abs

Achieving a six pack stomach is the dream of many men and women. Getting there is not easy, but here are some great tips and tricks to help make reaching your goal a little more attainable.

Does Diet Soda Make You Fat?

From Mike Geary: Author of The Truth About Six Pack Abs

We all know by now that soda (aka "pop" in some areas) is one of the most evil things you can put in your body... the nasty chemicals, the gut-fattening high fructose corn syrup, and a myriad of health problems caused by this carbonated cocktail worshipped by those that don't care about their health or body.

Surprisingly, many people falsely believe that "diet" soda is in some way a good thing for losing body fat. In fact, I hear people all the time proudly state that they eat so healthy and only drink diet soda.

So let's set the record straight...

There is NOTHING even remotely healthy about drinking diet soda. In fact, I've even seen several studies that showed dedicated diet soda drinkers got even FATTER than their regular soda drinking counterparts.

Here's some findings from an 8-year University of Texas study that I had read...

An excerpt from the study author:

"What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity," Fowler tells WebMD. "What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher."

"There was a 41 percent increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day," Fowler says.

Ok, as if we didn't already know how bad regular soda was for us, and now they're showing us studies that diet soda makes us even fatter than the already bad stuff!

There's a lot of complicating factors as to why this occurs...

One reason is that the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas create a negative hormonal response in the body that increases fat storing hormone production and increases cravings for more sweets and refined carbohydrates in the time period after consuming the diet drink.

Another reason is that people may subconsciously think that because they are drinking a diet soda, that gives them more leeway to eat more of everything else, hence consuming more calories overall.

I've said this all along, but the bottom line is that if you're serious about your health and body, soda of any kind (and artificial sweeteners in anything for that matter!) should be avoided at all times, except for very rare occasions when you can't avoid them.

So what is a good alternative to diet sodas?

The best alternatives are good old water with lemon or unsweetened iced teas... you have plenty of options with teas - green, white, black, oolong, red... be creative in making your iced teas and you'll enjoy it more. Plus, you get a greater array of anti-aging antioxidants.

Is Your Grocery List Sabotaging Your Fat Loss?

From Mike Geary: Author of The Truth About Six Pack Abs

I was at the grocery store today picking up some ingredients for a black bean & brown rice with seasoned venison strips dish I was planning to make, when an interesting thing happened...

I had gone straight to the grocery store after training a couple clients at the gym. Well, as I was grabbing some frozen veggies, a friendly lady (who must have seen that I was a fitness coach from my shirt), asked me my advice on a couple frozen prepared box meals she was picking out (by the way, those prepared frozen meals are usually highly processed crap loaded with sodium and other chemicals).

Now I will say that this woman was VERY overweight, and she mentioned that she has "tried everything" to get rid of all of the excess body fat and always failed.

Keep in mind I hear about 50 people a day tell me they've "tried everything" to get in shape. The problem that they don't realize is that they're trying all of the wrong things...they're trying all of the gimmicks and fads that are out there instead of just adopting a TRUE healthy active lifestyle.

Back to the woman in the store...

So we started chatting about her struggles with getting in shape, and I began scanning her grocery cart. If I can remember, these were some of the contents she thought were healthy:

*Slim fast shakes (far from healthy...they're actually loaded with high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and a bunch of other chemicals)

*Fat Free Rice Cakes (ok...despite so many people believing these pieces of crap are healthy...they really are nothing but pure refined starch with zero fiber, which basically breaks down immediately into sugar in your body, spiking insulin and promoting fat storage...doesn't sound so good anymore, huh)

*Protein bars "Scientifically Slim Body Engineered" or some BS statement like that (I took a gander at the ingredient list of these so called "healthy" protein bars and sure enough... hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and enough sugar alcohols to give you diarrhea for a week!)

*Canned fruit in syrup (I guess she could do worse here...but still, why not just eat fresh whole fruit which still contains the skins, fiber, active enzymes, etc, instead of resorting to processed, canned fruit that's been cooked and loaded with syrup)

*Reduced Sugar Dessert Cakes (ok, so these are loaded with artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, preservatives, and a chemical ingredient list about 15 lines long)

Do you see what's going on here? This is the same scenario that I see all the time.

Most people are fooled by what the FRONT OF THE BOX says, leading them to believe what they are buying is healthy. On all of these items, the FRONT of the packages had all kinds of great sounding things like "fat free", "reduced sugar", "high protein", "low cholesterol", "low carb", etc.

However, the TRUTH is on the BACK OF THE BOX! Ah yes, the ingredient list and nutrition info is where the real truth is. However, I've realized that most of the general public doesn't know how to fully understand the ingredient list and nutrition info, so they rely on the advertising claims on the front of the package to guide them.

BIG MISTAKE!

If you notice, this woman thought she was doing great with her grocery shopping and buying all kinds of healthy stuff for her and her family.

In reality, EVERYTHING she was buying was highly processed and full of chemicals and industrially refined ingredients. No wonder "nothing has worked" for her to get in shape and lose the body fat... she actually hasn't been doing anything right. She's been mislead by all of the confusing marketing, labeling and conflicting nutrition info in the mass media.

Why Do So Many Fail to Achieve Six Pack Abs?

From Mike Geary: Author of The Truth About Six Pack Abs

"With so many different types of diets and exercise programs out there, and so many people trying so hard to lose body fat and get six pack abs, why do 95% of people fail to ever achieve this goal?"

Here's my answer:

The #1 reason for failure in most people is the general procrastination, laziness, and poor mental attitude about what they BELIEVE they can actually achieve.

Just to clarify, the #2 reason for failure at fat loss & achieving their dream body is ineffective training routines and poor dietary habits.

The reason I put mental attitude and beliefs in front of the actual details of training/nutrition for weight loss is because your mental status is the true starting point for success in anything.

This involves:

* DECIDING exactly what you want (how you want your body to look, how much confidence you want to feel, how much energy you want, internal health, etc)

* Making sure you actually have a BURNING DESIRE for what you want to achieve

* Setting/documenting EXACT GOALS for what you want to achieve

* VISUALIZING and "feeling" what you want to achieve

* BELIEVING that you CAN actually achieve it

* Taking massive action NOW to start achieving (no procrastination)

In order to ever be successful at anything, all excuses need to go out the window... there is no such thing as poor genetics, no such thing as "not enough time", no such thing as "it's just too hard"... no excuses at all for not achieving what you set out to achieve.

This is the stuff nobody ever wants to talk about, but this is more important to get right first before ever dealing with the "details" about workouts and how to eat for fat loss or any goal.

Secrets To A Six Pack

Men's Fitness magazine had a brief list of "Secrets to a Six Pack Stomach". Here's a summary:

1) Forget Spot Reducing-- Ab exercises won't burn fat in your ab area. Total body exercise combined with a healthy diet is the way to burn fat.

2) Eat Right-- Eat 6 or 7 low cal small meals a day. Base them around a lean protein source.

3) Variety-- Do a variety of ab exercises. There are also many exercises that train you abs without you knowing it. Focus on compound lifts- pushups, shoulder presses, deadlifts, and squats.

4) Unilateral Exercises-- Exercises that use only one arm or leg heavily involve your core muscles. Do plenty of unilateral and balance exercises.

5) Work Your Back-- Balance the ab work that you do with back exercises. This strengthens your core. Do pull ups, deadlifts, stepups, and rows.

6) Explosion-- Include explosive ab training using a medicine ball or other outside resistance. Explosive movements means maximum muscle recruitment and the fastest way to a six pack.

All are good tips. Use them in your workouts to get that six pack look everyone desires.

Target Your Lower Abs With 4 Great Lower Ab Workouts

The Brad Pitt Workout: How He Got In Shape For Fight Club

Try the Beginner or Advanced Exercise Ball Workouts

Return from Six Pack Stomach to Free Ab Workout

Featured Treadmills

Follow us

Help other people avoid costly mistakes by encouraging or dissuading them to buy a treadmill similar to yours. Visit our best treadmill or worst treadmill experience page.