The Seven Steps to Six Pack Abs!
Meredith MacKay M.Sc., PTS, RHN
You see them in fitness magazines all the time, you know you want them and you’re working hard to get them, but they just never seem to come through…washboard abs: The ultimate, but always elusive sign of being fit. You can do millions of crunches, but you’re still having a hard time getting the abs flat, let alone to see the definition peak through. Don’t worry; the six simple steps to developing your own six pack abs are here at your fingertips. The steps may be simple, but are not always easy to implement and will take some willpower on your end.
Step 1: Water! You’ve heard it before, drink lots of water: 6-8 glasses/day. You’re thinking you already know this. I want to stress the importance of water, yes it is to stay hydrated, but do you know the fat burning process requires water for it to proceed and to define a six-pack you need to burn the fat off that’s covering those abdominal muscles that are already being toned underneath.
Step 2: Stop eating in the evening! The fat burning process predominantly happens overnight. Your body needs a 10-14 hour fast overnight to detoxify itself and perform the fat burning reactions. If your body does not obtain those hours of fasting, not only will toxins build up in your body but the layer of fat you have hiding your abs wont’ be going anywhere. Anything from dinnertime onwards (depending on your sleep and wake time) should also have a very minimal glycemic response, so either a very low glycemic carbohydrate or a food with no glycemic response at all, like a small serving of lean protein or a few raw, unsalted nuts.
Step 3: Skip the salt. Salt encourages water retention and retaining water will only serve to hide the toned muscles under the skin. Drink lots of water (see above) to ensure your body doesn’t feel the need to hold onto it.
Step 4: Support your liver daily. Carrying a few extra inches around your middle may be a sign that your liver is sluggish and not functioning at its peak performance. Your liver performs over 400 functions in your body, like recycling hormones (cortisol, insulin, adrenaline, etc); help with digestion, filtering all wastes and toxins out of your blood, detoxifying your body and much more. To ensure that it is working optimally and not causing toxins to deposit around your midsection, start each day with a glass of room temperature or warm water and squeeze some fresh lemon into it – this will serve to mildly cleanse the liver and blood, stimulate your bowels to eliminate wastes and toxins as well as alkalize your body. Your body needs to be alkaline as opposed to acidic and to keep it that way your body leeches minerals out of your bones to ensure your blood stays alkaline when you’re eating an acidic diet (which most of us are). Lemon and water first thing in the morning (before breakfast) keeps the body alkaline which will keep the bones strong and ward off disease.
Step 5: De-stress!! We are all operating daily in our autonomic nervous system, known as the “fight or flight” nervous system. During the fight or flight response our adrenals release adrenaline which not only increases our heart rate and blood pressure, but also increases our blood sugar and thus our insulin levels. Insulin is an inflammatory, fat storage promoting hormone. Insulin serves an important function in your body, but you don’t want too much insulin floating around storing more fat than necessary (which is also why it’s important for your liver to filter it out of your blood when it’s no longer needed). Your adrenals also release Cortisol which causes the breakdown of protein for blood sugar, which is then stored as fat around the abdominal area, known as “stress fat”. To avoid this “stress fat” and excess fat storage from insulin you need to engage regularly (daily) in activities that reduce your stress levels: exercise, yoga, walking, meditation, deep breathing, laughing, journaling, reading, etc.
Step 6: Avoid food sensitivities. Eating foods that your body may not digest properly causes inflammation in your body and this inflammation can manifest as either water retention or weight gain around your abdominal area. Keep a food journal and pay close attention to foods that cause you bloating and gas and then try to eliminate those foods for at least two weeks to see how you feel. Re-introduce foods slowly, one at a time and see if you notice a difference. Start with the foods that people are most commonly sensitive to because they are the most frequently consumed foods in the western diet: Wheat and Dairy. Also, as explained above, insulin will lead to increased fat storage so eliminate all white products: flour and sugar!
Step 7: Exercise! Crunches are great, but move beyond the mat and the crunches, try and engage all abdominal muscles at once: transverse abdominus (the deep muscles that wrap around your body), rectus abdominus (the 6-pack) and both oblique’s (the sides). Pilates and yoga are a great way to practice engaging the core for long periods of time, especially the deep transverse muscles. Also try using stability tools like the Swiss ball, balance boards, Bosu’s, etc. To really burn the excess away, you’ll need to step up the cardio component of your workout and introduce high-intensity-interval training. Steady-state cardio has its place in athletic training but the intervals are what really burn the calories, so spring as hard as you can for a pre-determined period of time, say 30 seconds and recover for twice that, 60 seconds, repeat as many times as you can.
Whip those abs into shape, burn off the excess and eliminate the ways your body stores the excess on them and you’ll have six-pack abs before you know it!
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