The Keys to Flat Abs

Do you desire to truly flatten your abs? There are many suggested ways to gain flat abs, but how many of them actually work? And what do you really need to do to produce a respectable mid-section. Five hundred crunches a day, run a mini-marathon five days a week, or eat only salads every meal each day? These all seem a little extreme if they work at all! The truth of the matter is reducing your pouch belly requires a combination of activities.

Food intake alterations, cardiovascular exercise, and resistance training are the major components associated with body composition alteration. These three activities must create a calorie deficit within your body.

Food Intake Alteration

If you have a big belly, you will need to look closely at your nutritional intake, the amount of food consumed per day. Weight is gained when the amount of energy (food) consumed exceeds the amount of energy expended. Reducing your waistline means eating less food per day. You can start by cutting high calorie, nutrient deficient foods from your diet. Foods like chips, soda, sugary foods, fried foods, and processed foods contribute to the calorie totals for the day while providing little or no nutritional value.

You will however want to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables eaten. In addition, whole grain, nuts, seeds, and lean organic or free-range meats will provide the nutrients and energy needed to execute your ab flattening program.

Cardiovascular Activity

The key to weight lose and a reduction to the circumference of the waist-line requires the use of the law of thermo-dynamics and no ifs, ands or buts about it. The law of thermo-dynamics clearly states that to lose weight one must burn more calories than one consumes. There are many ways to enhance calories expenditure, such as running, walking, biking, dancing, swimming, skating and jumping rope; aerobic activities that are performed at levels high enough expend a sufficient amount of calories.

The goal is to create a calorie deficit through the “flatten your stomach” protocol; diet, aerobics exercise, and resistance training. Your aerobic activity can contribute to the required calories deficient if done for a sufficient time (usually 20 minutes) period and in conjunction with the proper diet and resistance exercises.

Resistance Training

Resistance training or strength training must be included in the combination of activities necessary to flatten the mid-section. Resistance training tones and strengthens muscles, increasing muscle mass and the ability of the body to use energy. Movement requires energy, muscles produce movement, the more muscle mass involved in movement the move energy utilized. A well rounded strengthening program will include exercises designed to strengthen and tone all of the major muscles of the body.

There is no miracle formula or pill to produce flat abs. They are possible with the combination of proper diet, aerobic activity, and strengthen training to produce a calorie deficit. The sooner you understand this and implement such a program the sooner you will reach your goal.