Thursday, March 29, 2012

Peace Love and the Pursuit of Abs.

Most of us that exercise, indeed most people period look at having definition in your stomach muscles as a milestone on the road to being fit. Once a person has achieved that milestone they love to show off that flat tummy with the well defined muscles. To many of us will never have that tummy like a champion bodybuilder or a fitness model. There are to many factors involved in having that feature.

To start with a flat tummy is a result of reducing your total overall body fat level. You can't just take off the pudge in the places you want to, it's an all over thing and unfortunately our body likes to store it's fat reserves around our middle. You can do sit ups and crunches till you're blue but till you reduce your layers of pudge around our middles the abs will never come.

Once you have allowed yourself to get heavy around the waist it's double hard to ever have that tummy definition. Our bodies will make new fat cells, storage sheds, to hold the extra food we take in since the body looks at our over eating as preparing for lean times ahead. Once the fat cells are produced our bodies will not destroy them, they will allow us to empty those storage sheds of their stored fat but the fat cells remain, ready for refilling when needed. So if you have in the past gone through periods of gaining weight you will have those fat cells for always and forever.

You can have a trim waist but those layers of empty fat cells will hide your abdominal muscles even when they are good and strong from regular exercise. It can be disheartening to work your tummy regularly and not get to see the results but we do pay for our past habits. So a trim waist and strong core should be your goal rather than the definition, when and if that does come it's a plus but don't stress over it if it doesn't happen.

Another roadblock a lot of us face is our body type. Some body types put on weight easier, others put on muscle easier. We are who we are though and we can't change body types. We can however make the most of what we have. Some people will have a harder time of it than others. If you accept who you are and what you have to work with then you will have a easier time making the changes in your fitness and strength.

Finally we have to do our training as our lives allow. Some people will have an easier time fitting exercise and living healthy into their schedule. It's important to do the many activities that being fit requires, the stretching the strengthening and the cardio. Some days are not going to allow it, so no use stressing over it.

The best plan and path? First the best plan is the one that fits your life. Then work on the big three; getting your weight down to a healthy level, cutting out the unhealthy habits, like smoking, drinking sodas and eating highly processed food and finally getting regular exercise. Doing these things will make us healthier and stronger. Once you have made good progress on the big three then you can start thinking about sculpting.

Thanks for reading.

1 comment:

Cheetah Endurance said...

Um..this is much easier when people realize that belly/ab/gut is associated with what you eat. Diet dictates what your six pack looks like.

sincerely,

Cheetah Endurance