By Al­loy John­son

Al­most every­one who works out would at some point in their wak­ing life em­brace the idea of hav­ing a six pack. While this is very at­tain­able for many folks, the same just re­mains an idea for oth­ers. Ask the ques­tion and you will get so many dif­fer­ent an­swers; it would make your head spin. So how do you re­al­ly fil­ter out the noise? The most im­por­tant fac­tor of hav­ing any chance of an ap­pear­ance of abs starts in your kitchen. Yes, your di­et is key. How­ev­er be­fore I go on, there’s a con­ver­sa­tion to be had about train­ing be­cause they both go hand in hand.

What first comes to mind for many folks when they think about a six pack is car­dio, “I have to burn fat.” In many of my ar­ti­cles you are go­ing to find a com­mon thread of over-lap­ping and what I am about to say is one of them. Los­ing fat has very lit­tle to do with how many calo­ries you burn while work­ing out, what is cru­cial is how many calo­ries you’ve burnt be­tween your last work­out and your re­turn to the gym or the next work­out. So, for those of you who kill your­selves do­ing car­dio every day, it is not re­al­ly about burn­ing fat while work­ing out, it is about the meta­bol­ic and hor­mon­al re­sponse / im­pact of ex­er­cise and strength train­ing does just that.

So what I’ve seen from over 30 years of ex­pe­ri­ence and re­search com­par­a­tive­ly is that strength train­ing is far more su­pe­ri­or than car­dio alone. Your train­ing ide­al­ly should al­ways be geared to­wards in­creas­ing ben­e­fi­cial hor­mon­al out­put which ab­solute­ly guar­an­tees build­ing lean­er mus­cles. This type of sci­ence is of­ten over­looked by many hence the rea­son some folks strug­gle to get that de­sired six pack. If you hon­est­ly want to change your body, you should al­ways keep in mind it is not about how much fat you’ve burnt dur­ing the work­out, it is about build­ing meta­bol­ic boost­ing mus­cle. With­in the fit­ness in­dus­try there is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that peo­ple who do high in­ten­si­ty train­ing need to be on a chron­ic low carb di­et.

How­ev­er this prac­tice can lead to that soft flab­by ap­pear­ance you some­times see with some folks be­cause this di­et pro­motes more mus­cle loss. So be care­ful who you take ad­vice from on this top­ic. Mis­in­for­ma­tion and myth abound.

Aside from hit­ting the gym, choos­ing the right foods would no doubt help you get these abs quick­er. Here are some good foods that would help. Fruits and veg­eta­bles are very nu­tri­ent-dense, mean­ing they are low in calo­ries but very high in an­tiox­i­dants, fi­bre and an as­sort­ment of vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als. They may aid in weight loss and ramp up your fat burn­ing ma­chine, these are im­por­tant if you want to build those abs. Not for­get­ting whole grains which are al­so a good source of vi­t­a­mins, min­er­als and an­tiox­i­dants. Nuts and seeds pro­vide the per­fect bal­ance of fi­bre, pro­tein and healthy fats, all of which can be in­cred­i­bly ben­e­fi­cial in help­ing you along the way to that de­sired six pack and they may al­so aid in get­ting those inch­es off the waist.

Ide­al­ly you want to learn from some­one with prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence. Some­one who has a six pack and has helped many achieve one. As my dear friend and men­tor would al­ways say, “when some­one of­fers ad­vice, if they can­not ex­plain them­selves clear­ly, leave it alone.”

For more keep read­ing the Health Plus Mag­a­zine in your T&T Guardian.