Flatter Abs - Diet + Exercise
The proliferation of fast food joints in the developed countries of the world has caused over 60% of their populations to be overweight. Dial-up pizzas, drive-thru delis and gourmet microwave dinners have made it all too easy for people to pack on flab.
The most common mistake dieters make is to try to lose weight and get flatter abs by drastically changing their eating habits, trying to cut down calorie intake. Although this method will initially result in weight-loss, not all of it can be attributed to lost body fat.
Whenever we let ourselves go hungry, our body actually slows down our metabolic rate. This means it won’t burn calories from body fat as much and uses up our glycogen stores instead. Glycogen is a carbohydrate-derived substance that is needed by our muscles for proper development. Skipping meals, especially breakfast, can lead to loss of glycogen and muscle tissue.
Loss of muscle tissue will inhibit the body’s calorie-burning capabilities and this will deter efforts at fat-loss and flatter abs, of course. Muscles actually burn calories just being there unlike fat which only serves to cover-up the contours of the abdominal muscle.
Another thing about muscle tissue is it’s much heavier per volume than fat. This fact makes it easy to be misled into thinking we’ve lost a significant amount of body fat when it’s actually muscle we’ve lost by cutting back on calories and skipping meals.
A better way to get flatter abs is not to eat less, but to eat wisely. Eating smaller portions of food several times throughout the day will keep your metabolic rate from dropping and maintain proper fat-burning ability. Doing this will also prevent you from eating too much in one sitting- stretching the walls of the stomach out of proportion.
Replacing candy and chips with healthier nuts and fruit will let you lose weight without having to eat less. Exercises geared towards fast body fat burn can help even more in paving the way for overweight people to get flatter abs.
Doing resistance training along with cardiovascular sessions will also make it easier for a person to get flatter abs by building muscle. As stated previously, muscle tissue burns calories even while at rest, so the more of it we build, the more calories we can burn each day.