Abs are made in the kitchen?

californiagirl2012

It's already covered, but I'll share my personal experience on this and a writeup I just did recently:

A lot of people ask me how do you get abs?

They say abs are made in the kitchen. That is partially true. It's the calorie deficit that melts off the fat so they show. You can be super strong and have abs, but they are hidden in a layer of fat.

We all store fat in different patterns and you can't really change that without surgery (personally I wouldn't go there). It's genetic. Some people have beautiful fat patterns and some of that looks better when you are younger. It's not fair but it is what it is.

Some of those beautiful young girl butt pictures where they say do squats - yes of course squats help but also they have a pretty fat storage pattern. It's not fair but it is what it is. Some pictures are photo shopped for sure. I don't really care about any of that. All that matters is that we have the knowledge that we all have our own unique fat storage pattern that we can only really control with diet and calorie deficit.

Back to ABS though. Lifting weights in general will build those abs. Heavy all body workouts. You don't have to do a huge amount of core work to get them. If you have too much fat still then the core work will just make you thicker through the waist.

It's best to focus on two things:

1) Calorie deficit and diet

2) All body lifting, heavy some days, light some days; circuits, body weight exercises, pyramid and superset routines, pulse sets, timed sets, different angles, all kinds of changing it up.

Then once you start seeing some definition you can tweak it to refine those abs.




And once I learned to "tweak" my workouts, the abs show even under my shirt on occasion.



FUN stuff!!!!
-Roberta

CoffeeNBooze

I agree with lowering your body fat % at a caloric deficit is how you are going to make your stomach more defined. Do you guys think traditional ab exercises help that along too, or is that more for strength/fitness?

californiagirl2012

TiaBia9 wrote: »

I agree with lowering your body fat % at a caloric deficit is how you are going to make your stomach more defined. Do you guys think traditional ab exercises help that along too, or is that more for strength/fitness?

That depends too. Some people store fat under/in the muscle and it pops more, others store the fat over the muscle and it requires lower body fat. For some people doing the extra ab work makes them look more thick until they get lean enough. It really is different for each person and the only way to know is to actually experiment with all this on your own body.

But you got the gist of it

Sarasmaintaining

asflatasapancake wrote: »

Sarasmaintaining wrote: »

myfitterlife wrote: »

Add me if you'd like I lost 15-17 kgs without exercise but by changing my eating habits. I lost the last three by exercising more and still eating a deficit. At that point, my body fat percentage had gotten down low enough that I started to see toning results from working out! I was also lazy in eating and prep. I know how hard it is to find a solution with all those crazy diets out there. My simplest advice:

- Cut all sodas, alcohol etc. Drink water.
- Base all your meals as much as you can around fresh produce (vegs, fruit) and protein (lean meat, chicken, fish, eggs). Add a (smaller) carb element, like pasta, rice or some bread.
- Learn to avoid pre-packaged food or food with tons of ingredients. For example, make your own pasta sauce based on tomato or passata instead of one in a pot, make/bring your own salad/sandwiches, replace cookies/crisps full of random ingredients with dark chocolate, nuts, etc.

If you find it hard, take it step by step. I started with cutting all the drinks (makes a huge difference in calorie intake!), then added more vegetables and fruit, slowly cut processed foods, etc. etc. etc.

Whereas I did pretty much the opposite-drank diet soda and alcohol, continued to eat all the foods I liked, including pre-packaged ones, food with long ingredient lists that I couldn't pronounce, fast food etc etc. Oh, and lots of cookies

Lost the weight with no problems just focusing on CICO and eating at a calorie deficit, and as I got my bf% down (currently in the 22% range), my stomach started looking much better. Along with that, I recently finished a 100 pushups challenge and took my profile picture as I was wrapping that up (picture was taken a few minutes after my morning can of diet Coke btw). That's the only exercise I had done, along with the lower weight and bf%, to get my abs visible like they are.

That's ridiculous! Very absurd! Everyone knows that Coke Zero is far superior to Diet Coke! This is pretty much me too. Add in ice cream and cheese curds. Can't forget those. I workout 3 times a week for about 1 1/2 hours. Usually includes cardio. When I lost a lot of my weight, I wasn't able to workout at all. You can workout 4 hours a day, 7 days a week, but if you don't lose the fat around the muscle, no one will see it.

I love coke cherry zero but also love diet coke with lime I'm actually drinking diet grape soda right now, just to shake things up lol.

awnurmarc

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NbwfwYTQpPc

This.

Timshel_

jcalicott wrote: »

Abs are made in the kitchen?

Yes, and served hot with farve beans and a fine Chianti.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Sarasmaintaining

asflatasapancake wrote: »

Sarasmaintaining wrote: »

asflatasapancake wrote: »

Sarasmaintaining wrote: »

myfitterlife wrote: »

Add me if you'd like I lost 15-17 kgs without exercise but by changing my eating habits. I lost the last three by exercising more and still eating a deficit. At that point, my body fat percentage had gotten down low enough that I started to see toning results from working out! I was also lazy in eating and prep. I know how hard it is to find a solution with all those crazy diets out there. My simplest advice:

- Cut all sodas, alcohol etc. Drink water.
- Base all your meals as much as you can around fresh produce (vegs, fruit) and protein (lean meat, chicken, fish, eggs). Add a (smaller) carb element, like pasta, rice or some bread.
- Learn to avoid pre-packaged food or food with tons of ingredients. For example, make your own pasta sauce based on tomato or passata instead of one in a pot, make/bring your own salad/sandwiches, replace cookies/crisps full of random ingredients with dark chocolate, nuts, etc.

If you find it hard, take it step by step. I started with cutting all the drinks (makes a huge difference in calorie intake!), then added more vegetables and fruit, slowly cut processed foods, etc. etc. etc.

Whereas I did pretty much the opposite-drank diet soda and alcohol, continued to eat all the foods I liked, including pre-packaged ones, food with long ingredient lists that I couldn't pronounce, fast food etc etc. Oh, and lots of cookies

Lost the weight with no problems just focusing on CICO and eating at a calorie deficit, and as I got my bf% down (currently in the 22% range), my stomach started looking much better. Along with that, I recently finished a 100 pushups challenge and took my profile picture as I was wrapping that up (picture was taken a few minutes after my morning can of diet Coke btw). That's the only exercise I had done, along with the lower weight and bf%, to get my abs visible like they are.

That's ridiculous! Very absurd! Everyone knows that Coke Zero is far superior to Diet Coke! This is pretty much me too. Add in ice cream and cheese curds. Can't forget those. I workout 3 times a week for about 1 1/2 hours. Usually includes cardio. When I lost a lot of my weight, I wasn't able to workout at all. You can workout 4 hours a day, 7 days a week, but if you don't lose the fat around the muscle, no one will see it.

I love coke cherry zero but also love diet coke with lime I'm actually drinking diet grape soda right now, just to shake things up lol.

I'm drinking the cherry version right now. And I don't know who made Vanilla Coke Zero, but it is pure crack cocaine. I can't find it in the grocery stores, but I stop at the magic million choice soda pop machine in Wendy's once in a while to get it.

I've never tried vanilla coke zero.....now I'm on a mission to find it lol.

skiclimbdive

chivalryder wrote: »

"The best ab exercise is three sets of stop eating so damn much." ~ T-Nation

This is awesome.

betuel75

I think working the abs muscles also helps once you get lean enough. There are plenty of real skinny/low body fat people out there without their abs showing. Because they dont work them.