Weight lifting

Lots of people recommend this for beginners:

http://stronglifts.com/5x5/

If you're looking for bigger muscles (as opposed to dense, strong muscles) then you should focus on higher amounts of reps.

http://www.exrx.net/Lists/WorkoutMenu.html

Lots of great stuff here too - one day a week, two, three, four days a week. It even tells you what muscle groups to work out on which days.

Finally, the abs are going to be worked out incidentally if you're doing things like deadlifts and squats. You can work them directly for sure, but they won't show up until you hit around 10% body fat.

So... I would start simple. Don't go too hard too fast and be patient.

You can get a set of calipers from Amazon for like five bucks. You take measurements at specific sites and plug them into an equation.

Not a waste of money. Especially considering how cheap they are. DEXA scans are $100 to $150.

You can get calipers with a larger margin of error and take weekly measurements which will indicate a trend. There's also ways of estimating it via measuring tape like the Navy method.

Regardless of the method you use, the idea is to be able to spot trends.

dwarfiegodsmack wrote: »

i use a hand-held body fat monitor. i know it isn't 100% accurate but i don't need it to be. i use it to see the downward trend. good enough for me

Yes, absolutely this. Observe the trend; this is paramount.