Abs are made in the kitchen?
jcalicott
Posts: 103 Member
I'm not sure I fully understand this statement, can someone give some examples of what i should not be putting in my body versus what i need to have, i have a very lazy way of eating and looking to shred body fat for a work related weight loss/muscle gain thing going on to get healthy and i need some kind of guidance on what to do, thanks in advance
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I'm no expert but weightloss is in the kitchen, muscle definition in the gym.0
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You see abs when you are at a low enough bf %. You get to this by eating in a deficit.... So you get abs in the kitchen, not by doing a million crunches0
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eat less calories than your body uses and you will lose weight
standard advice is to set stats in MFP and set auto goal to -0.5 to 1 lb per week, or to calculate TDEE and set manual calorie goal to TDEE - 20%. weigh/log all foods. win0 -
livingleanlivingclean wrote: »You see abs when you are at a low enough bf %. You get to this by eating in a deficit.... So you get abs in the kitchen, not by doing a million crunches
This! Exactly this.0 -
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livingleanlivingclean wrote: »You see abs when you are at a low enough bf %. You get to this by eating in a deficit.... So you get abs in the kitchen, not by doing a million crunches
This-visible abs come with a low bf%/losing enough weight.0 -
Searched for 'abs' on allrecipes.com. Found nothing.0
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I'm not sure I fully understand this statement, can someone give some examples of what i should not be putting in my body versus what i need to have, i have a very lazy way of eating and looking to shred body fat for a work related weight loss/muscle gain thing going on to get healthy and i need some kind of guidance on what to do, thanks in advance
+1 to what everyone above me says, but can you clarify this? Are you eating higher-calorie convenience foods? Maybe taking time to meal prep and plan would help you, or stocking your fridge and freezer with bags of frozen vegetables and precooked meat.
Also, you need to sort out which goal you want--weight loss or muscle gain, or maybe even a slow recomp--and go for that.0 -
ncboiler89 wrote: »Searched for 'abs' on allrecipes.com. Found nothing.
Roasted abs for dinner... hmmm...
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asflatasapancake wrote: »My abs were made with Fava beans and a nice chianti. And some fairy dust.
And a slight to moderate calorie deficit until I got to around 15-20% body fat.
Twisted minds think alike.
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Basically what others have said. You can't see your abs if they are covered by fat.
So to get the abs you see on TV you need to lower your body fat percentage0 -
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.0 -
I'm not sure I fully understand this statement, can someone give some examples of what i should not be putting in my body versus what i need to have, i have a very lazy way of eating and looking to shred body fat for a work related weight loss/muscle gain thing going on to get healthy and i need some kind of guidance on what to do, thanks in advance
fewer calories than you burn0 -
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.
all well-meaning, if somewhat unneccessary, advice / guidelines
it's about calories and dropping body fat
nothing wrong with carbs, diet sodas, alcohol or packaged foods if you're counting your calories
hit your macros (protein and fats) at a minimum and go with something you can stick to0 -
I'm not sure I fully understand this statement, can someone give some examples of what i should not be putting in my body versus what i need to have, i have a very lazy way of eating and looking to shred body fat for a work related weight loss/muscle gain thing going on to get healthy and i need some kind of guidance on what to do, thanks in advance
What should you not put into your body: Excess Calories
That is what you should not be putting into your body. Everything else is fine for the purposes of abs.
Anecdotal personal case study:
I went from this gut
To these abs
And i did it eating Frozen Pizzas, Poptarts, Chef Boyardi, Taco Bell, and Pepsi[1] without doing a single ab-specific exercise (full disclosure, I'm a runner so there's a lot of non-ab exercise in there)
FOOT NOTE
[1] I don't eat like that anymore for other reasons (doctors orders -blood pressure, cholesterol, etc (all ok now that diet was changed) that have nothing to do with abs.
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While this is often spouted endlessly here, it's really taken out of context and isn't as simple as people make it sound, otherwise everyone would be walking around ripped. You have to have your eating dialed in. Some can do that while eating anything including lots of junk, others cannot. Its also a pretty safe bet that you need to be doing some form of exercise. The average person is not going to just diet their way to a 6 pack without busting thier backside doing some kind of exercise. Again some people will need to do more strength, others may prefer running, and others may do something totally different. There's no single route. Then factor in that some people just aren't going to get there. Genetics can trump all the best efforts. Or at least make it so difficult that its just not worth the effort to many people.0
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"The best ab exercise is three sets of stop eating so damn much." ~ T-Nation0
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While this is often spouted endlessly here, it's really taken out of context and isn't as simple as people make it sound, otherwise everyone would be walking around ripped. You have to have your eating dialed in. Some can do that while eating anything including lots of junk, others cannot. Its also a pretty safe bet that you need to be doing some form of exercise. The average person is not going to just diet their way to a 6 pack without busting thier backside doing some kind of exercise. Again some people will need to do more strength, others may prefer running, and others may do something totally different. There's no single route. Then factor in that some people just aren't going to get there. Genetics can trump all the best efforts. Or at least make it so difficult that its just not worth the effort to many people.
Paraphrased:
"You get abs by maintaining a strict calorie deficit and it gets harder as you get closer to showing the abs. For some people, it's easier than it is for other people. Exercise can be used to help with the calorie deficit, but it's not always necessary."0 -
Run, run, run. The Army was the only time that I had ripped abs. At the time I was running 16 - 20 miles a week, lifting weights in the afternoon & a montly 12 mile road march with a full combat load during PT. That was life in the Infantry.0
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The statement is a little incorrect. You don't make abdominal muscles in the kitchen. But diet is how you lose the fat to reveal the muscles. You can have rock hard abs covered by fat. If you want to see the abs in the mirror, you need to start in the kitchen.0
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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.
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Start in the kitchen if you have fat to lose, but define in the gym. I know plenty of skinny fat or even just skinny people with flat stomachs, but they have no definition in their abs. Core and strength training by lifting heavy with a solid program goes a long way to body composition.0
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astralpictures wrote: »I know plenty of skinny fat or even just skinny people with flat stomachs, but they have no definition in their abs.
I'd probably fall into that category. Even at around 17% BF (female) I had no discernible abdominal muscles.
Months of standard weight lifting did nothing to change that. I found I had to add some ab-specific exercises to my workout. Fortunately that proved very effective, probably because I was starting at such a low BF.
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ncboiler89 wrote: »Searched for 'abs' on allrecipes.com. Found nothing.
Lose weight in the kitchen, build muscle in the gym.0 -
basically you cut (diet) to expose abs. You have to be at a relatively low BF% for abs to pop. Yes...you have to have the muscle, so you have to exercise...but cutting fat to expose that muscle happens with diet...thus abs are made in the kitchen.0
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this thread needs an infusion of lulz stat
y so srs0 -
Uhm, I was going to add something but I think everyone above has it pretty much covered.
Except for this
As for contradictory advice on what to eat... How much is more important than what.
Although you do get more veggies per calorie than pizza, sometimes you just have to have a slice (or not). Just stick to your calorie goals.
Go to it and Good Luck.
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