I must admit that I am often somewhat uncomfortable discussing the topic of “how to have a flat stomach and ripped abs and a nice, firm and round butt” at a time where society finally promotes self-acceptance and “body positivity” (which I think is absolutely amazing). I feel like now, if you dare talk about weight loss and muscle building, you are looked at with the evil eye. Here are my thoughts on this: I think the most important thing in the world is to be happy. I am fully aware that for centuries there has been a ridiculous pressure on women to look a certain way and I believe that reversing this tendency by encouraging women to feel great in the skin they’re in regardless of their shape, size, color is absolutely fantastic. However, sometimes, no matter how hard you try, or whether the media encourages you to feel great in your own skin or not, you simply don’t. I know it, I have been there. Sometimes you just know you could be healthier and stronger, and you want to reach your highest potential and that too, should be applauded and rewarded. It takes courage to get out of one’s comfort zone to improve. It takes courage to decide to change. By attaching fitness to reaching one’s highest potential, I want to make it very clear that I most definitely don’t mean or encourage getting into fitness with the ultimate goal of being skinny. I do not embark on the cult of thinness conveyed by the media up until a couple years ago and that has destroyed countless women’s confidence for centuries. If you think of the best version of yourself, if you mentally picture what being your best self looks like, don’t you see a healthy and strong woman? A woman that can carry her stuff by herself, a woman that is full of energy, that takes care of her body and health? The only way to get to that is to adopt a healthy diet and exercise. And by the way, there are fitness girls of all shapes and sizes, and they all kick serious butts. Again, the most important thing is to feel good in your own skin. If you do, great. If you don’t, do whatever you have to do to feel better and if that includes exercising and eating healthy, I am happy to help. I encourage physical AND mental strength. I promote reaching one’s highest potential, and never comparing oneself to another human. Now back to the topic of this article!
I’ve said it time and time again, I have started my fitness journey with the precise goal of sculpting my abs and developing my glutes (butt). However, I wasn’t aware of all the factors that affect visibility of the abdominal wall and therefore, made quite a lot of mistakes that significantly slowed down the process of toning my stomach. The exercises I was performing at the time were great, I was convinced my diet was irreproachable, and I simply didn’t understand why, after years of exercising every day and eating clean, my stomach still wasn’t as flat and strong as I would have wanted it to be.
The situation I am describing refers to the time I started my fitness journey years ago and didn’t know anything about either fitness or nutrition, which led me to blindly follow Fitness programs without doing any research of my own. What I realized once I decided to take matters in my own hands, was that although I thought my diet was clean, it still wasn’t as healthy as it was supposed to be for me to reach my goals and I wasn’t performing the exercises that were going to get me a flat stomach and ripped abs. But at the time, it made already such a huge difference from the junk food I was used to eating that I thought it had to be great, but I was wrong!
That’s why in addition to providing you with a fitness program that’s entirely focused on your abs and butt, I also make it a point to break down for you how the human body functions, so you can, at some point, soar, and build your own workouts without needing the help of anyone.
In this post, I want to highlight all the things that act as barrier to having a flat stomach and visible abs. Let’s do this!
- Eating too much carbs.
If you read my post on Why We Gain Fat And What To Do About It, you understand that the sole reason why we gain weight is carbs, because it stimulates insuline secretion, and results in the excess of carbs ingested being stocked as fat. I never realized how clean your diet had to be in order to have a flat stomach and visible abs. You must be on a low carb diet in order for your abs to show. A low carb diet means eliminating simple sugars such as pastries, chocolate, candies, eliminating some of the complex carbs such as bread, pasta, potatoes, cutting on canned products that contain high fructose corn syrup, eating wholesome foods and limiting your fruits intake to 2 or 3 per day (fruits contain sugar and even if fructose is healthy, you shouldn’t eat too much of it.) - Not eating enough protein.
Muscles are made of two types of filaments: actin and myosin, both of which are protein. Proteins are made of amino acids liked together. If you want to build more muscle, your body needs to build more actin and myosin. It is as simple as that. There are two types of amino acids: essential and non-essential. Essential amino acids are those our body cannot produce itself and that needs to procured by food (meat, poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, quinoa, etc). Non-essential amino acids are those our body can produce by itself.
To calculate the quantity of protein you should ingest daily, take your body weigh in kg and multiply it by 0.8. It is important to eat protein at every meal of the day, to constantly fuel your body with protein. Be careful not consume more protein than your body needs, as the excess of protein ingested will be stocked as fat.
If you exercise very hard but don’t fuel your body with protein, you will simply not be able to build muscle. During an intense workout, your muscle fibers are broken down (meaning protein is also broken down). In order for muscle growth to take place, you need to repair damaged muscle fibers and replace them. This happens through protein synthesis. The repaired and new fibers increase in thickness and number to generate muscle hypertrophy (growth). In order for muscles to grow, the rate of protein synthesis has to be greater than the rate of protein break down. That’s why it’s important to eat enough protein especially if you train hard.
What happens if you don’t eat sufficient protein.
Protein are not only use to build mass, but they are also used to provide structure to internal organs, form red blood cells, produces immune cells and are an essential part of enzymes and hormones. Failure to consume enough protein leads your body to turn to muscle fibers and break them down to provide the rest of the tissues with the amino acids it needs. Cells use amino acids to synthesize new protein required. As the protein from your muscles continues to be used due to lack of protein intake, your muscle mass slowly decreases. - Body fat
One of the things that was so hard for me to realize and accept was that the only way to have visible abs is to have a low body fat percentage. The only way to do that is to have a very strict diet and incorporate cardio or High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) several times a week. HIIT is more efficient than simple cardio because you burn much more calories in a shorter period of time. But I think the best thing is to incorporate both to your routine. Say 2 HIIT sessions per week and 2 cardio sessions per week. Or 1 HIIT and 2 LISS (Low Intensity Steady State Training) cardio. I personally do cardio 5 times a week and HIIT once, along with my strength training workouts 5 times a week. This is probably a little too intense for a beginner but that’s how I prefer to approach my workouts. Also, know that weight lifting burns a whole lot of calories too. The key, to lose weight is to be in a caloric deficit of about 200 calories. NO MORE! So determine first how much calories you need (there are scales you can purchase for that) and then try to lower that number by 200 calories. I repeat, NO MORE THAN 200 calories deficit. I personally don’t calculate my calorie intake. I am reasonable in general and I don’t want to get obsessed with numbers. Your body fat percentage can be determined by a scale. I personally use my gym scale once a month to track my compress in body composition (body fat percentage, bone mass, muscle mass, number of calories needed daily, etc.) But if you want to purchase one your self, this one is fantastic. - Don’t work the whole abdominal wall
Your abs are made of three muscles: the obliques (sides), the rectus abdominis (6 pack), and the transverse abdominis, which is invisible but crucial for the flat stomach effect.
An efficient abs workout has to target all three muscles. Abs exercices don’t have to be long to be efficient. A 20 minute workout can be extremely powerful.
To work the Rectus Abdominis, do a mix of crunches and leg raises to work both the upper and lower abs. I like to insist on lower abs exercises because they’re harder to work. If you don’t want to have a visible six pack, you can stick to body weight exercises. But if you want to have visible abs, you’re gonna have to add weights to your exercises.
To work the obliques, make sure you incorporate both body weight and weight exercises such as Russian twists, side to side planks, cross crunches, etc.
Te Transverse abdominis is what provides the snatched stomach effect. It is made of horizontal fibers that hold your organs together. The stronger your transverse muscle, the flatter your stomach. All plank variations work your transverse.
