Are you trying to lose body fat, or are you trying to lose weight?  Maybe you are trying  to accomplish both.  How many times have you heard or read versions of the following statements?

1. “Abs are made in the kitchen.”

2. “Your diet is 80% responsible for the way you look.”

3. “Getting in shape is 80% diet and 20% training.”

If you are like me, you have heard or read statements like these MANY TIMES.  And, if you are like me, statements like these, and, in fact, most general advice people tend to give, annoys you.  The problem is most people happily dispense advice, on a variety of topics, with absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

I get it.  I really do.  People who offer their (completely delusional) advice are just trying to help.  They don’t know what they don’t know.  In this case, they are just trying to get their point across that diet is THE critical factor in “losing weight”.  In a way, they are not wrong – your diet IS super important.

BUT…

The first thoughts that pop into my head when someone offers any version of the above 3 statements is,

1. Someone does not understand how POWERFUL proper training really is.
2. “Wow” – Someone has no business offering coaching advice.
3. Someone is fast on their way to an eating disorder.

If you are an advanced lifter with a comprehensive understanding of training, you already know that rhetoric like, “abs are made in the kitchen” is one of the favorite battle cries of the grossly inexperienced and the marginally informed.  And usually this type of shill insists that all you need to do to finally get those coveted “six-pack abs” is stuff like “egg whites and oatmeal for breakfast, and 90 minutes of cardio 6 days/week”.  Unfortunately, it is JUST. NOT. THAT. SIMPLE.  A plan like that may even (temporarily) work for a very select few, but the majority with fail on a plan such as that, and fail hard.

You cannot expect to lose body fat AND “get abs” from just dieting alone.

It simply does not work that way.  You can be religiously consistent with the absolute best diet in the world and you may, or MAY NOT “have abs”.

Why?

Because DIET alone does not build muscle mass directly.  Nor will diet alone effectively maintain your muscle mass as you age.

Without proper TRAINING, there is ZERO muscle building going on.  And depending on your age and general day-to-day stress levels, you may be LOSING MUSCLE even with the ideal diet.

Diet and weight loss have grown to be a $71 billion industry, yet according to studies— 95% of diets fail

The obsession with “getting six-pack abs” has been around for a long time now.  Obviously, it has proven very profitable to sell products and services that promise to finally, easily get you “looking great in a swimsuit, sporting those washboard, six-pack abs”.  You can safely assume that ALL these products and services are basically lies and scams.  And, look around, almost NOBODY has six-pack abs.  In reality, the general population, on average, is fatter and less fit than ever before in human history.

All this false advertising, and the explosion of health and fitness experts on social media, help perpetuate and reinforce the mountain of myths surrounding how to properly diet and exercise.  The industry promising results is the same industry preventing the general public from adopting successful methods to achieve their health and fitness goals.

The reason you are having trouble “figuring it out” is not completely your fault.

You should, however, try to break from societal norms and take some personal responsibility.  Stop polluting your mind with inferior information.  Start with the obvious worst source of constructive information – the “idiot box”.  Television is completely worthless – watching TV is a great way to become LESS intelligent over time (study, study, study).  Magazines and newspapers are also extremely poor sources of good learning material – another waste of time.  There is some gold to be mined from the right BOOKS, but about 95% of it is pure nonsense.  And then we have the world wide web… yes, the internet can be an amazing communication medium and resource, but there are many, many pitfalls.  The explosion of information, especially on the internet, has led to mass confusion, especially in fitness.

You CAN lose body fat WITHOUT “dieting”.

In order to lose weight AND “get abs”, you need these 3 things:

1. a force of will
2. the right training program
3. sleep and other methods for proper management of stress

YES, it will be much easier if you have a nutrition program that works in concert with these 3 things, but just know this:

With the right training program, and an adequate force of will, you could go from 20% body fat to 12% body fat, WITHOUT changing your diet.

Whatever the baseline diet is before the program begins is fine, as long as you are not in a metabolic situation where your body weight and/or body fat has been generally rising at an average rate of more than 2 pounds per month.

When you are attempting to change the form and function of your body, you are actually attempting to send a very specific message(s) to your body.  In the case of “getting abs”, you are sending the body two specific messages that are potentially conflicting.  If you are to be successful in this goal, you are saying, “gain (or at least maintain) muscle, lose fat”.  Stated more simply, you are essentially saying, “get bigger here, get smaller there”, or “store more energy here, store less energy there.”

The primary method of communicating these two messages to your body is your training program, NOT your diet.  A force of will implies that you are strong and confident enough to apply your training program (stimulus) specifically, consistently, and intensely enough to bring about these desired changes (adaptation).

With a strong enough force of will, you may be able to make this happen with inferior methods and equipment, but, inevitably, you will burn yourself out.  Your energies are finite, so use the absolute best equipment you can find, adopt a successful training program, and put yourself in the optimal environment for change.



What does a “successful training program” look like?

THE LIST of exercise options that WILL NOT WORK for “getting abs” and helping you consistently lose body fat.

It’s a long list, but there are definitely many more I have not explicitly mentioned.  Some of you will find what you’ve done or are currently doing on this list, object, and say, “I lost weight doing that!”.  Sure, you did… but, if you did lose weight, you ALSO changed your diet when you applied that specific exercise modality.

In all these exercise options below, it was the diet, NOT THE TRAINING, that precipitated the weight loss.  WEIGHT LOSS DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN BODY FAT LOSS.  And, yes, going from literally doing nothing to breaking a daily sweat and putting a stop to eating like an irresponsible idiot, will do something… at least at first.

If you want to NEVER see what your abs look like under that layer of fat, spend 100% of your exercise time performing any of the following:

• Group Fitness Classes (why?)
• Group “Strength and Conditioning” Classes (why?)
• Burpees
• Dancing around your living room with video instruction
• “Boot Camp” style workouts
• Kickboxing, or Cardio Kickboxing
• Jazzercise
• Pure Barre
• Les Mills workouts
• Peloton workouts
• Spinning
• Zumba class
• Endless cardio performed on the Elliptical
• Endless cardio performed on the Treadmill
• Endless cardio performed on the Stationary Bike

If you lost muscle, or even gained fat, while employing one of the above exercise options as the sole component of your training program, there are two good reasons why:

1. Lack of effective loading options, i.e. ways to effectively increase the intensity over time
2. Increasing the magnitude of any of these exercise options increases the muscle loss

Look, I’m not saying all this stuff is a waste of time, I’m just saying it’s a waste of time if your goal is to get abs, or to look fantastic in your swimsuit.

You might enjoy one or more or the above activities – that’s great.  If you truly enjoy it, keep doing it.  But if you want to see your abs in this lifetime, start lifting free weights at least 4 hours per week. Then do that other stuff in your spare time.  If you have a SOLID foundation of strength (progressive resistance) training in your exercise program, you could possibly use some of these options on the list to accelerate your weight loss, but ONLY if it is programmed properly.

Thank you for reading.