3 Mistakes People Make When Trying To Get Six Pack Abs

One goal on many people’s agenda is getting those elusive six-pack abs. When you’re sporting around a defined set of abs, it’s a clear indication that you’ve worked hard in the gym and you know exactly what you’re doing when it comes to fitness and weight loss.

Unfortunately, many people go about getting six pack abs in all the wrong ways - and this costs them - BIG.

Unless you understand the principles behind getting your abs to show, you are going to spend years on the six pack ab chase.

Here are the top three mistakes people are making when in search of a six pack.

Doing Endless Amounts of Ab Work

If you want to build your bicep’s bigger, you do bicep curls. If you want to develop quads of steel, you do squats till the cows come home.

It only makes sense then that if you want to see clearly defined abs, you should crunch, crunch, crunch, right?

Wrong.

While some ab work is good - it’ll help develop the ab muscles, the fact of the matter is that we all have ab muscles.

I have ab muscles, you have ab muscles, even that five year old running across the street has ab muscles.

The reason some of us have showing ab muscles is because we don’t have that cushiony, protective layer that keeps them in hiding.

So, if you really want to get six pack abs, you need to remove the padding. Plain and simple.

If there’s excess padding, you could have the biggest ab muscles in the world and they’re still not going to look defined.

Not Enough Time In The Kitchen

Okay, technically, maybe that should be too much time in the kitchen - but the point in clear, unless you’ve got yourself on a solid diet, don’t expect a solid set of abs.

The saying, ‘Abs are made in the kitchen’, is 100% true.

Going back to the above, you’ve got to remove excess body fat if you want your abdominal muscles to show, and the best way to do that is with a proper diet.

There is no excuse for not putting in a full effort when it comes to your diet if getting a six pack is your primary goal.

In fact, I’d almost go as far to say that if you had to choose between a good diet and never doing a single ab crunch, or a mediocre diet and doing a good 30 minutes of abs three times a week, I’d choose the former for best results.

Diet is THAT important.

Do not overlook this, ever.

Not Being Patient

Finally, the last mistake people make with their goal to get six pack abs is not being patient enough.

As much as you likely don’t want to hear this, fat in the abdominal region is typically the last fat you’re going to lose, so unless you’ve seen noticeable decreases in ‘padding’ around the rest of your body, don’t count on seeing changes in your abs.

Lowering your body fat is a whole body approach - there’s no such thing as spot training, so you’re just going to have to be patient and trust that with hard work, results will come.

Not to be cliché, but good things come to people who wait. Abs are no exception.

So, if you’ve got your mind set on a set of six pack abs, make sure you’re clear in that mind of yours about these common mistakes.


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Late Night Eating and Fat Loss

One hot topic when it comes to fat loss is late night eating.

How many times have you heard someone say, 'I always make sure I don't eat after 6 PM, since anything eaten after that point is more likely to turn to fat'?

Probably more times than you can count. But, how accurate is that statement, really?

Not accurate.

Do you think your body looks at the clock and thinks, '6:01', well, that food is just not needed now and we better convert this to body fat.'

Obviously not. While your body definitely does require more calories when you are more active during the day, which for most people is typically during the morning and afternoon hours, if you are working out in the evening or even if you just lead a fairly active lifestyle, it will actually hinder you if you don't eat late at night.

Further, the fact of the matter is that it's not eating late at night that causes you to gain weight. It's eating too many calories - which often occurs late at night (think about the types of foods you're typically eating later in the evening), that causes the problem.

If you want to eat something before you go to bed - eat it. I promise it won't harm your weight loss efforts as long as the following rules are being met:

1. The calories consumed during this snack are figured into your daily calorie intake, which is still in alignment with what's needed for you to see weight loss.

2. You are not starving all day only to binge at night (this is neither healthy or a good habit to get into).

3. The snack consists of some protein and preferably more fat than carbs (assuming you have not just finished a workout, then the opposite is true).

Point three isn't really necessary, it's just a good addition to prevent overnight blood sugar spikes that wake you up halfway through the night.

But, if those three conditions are there, I promise you, you can have a late night snack and not have problems with your weight loss results.

And, if you just happen to be more concerned at the moment with muscle building, then you damn well better be eating at night as the body needs those calories.

Late night eating. Don't fear it - just be smart about it. Read more!