Want six pack abs? You’re not alone. Getting the coveted set of six pack abs (8 pack abs for those of you who are really ambitious) is a feat that many people set out to obtain, but yet very few people ever actually do more forward to see success with.
Why is this so?
What makes getting six pack abs so difficult?
Lots of things. Evolutionarily speaking, your body was not designed to have full-fledged abdominal definition showing. This is especially the case if you’re a woman (take note, when it comes to fat loss, women almost always get the raw end of the deal).
If you want to actually see success and rip off that T-shirt come beach season to show off a chiselled set of abdominal muscles you are going to have work. And work hard at that.
Sure, there will be a slim few of you who naturally just have abs (and the rest of us hate you immensely), but for the vast majority of the population, six pack abs does not come easily.
Let’s have a look at why this is so you can brace yourself for what’s to come.
A Falling Metabolism
The very first battle you’re going to have to fight on the road to six pack abs is with your own body. Your body doesn’t especially want you to be very lean. To it, fat is its source of survival. Without it, you’d die.
Any time you threaten your body’s survival by trying to diet down to very lean levels, you can place your best bet that it’s going to fight back.
Believe me, you do not want to be in a fight with your body.
As the body recognizes the fact that there is so few calories coming in and most often there is a larger energy expenditure going out (as you, the ab fanatic are doing workout after workout after workout), it’s going to take action.
More specifically, it’s going to start to conserve fuel. The fewer calories it burns on a daily basis, the longer that fat storage is going to last. It only makes sense, right?
Remember, your body doesn’t have the same goals as you do. While you strive to fit into your pair of skinny jeans or don ripped abs on the beach, your body is much more concerned with staying alive. It’s going to start to do everything it can to hold onto your body fat stores so that you’re not risking, well, death. Take your body fat levels too low and it would be fatal (they don’t call it essential fat for nothing).
So the first problem you’ll encounter is a metabolic rate that’s running on s-l-o-w speed. It’s crawling along barely burning any calories during the day and your fat loss has come to a halt.
Insane Hunger Levels
Problem number two that you’ll encounter is hunger. Most people who are relatively lean already are pretty well versed on the hunger issue.
Start cutting your food and hunger is inevitable. Especially when you start removing both carbs and fats and are eating a strictly protein and vegetable based diet. You will simply not have any preferred source of fuel to run off of.
Your body, with its main goal of survival in mind, is going to try and get you to eat. It does this by ramping up hunger levels to the extreme.
To be successful in the quest for abs, you need to:
- Find a way to tolerate and push through this hunger (some people can do this incredibly well….others…not so much – the pantry is where they head)
- Use specific food, exercise, and supplement techniques to decrease hunger levels
Preferably you’ll use a combination of both. If you are unable to get hunger under control however, it’s going to be mighty difficult to maintain your reduced calorie diet and that is a must to be successful with the goal to get 6 pack abs.
Bloating
Moving on we come to our next hurdle, bloat. While this hurdle isn’t related to fat loss per say, it sure can be damn annoying.
You wake up looking leaner than ever and by evening, all abdominal definition has vanished.
Or, it may be opposite. You go to bed looking lean and wake up looking smooth in the midsection.
Each of these scenarios happens for different reasons. The first scenario is due to the incoming food and fluid intake throughout the day, which causes bloating to occur (food does take up space, after all).
The second scenario is likely do to a meal very high in sodium the evening prior which caused you to wake up retaining water weight. In some cases it may not be sodium, it could be a food that you’re especially sensitive to (many people have issues with dairy, gluten, or artificial sweeteners and get this effect).
Any way you slice it, this bloat is reducing the image of 6 pack abs and is going to prove to be quite frustrating.
Fortunately, it doesn’t represent a real set-back since it’s not actual body fat, but nevertheless, it can get you down.
Learning how to effectively deal with bloating is your best bet to overcome this hurdle.
Motivation
Forth up we have your motivation level. Simply put, your ab fat is most likely going to be the last fat that you lose on your body.
As the saying goes, ‘first to come on, last to leave’. You’ll notice that you seem to get lean everywhere else except your abs before you see any muscle definition coming through.
In some women, they may be very, very lean in their upper bodies yet still not showing six pack abs.
The reason for this is that abdominal fat is especially stubborn and is much harder to move off the body than fat elsewhere.
In males, lower back fat is similar (so you’ll be stuck with ab fat and back fat), while in females, hip and thigh fat reacts the same way. For females, it is very, very difficult to remove lower body and lower abdominal fat.
Unless you’re using advanced protocols to remove stubborn body fat, this will definitely put a halt to your progress.
Your Genetics
Finally, last but not least, the remaining hurdle that you could face is your genetics. With this, we’re speaking more about the shape of the abdominal muscles.
Most people who are seeking this goal have a very specific image of what they want their body to look like. They’ve seen models on the covers of magazines with abs and they want to look just like that.
They put in the hard work, maintain their diet, and get down to low body fat levels.
But, much to their dismay, they look nothing like their ‘ideal’.
The reason for this is simply the shape and structure of their abdominal region. Remember, everyone is built differently so your abdominal muscles may be larger, smaller, or just laid out much differently than that cover model you had your eyes on.
This, unfortunately, is something that you’re just going to have to accept. Since abdominal muscle structure is determined at birth, there’s not a whole lot you can do to change this.
Instead, focus on just getting leaner and getting your definition in place. That’s all you can do to overcome this hurdle.
So there you have five main hurdles you’ll face when going after the goal to get six pack abs. With enough determination, focus, and persistency, you can realize success with this goal, but you must be prepared for the battle ahead.