Hello everyone! I have been struggling to slim down & tighten up for quite a while now. I eat superhealthy almost always, & have been doing cardio/weight training regularly. As most guys, I want to have rock hard abs that are lean, cut, & defined. Different fitness trainers tell me different things about this. I would like to have someone finally set the record straight & point me in the right direction. I'm not only looking to accomplish rock hard abs, but I more importantly want to decrease the circumference/radius of my stomach, lower back, & waist overall. Now some people have told me to stay away from ab exercises & do nothing but cardio to slim my waist/stomach 1st. Once it's as slim as you want it to be, THEN tighten it up with ab exercises. They say that if I do ab exercises, I will just turn my gut into a muscle gut...I don't want that. Others have told me that that is not true, that you need to do both. Can someone please help me get on the right track, & tell me how I accomplish this goal?
Thank you in advance.

well, if you want to ever see you stomache muscles then you will have to get yourself to at least 5% body fat, otherwise you can just keep hoping. So basicly just do cardio-vascular exersizes. try a tread-mill, or swimming. something that burns a lot of fat. When you get yourself to about this %, then you can start working on your abs if you feel they arnt showing enough. There is a test to do for exact body fat results, but I'm not realy sure how they do that. Hopefully someone here does.

EDIT: refer to post made my LaxDemon1 that should tell you what you need to know.

You should be able to start seeing your abs around 10-12% of BF. 5% would be increadably low.

Yeah, 5% is too low. I heard and read that a guy who has 4% body fat or less is very dangerous. I'm at 18% right now. I'm 5'8.5" tall and weight 180 pounds. I'm currently doing hypertrophy weight training 4-5 times a weeks, and an hour of cardio mostly at a fairly steep incline along with it.
I only do ab exercises 1 - 2 days per week.

I'm watching what I eat in terms of focusing on eating foods that are low on the glycemic index chart and cutting my portions down to half of what I would normally eat, rather than watching my calories. I wish I could have more success limiting my calorie consumption. But whenever I do that, and even when I do it in a way where I make sure that I eat frequent meals throughout the day, I still feel as though I am always starving. And when I feel like that, I become weak to the point where some times I get bad headaches, and then I feel 100% unmotivated. So I still have my moments where I lose all sense of discipline, will say screw it, and then eat anything I want. This usually only last 2-3 days at a time, then won't happen for a 2-3 weeks. Still, I wish i could resist my cravings, and not be that way at all. If I can resist my cravings for months instead of just weeks at a time, or learn to resist them indefinitely, there's no telling what I can accomplish!

I would like to get down to 160-165 pounds, which is 15-20 lighter within the next 4-5 months. I think this is reasonable. Once I get there, I will focus more on core and ab exercises. I might do more intense cardio, depending on whether or not I feel I need to look even leaner at that point. Since I won't have much fat left to burn, it will be a matter of doing intense cardio to deplete a little (not too much) of my muscle mass to obtain that more lean and cut look.

Any more tips or suggestions???

Hey Funksonic, if you watch your diet, I think you are on track with your diet to get your results. Good luck. Did you make any progress in the 5 years from your first post to your last post?

5 years!?! I'm definitely in much better shape then I was 5 years ago, and when I lose another 15-20 pounds, I'll look pretty close to what I looked like in high school, no doubt.

People that I went to high school with that I both have and have not seen in a while are always saying that I look the same, which is a great compliment! Some of them even question me by asking me if my facebook pic is an up-to-date one. But enough of my vain verbal pats on the back to myself...

In the past year, I went from 215 pounds to 180 pounds.
I'm in decent shape now, but there's still room for improvement.
Once I lose another 15-20 pounds within the next 4-5 months, that should put me under 10% body fat, and my six pack will begin to show again.

My diet is becoming more and more about fish than chicken. I've found that even though it's a lighter meal, fish keeps me feeling fuller longer. And instead of snacking on food like celery sticks, my in-between snacks consist more like a tuna fish sandwich on multi-grain low-carb bread. Satiety has been key for me when it comes to losing weight consistently.

Hello,


Hey friend i think you need one expert personal trainer, who have personal training certification and expert enouhg to solve all your doubt and tell you the correct way to shape up your body.


Regards,
sarah_9



Fitour

funksonic7

Here's the situation....body fat reduction to around 9-10% will be a requirement to see a 6 pack.

However, you also talk about reducing waist size. The abdominal area is made up of more than just rectus abdominis (the 6 pack).

PM me for detail of the complete abdominal area work that you will need to do. I can help you with this.

You will need to do some cardio and get a good nutritional position going too. Happy to help on all of this.

My target clients are over 50s and I help them achieve what you are looking to do.

If they can do it - you can too!!

Cheers
Steve
Fitterover50