wez_sti

Right, now, whilst drunk i was chatting with a mate of mine who was taking the p1ss outta me as he reckons i'm fat (which i aint), and ended up betting him i could get a better '6-pack' than him by the 1st of April.

(no drink can related jokes please!)

Now i'm not expecting to look like a greek good with a stomach you could dry clothes on in 3 months but a good bit of definition should see me victorious...


Which exercises are most effective for the defined look and what sort of diet should i be looking at, ie low fat/high protein, low carb/high fat etc.. etc...???



Been doing the obvious leg raises and stomach crunches for a week or so and have a good amount of muscle to start with. I imagine i'm gonna need to cut out Stella aswell...

Think a large amount of effort will be reducing my body fat % as i do have bit of extra padding round the middle...

He has a bit of an advantage as he is Taller and thinner than me and had a 6 pack up untill x-mas before the festive food got the better of him!

Would like to suprise my mates as they already see it as a one horse race and don't give me a chance in hell! Would also be nice for the summer..

Thanks in advance

Wez

letdown

I belive you need the 'L' word mate

LIPOSUCTION

davegtt

^^^^^LMAO^^^^^

super_si

lmao good luck hahaha!!

wez_sti

thats a big help, cheers

Jap2Scrap

Get a six-pack shaded on with henna tattoo stuff.. Should look convincing in pub lighting and none of the effort!!

wez_sti

also very usefull



just gonna check if i called this thread 'annoying non-funny sarcastic comment thread'....no, no, doesn't seem to be....

davegtt

I think your getting these type of responses cause it sounds a near enough impossible task to be honest, from my little flab on my stomach I very much doubt sit ups ever night of the week and a good diet will turn it around in just 3 months..... I might be wrong but if I thought I could get a 6 pack in 3 months then Id have a go too but to be honest, I think your looking at alot of effort over alot longer period

wez_sti

have you seen Blade Trinity?? the co-star in that went from ridiculously weedy to completely ripped in 4 months, now obviously i'm not gonna have the time & personal trainer he had, but some sort of noticable change should be possible surely???

davegtt

yes but ridiculously weedy is easier to concentrate on building muscle. IIRC you will already have a 6 pac, its just a matter of defining it as its hidden under a mini beer belly to burn that off alone you need to be doing stuff like running doing sit ups etc will not burn the fat off you..... so IMO your looking at a 2 month of cardio type work burning fat and a month work of work on the abs.... I aint fit, far from it but this is where Id guess you would have to start

just like to point out the 1st of April is only 2 months away aswell. whats left of this month contributes to a 28 day feb and only march left..... so you've got 2 months to burn fat and increase muscle..... looks a little more unlikely to me

davegtt

basically what Im saying is give up now and crack open a beer tonight lol

messiah

Cardio work burns fat, and the first place you'll lose it from is your waistline.

chris singleton

As above, I think you've got no chance of any visable change in such a short period of time.

I started off at nearly 17 stone (although I'm quite big boned and 6ft 3 ) I did lots of cardio workouts and abdominal excercises for almost a year together with weight training (going to the gym 3-5 times a week) and although my abs were hard to touch (oooooooh missus ) they were still burried under layers of fat and hardly visible at all. To get a great 6 pack takes incredible discipline (diet being of upmost importance - which is probably where I let myself down).

I've resided myself to the fact that I'm always going to have "a bit of a gut" as my diet is poor and I haven't got the discipline to do lots of abs and cardio workouts anymore.

If your serious about doing it over a longer period of time no doubt Milo or one of the other experts will be along soon

Chris

chris singleton

PMSL

davegtt

as I just said, thats correct. But will you be able to burn enough in 2 months..... ? thats the big question. it'll be a hell of alot of work if you manage it but your looking at hours each night IMO

messiah

There was quite a good article in mens health a few months ago where 5 or 6 chaps underwent a 6 week program to get a 6 pack. None of them had spectacular results and they were training about 5 hours a day, 6 days a week with their own personal trainer - so this might just put what you're attempting into perspective.

Don't let me put you off though... while no-one got the classic shape the magazines say you can have, they all felt much better, stronger and lost quite a bit of bodyfat.

ChristianR

iTrader: (1)

impressive, any idea on what his regime was?

ChristianR

iTrader: (1)

I would go on some diet to loose some of the fat, probably atkins or similair? seems to have good results in a short period.

Apparantly one of the best ways to define a six pack is to hang from a pole with your legs out straight

like so :
____________
|
|
-----|

Gav

As said before mate, you need to do lots of cardio work first to burn off excess weight. Diet is of big importance too, cut down/out the beer and eat good ( not implying you dont ) and you will notice a difference. then get one of these:



Great for doing all kinds of sit up's, press ups and stretching

Hope this helps you,

Gav..

Sith

You need to be doing lot's of fat burn down the gym. Lot's of cycling, jogging. Stretching, crunches and leg raises to help. You could also join a spinning class.

Goto the gym, get yourself a Personal Trainer, most gyms have them, get a program set and stick to it.

Diet plays a huuuuge part. Low fat everything. Cut out alcohol. It effects your cardio and stamina. Also is very fattening.

Brendan Hughes

From what I've read on here before (quite recently), diet is the absolute key, far far more important than any training regime. All the workouts are absolutely secondary to whatever goes down your gullet.

milo

go for it then, because i absolutely guarantee that if you really only have a "little flab", you could EASILY get ripped within 3 months if you do things correctly.

you can easily drop 0.5-1% bodyfat per week with a proper pre-contest cutting diet with no fat burners. in your 3 months (13 weeks), that stands you to lose anywhere between 6.5 and 13% bodyfat. assuming your little flab equates to around 14-16% bodyfat, that means you would end up sub-10% within 3 months, which is easily enough to see a very well defined six pack.

now the real challenge is actually doing things correctly. your idea of "good diet" and mine might be two completely different things.

kbsub

From my experiance , the fat round the waistline is the last to go , its the first place it turns up and the most stubborn to get rid off
I followed a program a few years back that was the most succesfull in terms of getting rid of fat ( www.perfectwaistline.com ), It was also the easist to follow ,

I think your biggest enemy is motivation , and dont think you have to be in the gym five times a week , overtraining and impatience will slow your progress

Good luck

davegtt

My main problem is I refuse to pay for a gym to work on stuff like cardio etc but Im more than willing to go running and cycling, only problem is its dark and cold when I get home from work...... really dont fancy going out in it. my weight gain has stopped since I started playing football on sundays but I aint losing anything.

Milo I understand you are well into the fitness thing, so your idea of a good diet would be what? what sort of meals would you eat throughout the evenings that you would class as good and healthy. I eat some fruit. like an orange once a day thats about it though,meal wise I usually eat anything.... Im going shopping onight when I pick the misses up, I'll try a month of healthy eating and running blah blah if you can suggest a few good healthy meals..... wouldnt mind losing this extra weight. not looking for miracle changes either

kbsub

Yup me too , if I can get hold of a decent diet sheet , one that says

Monday eat this
Tues eat this and so on

that way you can go to the supermarket , buy exactly what you want and know what you need to be eating every day .
would make it a lot easier to get the diet right , which as i understand is the most important thing when trying to lose the gut

davegtt

kbsub. thats exactly it. I mean we have the old steak and chips (not healthy I know, but we class it as a good meal when we've gone to the effort of frying mushrooms, green peppers and a little bit of salad on the side of the plate, end of the day your still eating cr@p like steak and chips....hmmm think I know what I might have tonight now lol

seriously though if I knew what was for tea each day of the week Id stick to it presuming I could get the stuff from asda

backdoors

In terms of exercise, very long low intensity runs or cycling (i'm talking 3+ hours a time)at 125-140 bpm is a sure fire way of butchering fat from your body.If you are really serious this needs to be done 4-5 times a week.

davegtt

no diet ideas then? preferably a mon - fri set meal list thanks

milo

ok, firstly your cardio shouldn't be done in a gym. ideal cardio is 45 mins of walking 3 times a week. any higher intensity than this, and you'll be risking being in a catabolic state. couple this with 3 weight sessions in the gym per week of about 45 mins of heavy intense lifting.

for diet, it is totally depending on your body type, weight, bodyfat level, genetics, metabolism, how you respond to carbs, any allergies you have etc etc. this is why it's extremely difficult to advise on a diet when i know very little about you. there is no "one size fits all" diet. its very individual.

typically tho, as a rule, you want to be keeping protein high, as that's muscle-sparing. you want carbs relatively low, and you want fats moderate.

all of your food should be coming from clean unprocessed sources. thats food that comes straight out the ground (rice, oats, barley etc), or that was previously a living thing (chicken, tuna etc). and by clean that means that you'll be buying chicken from the butchers and grilling it, as opposed to buying a ready-meal from tesco. as much of your fats as possible should come from efa's.

you should aim to lose 1lb/week. anything much more than this will be muscle, which is not desirable to lose. if you lose more than 1lb, up your calories slightly the next week. if you don't lose 1lb, lower your calories slightly (but strategically - e.g. lower your carbs.. or time them).

you also want to be splitting your meals up, so you're eating every 2-3 hours... but small meals each time.

to start with, without knowing all of the factors about you that i mentioned before, i would at a wild guess say that 11xBW is a fair place to start, with a 50/20/30 split on protein/carbs/fats.

so let's assume you weigh 180lbs... 11x180 = 1980 calories/day
50% protein = 248g
20% carbs = 100g
30% fats = 66g

divide that up into 6 meals and thats:
330 calories
41g protein
17g carbs
11g fats
every 3 hours

typically this might be a large chicken breast, 25-30g of wholegrain rice and 1-2tbsp of efa's.

essentially for each meal you'll want to pick a protein source:
chicken, tuna, salmon, turkey, lean beef

a carb source:
oats, barley, wholegrain rice, wholemeal pasta

and a fat source:
flaxseed oil, extra virgin olive oil, cod liver oil

if you're particularly carb-sensitive and/or stall from losing fat on this, gradually drop carbs from your later meals in the day.

and drink as much water as you possibly can.

if you get all of this right (nutrition, training, rest), you WILL have miracle changes.

davegtt

"and a fat source:
flaxseed oil, extra virgin olive oil, cod liver oil"

LMAO fat source, I was hoping you'd be saying fry up or bacon sarnies

in all seriousness I see what your saying about how hard it is to advise someone..... to be honest I see what you trying to show me. I have no desire to go to the gym and do weights though, far from it..... so that puts us at a stop straight away