The newest diet sensation is the six pack abs diet. It is no longer enough to have a flat belly. You can be skinny and still not be fit. Now you must have a well defined six pack of abdominal muscles. Let’s face it. It’s not going to be easy. There is no shortcut to a sculpted middle.
Six Pack Abs Diet
The first thing to remember is that about the six pack abs diet is that diet controls about 80 percent of weight loss. You can run a marathon on the treadmill and lift weights all night, but you are not going to achieve the results you want until you take control of your diet.
What are the essential elements of a six pack abs diet? It has to make you lose fat, especially in the abdominal area. It has to provide enough protein to keep you from losing muscles as you get leaner. It has to have a limited amount of the right kinds of carbohydrates to create glycogen. There must to be fats to keep you satiated.
Your six pack abs diet needs to be customized to your taste. If you hate avocados, you are not going enjoy getting essential fatty acids by gulping guacamole. Dress your salad with olive oil instead. If cold water fish is not your thing, eat chicken and swallow a couple of fish oil pills. You have to like the food or you are not going to stick to the diet.
The basics of the six pack abs diet are pretty easy to understand. You want to eliminate sugar, especially high fructose corn syrup, from your diet. You want to restrict carbohydrates to mostly non-starchy vegetables. You need to increase your protein uptake. Lean meats are a good source of protein. Legumes can also be a protein source, but watch the carbohydrate count. Don’t be afraid of fat, but avoid partially hydrogenated vegetable oil at all costs. There is nothing healthy about it.
One of the simplest things to avoid on six pack abs diet is processed food. If comes in a colorfully wrapped package that can remain on the store shelf for two years, the odds are it’s bad for you. Real food spoils. The fresher the food you consume, the better off you will be.
When you start your six pack abs diet you will need to learn to read nutrition labels. Look at the label on a package of processed food. You will almost always find hydrogenated vegetable oils. They don’t go rancid. They will increase free radicals and oxygen damage in your body, but they will still taste good when you bite into the bar. Do you see evaporated cane juice? That’s just a fancy word for sugar. Anything ending in –ose is also a sugar. Glucose, fructose, and dextrose are all sugars.
What can you eat? There are lots of tasty foods on the six pack abs diet. Fresh fruit is the solution to a sweet tooth. Watch out for dried fruit. It concentrates the natural sugars in the fruit. You can eat a handful of dried apple slices and discover you eaten the equivalent of three fresh apples. The same principle applies to fruit juice. Removing the fiber leaves you with a glass of sugar. Most juices are no better for you than a soft drink. If you are insulin resistant, you may need to limit your intake of fruit if it is interfering with your weight loss.
Try and get most of your carbohydrates on the six pack abs diet from vegetables. You can eat quite a lot of leafy green vegetables without worrying too much about the carbohydrate count. If you need more carbohydrates during especially intense training times, try some sweet potatoes or beets. To get the most bang for your carbohydrate buck, look for the most fiber per gram of carbohydrate. Fiber slows the adsorption of sugars, blunting the insulin spike that tells your body to store extra calories as fat.
Limit grains on the six pack abs diet to whole grains, and then only use sparingly. This means no white bread and no pasta. The occasional bowl of oatmeal or a slice or two of whole grain bread is okay. Just watch the labels. A lot of healthy looking bread contains high fructose corn syrup.
You need to get plenty of protein on the six pack abs diet. Meat is a good source of protein. Once again, avoid processed foods. Stay away from hot dogs, salami and other deli meats. Look at the label on a package of lunch meat. Chances are good it contains sugar, food starch and other questionable ingredients. Don’t eat meat with breading. It increases the carbohydrate count and usually contains hydrogenated oils. Look for meats that are grilled, baked, roasted, or boiled.
Eggs are another good protein source on the six pack abs diet. If you can find pastured chicken eggs, they have higher levels of omega three fatty acids than eggs produced by caged chickens. This is also true of pastured beef cattle. Grass fed is better.
Fat can be your friend on the six pack abs diet. Have you tried a low fat diet but been hungry all the time? Fat is the key to controlling your appetite. Healthy fats can be found in olive oil, avocados, peanut butter, coconut, coconut oil, nuts and seeds. Avoid vegetable oils. They can cause inflammation responses in some people. Eat real butter, not margarine.
Six Pack Abs Diet – The Conclusion
Some people can follow these guidelines and lose the weight they need on the six pack abs diet. Others may need to count calories as well. A rule of thumb used by body builders is 10 calories per pound of body weight. So if you weigh 160 pounds, you should aim for about 1600 calories a day. This is not much food, so it is important that whatever you eat is nutrient dense. There are various ways to divide this up. Many people like to eat six small meals a day. It can be tough, but if you stick with it you can lose weight on the six pack abs diet.
