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All About Abs 3 - Dieting for Abs

This is PART THREE of our four part series called All About Abs. In PART ONE we looked at the essential basics of abs development and in PART TWO we looked at the best abs exercises around. In this post we will be taking a detailed look at all the diet related aspects of developing a sexy midsection. Needless to say this is a very important part of the series.

All about abs - Introduction to dieting for some sexy abs

To start off this important part of our series I need to make a bold statement that I want you to read very carefully:

If you do not fix your diet you will NEVER have a nice flat, toned and sexy set of abs. Never.

It is for this reason that diet is so important to abs development because without a good diet you will never be able to see your abs. In this post I will be looking at everything you need to know about eating for your abs. In some parts of the post I will be going into great detail in order to make certain things clear whereas in other parts I might just give you the general idea. Remember, this series is not supposed to be a complete step-by-step guide to abs, it is a starting point that you can use as your long term reference.

Why is diet important for abs?

The reason that diet is so important when it comes to developing a sexy set of abs is simple. If you have any fat on your belly you will never be able to see your abs. This is a common fact about abs that many women know but choose to ignore. However, the truth remains - as the abs are so small any fat you have with cover them up. And, the best way to control fat is with your diet.

There is an old bodybuilding saying that is very true:

Abs are not made in the gym, they are made in the kitchen.

This is an excellent reminder of how important one’s diet is. If we let that go then all our of effort in the gym will be wasted. Although exercise is very important it is not unrealistic to say that diet is even moreso.

I will give you an example of why this is so. Let’s say you have a Coke with lunch. That Coke has about 150 calories in it. To burn off 150 calories at the gym you would have to run on the treadmill for about 30 minutes. That is 30 minutes of hard work just to burn off the calories in one tiny can of Coke.

Now, while I will acknolwedge that it isn’t as clear cut as that the point is that you must realize how much diet impacts the way your body looks and performs. If you missed that Coke with lunch you could get into other calories and fat stores much quicker and as such start looking more defined sooner. If missing one little Coke can save you (theoretically) 30 minutes on the treadmill imagine how much time you could save if you cleaned your whole diet up.

So how should I eat to develop my abs?

Now that we know that diet is really important we need to look at exactly what we need to do or avoid doing.

The diet for abs is the same as the diet for any muscle toning program. It is made up of two sections:

1. Weight loss; and
2. Muscle building

This is how I will divide this post for clarity’s sake.

1. Dieting for weight loss

The subject of dieting for weight loss has been abused by the fitness industry. There are products and gadgets and pills and programs that women can use to get rid of their fat. It is rare, however, to find good information that is factual and honest. Sometimes you will spend 10 minutes reading an article only to find it is trying to sell you a weight loss pill at the end! Annoying.

With all of this junk in mind it is my wish that Real Women’s Fitness will serve as an honest and reliable source of information for women trying to achieve healthy goals. Part of that honest information, then, is to inform you all that weight loss really isn’t as complicated as many people would like you to think it is.

The first thing that women need to know about dieting for weight loss is that it isn’t all about counting calories and fat and all that. That is too hard, too complicated and a little boring.

A real diet should be about long term health. This is how I achieved success and this is how many readers of Real Women’s Fitness have achieved success. Move away from diets and fat loss and start learning to eat to be healthy. Only then will the weight come off and stay off. This is the best philosophy.

A healthy person is never overweight. They have clean white eyes, glowing skin and a toned body. Why? Because a healthy person exercises and eats well.

If you want to start eating for long term healthy there are a few absolute basics that you need to know:

a) Refined sugar is poison
The sugar that you find added to almost any mass produced food is not good for you. Your body does not like it. Sugar is the main reason that America is the fattest country the world has ever known. It is added into almost every food in the USA from breakfast cereals to health foods. Wait a second! Did you just say healthy foods? Yes I did. Many health foods in the USA are marketed as low fat and high fiber. This does not mean, however, that they are not full of fattening sugar. Next time you buy a “health food” product which you think will be good for your waist check out the nutritional information. I bet you it is full of sugar.

b) Man-made foods aren’t that good either
Man-made foods in general are not good for your waistline. They contain high amounts of salt, lots of sugar, saturated fats and more unhealthy additives than you can poke a stick at. A great way to kick start your healthy diet is to reduce the amount of man-made foods that you eat. Chuck out the biscuits, packet foods, frozen dinners, etc. and replace them with fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs, milk and other organic and natual goodies.

c) Pasta, bread and other dense carbs add inches to your waist
I became a vegetarian in early 2007 and for a while I ate pasta almost every night for dinner. I was working and studying hard and didn’t have the time to find new vego recipes or cook up any nice gourmet salads. So, I boiled some pasta, chopped some garlic and tomatos and had it for dinner about four nights a week. The result - I got fat. Within a matter of two months I put on four kilos and realised a needed to change something quick.

These three basics are the first things you need to cut out if you want to start getting healthy (and lean). Start replacing them with fruits, vegetables and other natural foods. To get sexy abs you need to eat healthy and that means cutting out man-made foods and getting natural.

2. Dieting for muscle gain

I bet when I said “muscle gain” about 1000 women clicked off the site. It is really sad that women think that they are going to putt on muscle like a bodybuilder and as such don’t weight train. Weight training is so important for a woman’s health and physique but there is still some myth floating around that weights are going to make you huge.

In the same fashion, when I mention dieting for muscle gain a lot of my readers get scared. They think that by muscle gain I mean 17 inch biceps that will allow you to lift a car. I don’t.

When I say muscle gain I simply mean you need to fuel your muscles in a way that allows them to grow and repair themselves. If you are doing exercise five days a week and really stressing your body then you need to eat to help them rebuild. Whether or not you want them to get bigger is another matter. For health reasons you need to get the right nutrients into your muscles so that they can take care of themselves.

However, if you want your abs to start looking good you also need to build them up a little bit. Many women’s abs are so underdeveloped that even if you lost all of the fat they would still look soft. Getting the right type of foods into you is really important.

But here is the good news:

The same foods you eat to lose weight will also help you build/repair muscles.

And what is that food? Protein. Protein is the building blocks of our muscles. It is what the body needs to repair the tissue after we damage it with weight training. Protein is also what you need to eat more of if you want to lose weight. It keeps you full inbetween meals and it usually comes in foods that aren’t going to contain heaps of carbs or sugars like meats, eggs, fish, milk and so on.

As I mentioned before I am not going to go into too much detail. The idea of this series is to CHALLENGE your pre-existing ideas about abdominal development and inspire you to go off and start your new research. The main points of dieting for muscle gain that you need to understand are that protein will develop/rebuild muscles, protein will help you lose weight and that you aren’t going to look like a bodybuilder just because you have some protein.

We teach you how to tone and get abs -- Womens Forum!

Summary of dieting for abs

My goal in this article was not to provide you with an abs diet. If that was what you were expecting I apologise. Instead I wanted to show you some basic points that you need to be aware of if you want to really succeed with your abs training. You should take on these points and study them further. The main ones were:

a) diet is more important than exercise when it comes to abdominals
b) to get visible abs you need to lose weight
c) to have long term weight loss you need to get health, not get skinny
d) healthy people do not eat sugar, man-made foods (when possible) or pasta and bread
e) healthy people eat a lot of fruit, vegetables and other natural foods
f) protein will help you build muscle and lose weight

If you can try to take these principles into your personal diet you will find that your body will become more toned and firm without even doing much else different. Of course, these are not hard and fast rules. It is okay to go out for some Burger King every now and then or go and have some drinks with friends. These principles, however, should be an undercurrent to how you think. When you are shopping, for example, I don’t want you to make choices based on calorie content, I want you to make choices based on health content. If you can do that the calories will be taken care of in the same swoop.

The next and final part in this series will look at a bit of cardio for the abs as well as some lesser known tips that will help you develop your midsection a little bit faster.

The full series is: PART 1, PART 2, PART 3, PART 4.

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