The truth about defining your abs and abdominal area

Since it's almost summer again I'm sure many people are out looking for ways to get that great six-pack developed. The problem with this is that you can't just decide a few months ahead that you are going try to get your abs moving now. This has to be a priority in your life at all times. Depending where you are at physically you need at least 3-6 months of dietting and intense training.

I would say that abs are 80% diet and 20% exercise. What you have to do is plan a good schedule. You have to know when you have free time and when you are not available. Another thing you have to lower your overall stress (students, laborers, etc) because you will not subject yourself to a steady diet if you are highly stressful. Trust me, I speak from experience. So that aside, I think everyone with some motivation can get their abs to appear and in some cases make them defined to the point that they should be receiving calls from fitness magazines! Ok so the first step would be to get your eating plan. In order for this to work you have to determine your weight, goal weight, and body fat. Usually males need to be lower than 10% BodyFat to reveal their abs and women need to be lower than about 17% BodyFat. A good healthy diet would consists foods such as:

Oatmeal
100% whole grains (cereal, bread, etc)
Lean Meats (chicken, tuna)
Green Vegetables (green peas, green beans, broccoli, spinach)
Eggs
Nuts and Seeds (peanuts, almonds)
Natural Peanut Butter
Cottage Cheese

Sticking to a diet is quite possibly the hardest part about developing abs. A good rule of thumb is to take in 10-12x your weight in calories per day. Most people eat a few large meals per day which lowers your metabolism. Healthy dieters will eat 5-6 meals per day to keep their metabolism at top speeds, burning more fat. Also, a major factor for losing fat is drinking a lot of water. Multply your weight by .66 and this is how much water you should take in in ounces per day.
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