Nutrition
Nutrition is the most important aspect of developing and maintaining a six pack. In order to have a sixpack you really need two things:
- A low body fat percentage (usually less than 10%)
- A degree of abdominal hypertrophy (reasonably big ab muscles).
What people don’t seem to realize, however, is that most people already have big enough ab muscles to have a sixpack and just need the proper body fat percentage. The best tool for lowering body fat percentage is nutrition. Regular exercise, both aerobic (cardio) and anerobic (strength training), will also tend to move body composition to more muscle and less fat, but without the proper nutrition you won’t see the results you’re looking for.
There are two aspects to the nutrition program in O6P, caloric restriction and macronutrient grouping. Caloric restriction is very straightforward. In order to lower body fat percentage you must lose fat. The best way to lose fat is to eat fewer calories than you burn. Macronutrient grouping is a little more complicated. The macronutrients are protein, carbohydrates, and fat. These are the source of all nutritional calories in our diets. The idea behind macronutrient grouping is that eating meals with only certain macronutrients will allow your body to burn fat, while keeping muscle, which is important because your abs are of course muscles. The ideal grouping for lowering body fat percentages is to eat meals that consist only of protein and fat or protein and carbs, but never both fat and carbs.
Now I’m sure you have many questions because the nutritional aspect is the most complicated aspect of O6P (it needs to be because it is the most important), and I will answer them in upcoming blog posts.