Post: #1

For those with six pack abs, I am curious how you guys avoid these sticking points that I experience when getting under 15% body fat:

1. Hunger pains. When I start to get under 15% body fat, my hunger pains really tend to increase especially in the evenings. My diet is currently a high fat, low carb diet that consists of foods like: eggs, salmon, walnuts, celery, mixed greens, apples, blueberries, grapes, apples, olive oil, whole raw milk, greek yogurt, avocados and sometimes broccoli. I usually eat 2 meals a day and do IF two times a week where I eat only one meal and fast for 24 hours. Any ideas or suggestions?

2. Mood dips. I tend to be more depressed and irritable during these times. Not sure if it is just a phase as the body adjusts to the lower body fat levels or if it is a normal reaction to simply having less body fat. How do you handle this hurdle?

3. Drop in overall strength. As my body fat drops, I find that my strength in various weighted exercises (ex. dumbbell presses) declines save body weight exercises like pullups where I will be able to add a few more pullups when the weight dips. It seems like this is a sacrifice one must give but what has been your experience here?

4. How do you handle maintaining six pack abs and growing muscle? I have seen a lot of conflicting information on this. Do you cycle where you will try to put on mass in the winter and cut fat in the spring and summer? Or do you try to maintain a six pack year round and then how do you go about gaining extra muscle? Where do you try to keep your body fat percentage at during these times?

5. How do you handle the holidays (Thanksiving, Christmas) where overeating or bad eating is commonplace especially in the winter? Do you indulge and simply workout extra hard before these times or do you take steps to curb overeating? Also, just curious how often do you cheat at other times and eat bad food like say deep dish pizza or what not?

Post: #2

Can you post an idea of how defined of a six pack your talking?

Post: #3

(09-03-2017 08:18 PM)Vet-Boy Wrote:  Can you post an idea of how defined of a six pack your talking?

Ideally, for the bottom part or v shape of the bottom abs to show. I am not looking for bodybuilder contest defined like around 6 or 7% body fat. So probably would be somewhere around 10% maybe. I know most seem to start showing abs around 12% but not sure if that would be sufficient to get me there.

Here, is a chart I have seen that suggests maybe getting to 10% to 12% could be sufficient:

https://www.builtlean.com/2012/09/24/bod...men-women/

Post: #4

The "V shape" also known as the adonis belt is in part genetic and in part a result of hypertrophy of the abs and obliques. Some guys will just have it even at high bodyfats where as others just barely get that shape after dieting down.

Post: #5

1. You just deal with it. Eat lots of vegetables, and get plenty of good quality meat and veg fats. IF plus low carb plus calorie restriction just sounds horrible. Try picking a more manageable routine. Also try being busier. Hunger is much less noticeable if you're busy. When I'm flat out I can make it to the evening without realising I haven't actually eaten all day. Not saying that's ideal, just that a full and active life will stop you having the time to dwell on hunger.

2. Some people handle it better than others. I suit low body fat. It makes me sharp and keeps me in a mental state where I feel my life is free from superfluity. That is good for my temperament. For me personally, when I go over about 15%, I actually become much more lethargic and feel more slothful. You may just not be so well disposed to operating at lower body fat. If that's the case, my personal view is that you should not sacrifice general life performance for aesthetics.

3. An initial dip is possible if you are doing a drastic cut. If you just drop 200 calories at a time though I don't think there's any real physical reason you should see a dip in performance, though some lifts which benefit from you having a greater surface area (eg DB OHP) may suffer a bit. You have to pick your poison. You can still be as strong as you could need to be and lean.

4. Growing muscle requires you to take in enough calories to fuel the stimulus you are giving your body. It can be done without putting on much fat, but it's very slow.

5. I don't worry about overeating at any time, because I simply don't make a habit of it. I train hard, regularly and consistently, and I eat a healthy, nutrient rich, fat and protein heavy diet. If I am eating someone else's food, either at a restaurant or with friends/family/girls, then I don't worry about my diet. I eat what's put in front of me, I enjoy it enormously, am grateful for the effort and opportunity, and focus on having a great evening. Nothing is further from my mind when someone puts a delicious meal in front of me than the state of my abs. There are enough humdrum days during the rest of the year to make the sensible food choices. When with good company my only focus is to enjoy every second as much as possible. of the ~21 meals I eat each week, I'd say 18/19 of them fall within my diet, and a moderate calorie range of 5-800 calories.

Post: #6

(09-04-2017 05:45 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  1. You just deal with it. Eat lots of vegetables, and get plenty of good quality meat and veg fats. IF plus low carb plus calorie restriction just sounds horrible. Try picking a more manageable routine. Also try being busier. Hunger is much less noticeable if you're busy. When I'm flat out I can make it to the evening without realising I haven't actually eaten all day. Not saying that's ideal, just that a full and active life will stop you having the time to dwell on hunger.

Thank you for taking the time with a detailed response. I do have one question on this. What type of diet do you follow?

Post: #7

(09-04-2017 11:01 AM)TIOT12 Wrote:  

(09-04-2017 05:45 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  1. You just deal with it. Eat lots of vegetables, and get plenty of good quality meat and veg fats. IF plus low carb plus calorie restriction just sounds horrible. Try picking a more manageable routine. Also try being busier. Hunger is much less noticeable if you're busy. When I'm flat out I can make it to the evening without realising I haven't actually eaten all day. Not saying that's ideal, just that a full and active life will stop you having the time to dwell on hunger.

Thank you for taking the time with a detailed response. I do have one question on this. What type of diet do you follow?

I don't follow a diet. Following a recommendation from Steelex, I upped my general protein intake and cut carbs, which has been effective for me, and I feel better for it.

Beyond that, I simply try to make sure that when what I eat is within my control, I only eat things that look like they've been carved off an animal (or fish) or pulled/picked from a garden (with the exception of dairy, eggs etc).

Sauces obviously have some leeway, but I try to stick to olive oil, sesame oil, vinegars, wines, tomatoes (especially sun dried), herbs, olives, anchovies, spices, capers, ginger, honey, cream, lemons etc. I try not to put sugar in a sauce unless it would be a crime against the food not to.

Believe it or not, I don't find this way of eating at all restrictive. You can make wonderful meals very simply with good fresh ingredients, and you can make delicious sauces with a few good basics.

It's only bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, flour and sugar that I really don't eat regularly, and even then I probably indulge (heavily) once or twice a week.

Post: #8

(09-04-2017 12:54 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  

(09-04-2017 11:01 AM)TIOT12 Wrote:  

(09-04-2017 05:45 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  1. You just deal with it. Eat lots of vegetables, and get plenty of good quality meat and veg fats. IF plus low carb plus calorie restriction just sounds horrible. Try picking a more manageable routine. Also try being busier. Hunger is much less noticeable if you're busy. When I'm flat out I can make it to the evening without realising I haven't actually eaten all day. Not saying that's ideal, just that a full and active life will stop you having the time to dwell on hunger.

Thank you for taking the time with a detailed response. I do have one question on this. What type of diet do you follow?

I don't follow a diet. Following a recommendation from Steelex, I upped my general protein intake and cut carbs, which has been effective for me, and I feel better for it.

Beyond that, I simply try to make sure that when what I eat is within my control, I only eat things that look like they've been carved off an animal (or fish) or pulled/picked from a garden (with the exception of dairy, eggs etc).

Sauces obviously have some leeway, but I try to stick to olive oil, sesame oil, vinegars, wines, tomatoes (especially sun dried), herbs, olives, anchovies, spices, capers, ginger, honey, cream, lemons etc. I try not to put sugar in a sauce unless it would be a crime against the food not to.

Believe it or not, I don't find this way of eating at all restrictive. You can make wonderful meals very simply with good fresh ingredients, and you can make delicious sauces with a few good basics.

It's only bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, flour and sugar that I really don't eat regularly, and even then I probably indulge (heavily) once or twice a week.

Sounds like your diet is pretty close to what I am doing currently.

Post: #9

I have been blessed with great genes, and the last time I didn't have a six-pack, I must have been about 10-12 years old.

This is a serious question, to give me perspective: is this rare, or not so much?

Post: #10

^ Same. I was about 11 or 12 back in 1996 when I found out what a six pack was because girls were going crazy over Peter Andre mysterious girl at the time, and I had one already then. It was fairly rare though because I was kind of famous in my high school for it, and even girls several years older would want to see it. I'm blessed with pretty symmetrical ab formation though and they were never small either - each ab has always been quite long and thick (I've got a mate with really good staggered abs though and I kind of envy his - suppose you always want what you haven't got). Even today in my gym I'm known for having good abs, and there's some pretty in shape guys there.

That was in my school though. Around where I grew up was fairly mixed with Irish and Caribbean, and most of the Caribbean kids had abs from a young age and were into doing push ups and sit ups, and comparing with each other.