This last year, my midsection has evolved from “ok he is cut” to “damn he is ripped!”

How did I do it? The answer is a mixture of calisthenics and high intensity interval training (HIIT).

You can be a master of every type of ab exercise in the book—leg flutters, planks, mason twists, and still not have a six pack. Google image the guy that holds the world record for plank at something like 4 hours—he does not have a six pack! See, all these exercises do is strengthen you core, which is not synonymous with gaining an aesthetic six pack. Physiologically, strengthening you core involves building the muscles around your abdominals, obliques, and lower back. You can have the strongest core in the world, but if it is covered by a thick layer of fat, you will look like you have nothing.

The fat around your belly is preventing you from achieving god like abs.

You see, implementing HIIT is one of the only ways to simultaneously lose belly fat while gaining muscle. It is what stepped up my abdominal gains this year and you can use it too!

However, let it be known that maintaining a solid workout routine is only half of the picture in achieving a 6 pack. The other half is composed of eating healthy, nutrient rich foods and staying away from junk food. You can workout all day long-- if you eat high-fat, processed foods all day, you will find it hard to shed that belly fat that your body wants to hold on to. For more information on this, head on over to our nutrition section.

Once you establish a consistent nutrition plan, the easiest way I have found to work HIIT in my workouts is via a TABATA timer. Basically, it involves doing an exercise for 20 seconds while taking 10 seconds rest 8 times. 

In order to do it, simply download a TABATA timer on your smart phone, or visit this webpage for an easy to use one:  www.tabatatimer.com 

Think of it like a Teeter Totter or SeeSaw as seen in the image above. When the two processes (protein synthesis and protein breakdown) are in balance, the muscle is replenished; but ultimately, stays the same. Although, imbalance can cause either muscle loss or muscle growth.

Alternatively, protein powders and supplements can also feed your muscle hunger. New studies have even shown that Chocolate Milk can be one of the best post workout drinks available. The carbohydrate and protein combination in chocolate milk is exactly what your broken down muscles need to initiate proper synthesis of new muscle.

The limiting factor to this SeeSaw diagram is that you MUST have muscle breakdown before having muscle growth. So now, in order to build muscle, the diagram has a progression that looks like this:

If we can't (necessarily) control the way our bodies function and metabolize food, then we need to focus on the part of the process that we can control, food. Take a good look again at the equation presented in the title image. What the image doesn't present is the important fact that the equation operates in succession. Meaning, digested food is first metabolized efficiently; and then, the excess is stored for later use! Therefore, by controlling what we eat, we can limit the amount of food going into fat and help speed up the disappearance of this evolutionary setback. This is the theory! So how do we turn this theory into practice?
In order to completely limit this outdated process we need to understand the factors of food that control what is being outpoured into our fat storage system:

1) How much we eat (quantity)         &         2) What we eat (nutrient density)
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                       Quantity Guide

How Much We Eat
One of the most true statements in the world is, "Too much of anything, is bad" by Mark Twain. Mr. Twain follows this statement with a comical line that I will leave for you to pursue if you are interested, but this statement fits completely into the scheme I am presenting. You see, even if you are eating the right things, too much of it can be excessive to metabolize, causing your body to store it as fat. Overeating is one of the most prominent elements of obesity, especially here in the U.S. The National Health Service recommends eating 2000-2500 calories a day just to maintain your weight. That many calories can easily be met in one meal. Here is an image from an earlier post I did about relative serving sizes and if you are unsure where you stand when it comes to quantity and nutrition, you should try a calorie counter to help put things into perspective.

What We Eat
Now lets talk about the food we need to eat. Here at CALIsthenics we define "good food" as food that is high in nutrition. But, this can be misconceived, because some foods are high in nutrition but also high in other "useless" substances. For example, potatoes have a lot of vitamins and nutrition in their skin, but the majority of the food is actually starchy chains of sugar. This means that our body will efficiently metabolize all of the materials that are of nutritious value, but the excess, unused materials in the potato will overflow into the second part of the equation to be stored as fat. For this reason we want to focus specifically on foods that are nutrient dense! 

The ANDI Score is a scoring system used to rank foods per calorie. These are the nutrient dense foods that we want to cater our diets to since they can provide the most "bang for our buck". If we are ingesting the right foods, then we can limit the amount of "excess" calories that will outflow into the second half of our equation, fat storage. 

In Conclusion
Eating right is as much about the amount you eat, as it is about what you eat. The important thing to realize is that, although we are predisposed to store fat, we can control it. When eating right, you'd be surprised how many little calories you need to sufficiently supply your body. Being healthy is about understanding these mechanisms and then practicing them. Attached are some links with a greater list of foods and their ANDI Score for your own interest:

Also known as refined sugars or empty carbs, these types of carbs get these names because of their immediate digestion into the blood stream as sugar. Simple carbs contain little fiber, vitamins, and nutrients. They are primarily a source of calories with little nutritional benefit. In addition, the rapid breakdown of these carbs into sugar in the bloodstream can lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. We highly recommend you limit the consumption of these carbohydrates. the problem is they are everywhere. Candy, fast food, white bread & rice, pastas, and foods with refined white flour surround us. Like the "forbidden fruit" these foods taste delicious and tempt us everywhere, but their consumption is ultimately harmful to our bodies.

Old Fallacies Become New Truths
It turns out that Popeye was right! Remember this tv show from the 1960's. Popeye would guzzle down a can of spinach right before he engaged in a tussle. The spinach, when consumed, would make Popeye's muscles grow and increase his energy, ultimately resulting in Popeye's victory. According to this new study in Sweden, this fictional show wasn't far off from spinach's effect on the body. This study showed that the abundance of nitrates in spinach works on the mitochondria to make them work more efficiently. What does that mean? It means during exercise your muscles are producing the same workloads while consuming less oxygen. The result is you can lift more, run longer, and push yourself to higher limits.