Abdominal Exercise

When most people start on a weight-loss regime the first thing they wish to attack is their waistline. They start off with visions of turning a beer gut into an abdominal six-pack. After a few weeks of strenuous exercise nothing appears to happen and soon they lose confidence and give up.

This article is designed to explain, in laymen's terms, why this happens and why you may be using the wrong exercises, or possibly the right exercises at the wrong time. Either way you are doing yourself no favors.

Never give up because only losers quit. We've all heard the old saying: "The height of stupidity is to repeat the same thing and expect a different result." If it isn't working you try a different routine and you keep doing that until you find the routine that does work, that is the way of winners.

Why These Exercises do not Reduce Waist

The first thing you must accept is that all abdominal exercises only strengthen abdominal muscles, if those muscles are covered by a layer of fat when you start they will still be covered by the same layer of fat when you finish. You will have stronger abdominal muscles but you will not look any different. Therefore your attempt to create figure from fat will have failed. The secret to making these abdominal exercises work is to lose fat first. You lose fat by diet and aerobic exercise, by burning more calories than you take in with food. When you have reduced your waistline to a more natural size you can then take up abdominal exercises and start working on that perfect six-pack.

Weight Loss

In a nutshell you need to reduce your calorie intake and burn some calories off by using light exercise. Losing weight can only be achieved by eating less and moving more. Forget the complicated scientific formulae, it all boils down to eating less and moving more.

Exercise Wisdom

Conventional wisdom claims that you need to exercise for 30-minutes each day and that this demand can be broken down to six five minute sessions or three ten minute sessions, whichever suits you best. You can carry out aerobic exercise using simple methods like parking your car as far from the store as possible and forcing yourself to walk further. Maybe walking up the stairs instead of using the escalator, any small act of this nature that adds to your normal exercise output is aerobic exercise and burns calories.

Eating habits

Furthermore it makes sense to eat five or six meals each day rather than two or three. Why? Because you will eat smaller meals and it is better for your metabolism to deal with smaller meals rather than large meals. You can also eat between these meals providing you restrict it to a piece of fruit or a raw carrot. Dieting doesn't have to be hard it has to be sensible. Your brain doesn't get the message that your stomach is full for at least twenty minutes after it is full. How often have you eaten way beyond the capacity that is required simply because the message hasn't got through?

Conclusion

There is no point in attempting abdominal exercises while you still have a layer of fat and expecting a figure improvement. Muscle building and weight loss are separate subjects that should be approached individually if you are to get the best results.

This article is (c) Copyright David McCarthy 2005 and may be reproduced in its entirety with no additions.

About the author:

David McCarthy is webmaster of http://www.recipesmania.com a website devoted to freely sharing knowledge on all facets of food, cooking, weight loss, food related health subjects and a free weight loss program. It contains recipes for all occasions from health to partying.