Mobile nav search icon Mobile nav toggle icon Mobile nav close icon
Flat stomach

Abs-olutely Flab-ulous

Belittle Your Belly

Fitness

Six-packs are so over. But, OK, we would like to lose a bit from our bellies. An expert tells us how...

Jesus the poster boy
Let’s face it: The media landscape is blanketed with ripped six-packs. Movies, magazines, tube adverts and, if you happen to wander into certain Renaissance-era churches, even Jesus on the cross sports chiseled abs. But the average guy is far from following the Messiah’s lead in core work. He’s just looking for a flat stomach.

Bad diet, fat stomach
Lee Bennett, cofounder of Evolve Fitness gyms in London, says that realistically shrinking the stomach comes down to dropping body fat through nutritional choices. “If you’re exercising three or four times a week but you’re not dieting then you’re not going to drop any weight from your midsection”, Bennett says. “You can’t out-train a bad diet”.

Vegan is shit
Bennett suggests taking a structured approach to your diet, one that evaluates the amount of macronutrients, protein, fats and carbohydrates you need. Although there are many different nutritional approaches, the bottom line is you have to be in a calorie deficit if you’re going to strip body fat. Bennett does, however, take exception to one diet: “Vegan is shit. I don’t mind people doing it if they have a moral reason. I don’t want to treat animals badly at all. But if they’re trying to promote that it’s healthier for you, that’s just flat out wrong. For a man who’s trying to build muscle and have a good physique you need protein. And if it runs, if it swims, if it flies then it’s got good protein”.

Sugar is your enemy
It depends on your metabolism and your body fat percentage, but the stomach is generally the last place that loses fat. Bennett says that although you can’t spot train the fat away—“you can’t go to a gym and say, ‘Today I’m going to lose weight on my arms, tomorrow I’m going to lose weight on my stomach’. Your body will choose where it wants to get rid of fat first”—men can help move it along through cutting out one major culprit: sugar. “Even fruit. People think that’s healthy but natural sugar is still sugar and it still causes an insulin spike. So I completely stay away from sugar when I’m dropping body fat”. Flat stomach sorted . But what about those glutes?

 

99p fitness

Read next

99p Fitness and the battle to make exerc...

Fitness 3 months ago

Exercises men should do but don't

Read next

Exercises Men Should Do, But Don’t

Fitness 1 year ago

Related articles


Fitness

99p fitness99p Fitness and the battle to make exercise for ev...

Martin Robinson

3 months ago

Fitness

what does strong look like?What does ‘strong’ look like? The prob...

The Book Of Man

1 year ago

Fitness

Exercises men should do but don'tExercises Men Should Do, But Don’t

Niloufar Shafi

1 year ago

Fitness

Why we need some REAL resilience

Kevin Godlington

2 years ago

Fitness

How to train like a stuntman

Martin Robinson

2 years ago

Fitness

Ultra-Hero for Mental Health

Martin Robinson

3 years ago

Fitness

Chris Hemsworth’s legs and the neurosis of g...

Martin Robinson

3 years ago

Fitness

NystartThe new fitness brand aiming to tackle mental health

Martin Robinson

3 years ago

Fitness

bodyweight armThe 5 best bodyweight arm workouts

Martin Robinson

3 years ago

Fitness

Ollie Ollerton: Get Battle Ready for 2021

Martin Robinson

3 years ago