Indisputable Six Pack Abs

Six Pack Abs? Not so much. . . .

WHEN I WAS IN MY MID-TWENTIES, I used to have a big deep belly button, and man alive, it could hold the lint. I was exercising a lot, averaging 7-9 hours of hard-nosed basketball a week, with some weight lifting thrown in. My endurance on the court was at an all-time high. I was in pretty good shape, and yet, no six pack. But then again, I wasn’t really working on it, either.

I was burning an insane amount of calories: to help me stay awake, I’d eat a box of licorice and write for hours late at night. Could be gummy bears or fruit snacks, Vanilla Wafers — whatever happened to be handy or available in bulk at Costco. And many nights, as desert, I’d make milkshakes. Not fast-food travesties that are called shakes; no, these were real milkshakes created with 2% milk and high-quality ice cream.

Even if I was burning 5,000 calories a day, I was still taking in 6,000 or so. Sure, some days I might run out of licorice and actually burn a few calories, but I was inevitably heading toward some serious love handles.

Then I Blew Out My Knee

I blame it on the first The Lord of Rings movie — I saw the show in the afternoon after a couple of hours of noon ball. And while I was sucking away on a Diet Coke in the movie theater, I wasn’t refueling and barely rehydrating. In fact, I was sitting with one ankle over one knee, which puts a lot of stress on the side of your knee. The show was what, three hours long?

The next day, my knee was inflamed. No surprise there, just a bit loose. Not a big deal. I played on it, and with the extra fluid, the pieces and parts on the inside had extra room to bang around. Shattered a bit of meniscus is all. Had to wait six weeks to get into an operating room with a good doc, and it was then that I realized I had to cut out the milkshakes. And the licorice. And most everything else that was way too much.

It was then, for the first time, that I had to not only maintain self-control, I had to pay attention to what I ate. It was either that or get really fat.

Not only did I cut out the milkshakes and most candy, I also stopped eating anything after 8 p.m. That was the toughest — beating the late-night cravings. I lost weight — both fat and muscle mass. But an interesting thing happened — one day I realized that I could see the bottom of my belly button without pulling at my stomach and peering in. It was a revelation.

I had always thought I had a freakishly deep belly button. Turns out it was just fat.

Later

I was supposed to stay off the court for 12 months; I lasted 9. Over the years since then, I’ve flirted with a six pack, alternately trying to build muscle and cut fat in a half-assed way.

Even now, it’s close: in angled light, if you squint, every now and then it sort of looks like I have well-defined abs. It’s more illusion than reality — toss in some decent guns, shoulders, and lats and the stomach looks better than it really is.

Even six-pack abs, though, are in and of themselves a bit of an illusion — if a guy has a washboard stomach, the assumption is that he’s in fantastic shape.

Not necessarily.

To get your abs to show, you’ve got to burn a lot of fat, dropping your total body fat down to about 11% or lower. Ouch. The problem is more of a nutritional challenge than an exercise challenge — I can do the crunches and leg lifts (and I will) — but it won’t matter much if I keep my big new ab muscles hidden under an inch of fat.

And there in lies the problem. I’ve got an inch of fat.

For some guys, six packs abs are the ultimate fitness goal — an undeniable way to throw off your shirt and show all those chicks (and the not-so alpha males) that you’re fitter than most everyone else. Think Matthew McConaughey. Sure, you might snicker at his paparazzi shirtless beach photos, but seriously, if you had abs and the weather was hot, wouldn’t you go shirtless?

Right. There’s benefits, there, and you know it.

But is that it? Is that the apex of your life as a man — low body fat and well-defined abs? What’s next after that acheivement?

Is that the apex of your life as a man — low body fat and well-defined abs?

It’s the Side Effects

No, there’s more to six pack abs than meet the eye. To get there, you’ve got to control how you eat, and that’s the part that’s the real challenge — and what will bring the real benefits, too.

For most of us, I think food is a way of controlling our emotions. We’re manipulating our blood sugar, feeding our carbohydrate cravings, and basking in satiation after a huge juicy steak. Or a dozen cookies. And man do I like cookies. Not the store-bought manufactured cookies (except Oreos), but the ones that come from bakeries, pre-made cookie dough, and from scratch. I’ve got a couple of recipes memorized.

(I’m not proud of it.)

Especially if I’m working out regularly, I can blast through 2,000 calories in cookies without even trying. As long as I keep working out, I can keep playing this little dance where I get irritated that I can feel my stomach over the lip of my jeans and cut back for a couple of weeks. And then everything hits the fan at work, with the economy showing its effects on my budget, with any of a gazillion stressful things that can crop up, and boom, there go a dozen peanut butter cookies.

And oh yeah, I feel better. At least for a while. Then I go on a carb-craving roller-coaster ride, and when I play basketball, instead of kicking ass and taking names, I’m sucking wind, missing shots, and watching loose balls bounce lazily out of bounds.

Ultimately, the cookies will leave me with an empty tank and a bad attitude.

So that’s where I’m at. Mostly healthy, but prone to some nasty bouts of roller-coaster carbs.

It’s time to change, and it’s going to change through The Better Man Plan.

Follow me to learn how.

Tags: Six Pack Abs

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 8:10 am and is filed under Six Pack Abs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.