Washboard Abs Are NOT Made In Gym, They Are Made In The Kitchen

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As the title suggests, if washboard abs are your goal, or simply fat loss, then let me tell you right here right now, they are not made in the gym, they are made in the kitchen and in this article, I’m going to give you my top 5 reasons why.

It’s All A Matter Of Time

In order to lose body fat, as it is with anything you do in life, it pays to put the most effort, time and energy into the areas that take the most effort, time and energy.

There are 168 hours in a week. If you work out how much time you spend preparing, cooking and then eating and how much time you spend actually training, you’ll be surprised to discover that the nutritional side of the equation takes up FAR MORE TIME.

As an example, someone who eats 5-6 meals a day (as you should be regardless of whether fat loss or muscle gain is your goal) would usually spend around 2-3 hours per day preparing, cooking and eating their daily intake.

Whereas, most people would only spend a fraction of that time actually training. So with this in mind, it makes perfect sense to put more time, effort and energy into getting this right. It’s simply more important because it takes up more of your time.

You Burn More Calories Outside of The Gym

Again, using the 168 hour in a week syndrome, how many hours are you in the gym or actually exercising for? For most of us the answer is anywhere from 3-5 hours per week.

So if you are training for 3-5 hours per week, how many hours are you NOT training?

Yep you guessed it, the other 163-165 hours per week. So with that in mind, when do you think you’d burn more calories, while you are training or while you are NOT training?

The answer is obvious we burn more calories when we aren’t doing any exercise. We have all been led to believe that when we exercise, its to burn calories, but as I’ve just shown you, this is a complete myth.

If I was to exercise to burn the amount of calories I eat in a day (around 3,500 by the way) I’d be training for around 3-5 hours A DAY.

Recovery Isn’t Done In The Gym Either

The recovery phase of any exercise regime commences the moment you step out of the gym or training session and stops the moment you step back in and as we’ve already pointed out, this is way more time consuming than the time spent in the gym training.

Recovery can be broadly broken down into 3 main components, active recovery, passive recovery and nutritional recovery.

Active is everything you do, while awake to assist your body to repair itself from the rigours of training. Things like stretching, sauna, massage, pool sessions, yoga, tai chi, Pilates, Body Balance, and hot and cold therapies are all forms of active recovery techniques.

They are all designed to promote the healing of the body from all the tissue damage that you caused (yes that’s exactly what you are doing when you exercise, you are damaging tissue) during your exercise sessions.

Passive recovery is when you sleep and nutritional recovery is when you eat.

Eating Burns Calories

When done correctly, your daily nutritional plan can actually burn a truck load of calories.

You see, your metabolism is like a camp fire. If left unattended, it will die. If watched and kept an eye on, it can roar for ages, all day if need be.

So if you go for long periods of time (3-5 hours or more) without eating your metabolism, like a camp fire will die down and eventually go out. However, like the same camp fire, if you constantly feed your metabolism, by eating 5-6 small meals per day, your metabolism can roar like an awesome camp fire.

But Only When you Eat Right

The previous tip only works when you eat right.

By right I mean right by your metabolic type (protein, carbohydrate or mixed) and right by getting your protein fats and carbs in the right combination.

You see if you get the combo and/or the ratio wrong, you’ll interrupt your metabolism. Petrol and LPG work fine in most suburban cars, but diesel is a specific fuel designed for a special type of engine.

Put diesel in a petrol engine and you won’t get very far and your mechanic won’t be very happy with you. Likewise, eating carbs and fat at the same time can have disastrous effects on your body’s ability to burn body fat, but we all know that you must get all three macro nutrients into you so its all a matter of timing.

The simple rule is eat protein at every meal. Eat carbs with those meals earlier in the day (say 2-4 pre workout, brekky, morning tea and lunch). Eat your fat with the after lunch meals (say 2-4, afternoon tea, dinner and evening snack)

Summary:
I’m not saying that training isn’t important, it most definitely is. I’m just saying that your nutritional plan deserves way more attention than your training plan because of the time, effort and energy required.

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