What's Happening???

I want some low key abs this year--have been trying to work towards that nice definition in the stomach.

Wonder how long it will take, or if I'll even manage to do it.

 

I cleaned our my computer room on weekend and I'm really happy with the result. There's room in there now lol. Christmas tree got packed up too and I broomed up a grocery bag of dog fur.

 

I'm not sure what you look like but I can give you my routine which works like a charm.
I'm relatively thin as it is, but to get my abs to look good I do 500x crunches a day, that's 5 sets of 100. If you can't do that, try 50 each set for the first week. Now your tummy will be majorly sore the next day if you aren't used to working out that area, so the next day is a rest day and then even the 2nd day after can be more painful than the day after.

Once you aren't sore from them, and it might take a week or so, then progressively do more. When you're up to 500 a day, then you can alternate between crunches one day, push ups the next with either twists or planking. Twists is you sit on your tail bone and swivel body left and right, this will activate muscles that aren't used in crunches, mainly love handle areas. Planking is being on your tippy toes and elbows straight on the ground activates all your core muscles to work to keep you level.

Anyhoo I am confident, that after a week you will feel and notice a difference and you will definitely see results in 2 weeks. Keep it up for 2 months and you're going to be cracking beer lids in your belly button.

The push ups act like a planking routine too, but you'll get good arms too which I think look nicer with a toned belly too. You may lose slight breast size doing this, I notice my breasts get smaller when I really hit this routine, but that's just how it goes, if you want a flatter mid section, you're gonna get a flatter everything in its surrounds lol.

I was doing 100 push ups on my push up nights. 5 sets of 20, but atm I haven't done this for a while so I would struggle doing any more than 10 to a set, by week 2 should be able to push for 20.

 

Thanks, Irmi! I could probably do 500 crunches. Not sure if I would be sore or not--not much makes my abs sore anymore. I'm fairly fit, I think it is just a longer process for me as I am what one might consider an ectomorph.

 

I work my abs on the pull up bar, I just dangle from it and lift my knees up towards my chest and back down, several reps of this

It has worked wonders, I have pretty well defined abs now. Because I have a shoulder injury which has affected my neck too I cant do crunches or sit ups

 

How many reps do you do, how often, and how long did it take you to see results?

 

I had to look that word up.
I actually haven't paid any attention to my mid section properly for about 18 months now and I've been meaning to get back into it. We should do progress logs together. I know I have increased a belt hole size, actually I had to go into the doctor yesterday and he asked if I wanted to weigh myself and I said no.. But we did and I was really surprised I hasn't put much on in a year, and the difference was I was wearing jeans and hoodie and my belt is laced with steel studs so all that weight is around 3kg so I was still where I was 18 months ago, just not as toned in the mid section which is the belt hole region, but sometimes I can go all the way with the belt.

500 crunches doesn't take too long I just play games to make it interesting like the first set I count 1-100, then I might go 1-25-0-25-0, then count one set from 100-1 then might count 1-10 10x in the end I find I'm concentrating more on my counting than I am the pain I'm going through.

I don't mind crunches but I loathe push-ups.

 

Patriots! Well done Pats, thank you for knocking down the AFC West scumbags!

 

What is a progress log? I will do it!

 

Oh, like, let's weigh and measure ourselves and then we just log it each week. we don't have to lol. When I had my fitbit I used to join groups where it would record all of our information and it's like, momentum for people good to see people make gains and lose weight etc. I used to battle my missus but I'm way more active than her so she gave up trying to versus me.

Could log your food diary and then make opinions on what other could and should do. People always said my diet was a bit lousy, but I did enough actual exercise to constantly burn off what I ate.

 

Ooooh, gotcha. Well, I am not trying to lose weight or inches, are you? Maybe I'll do progress pics.

 

No, I am not but I find I always do when I tone my tummy up.

I know it's not healthy and I really need to get it looked at but I'm too scared but my heart rate is usually too quick for what I'm doing so I tend to burn through calories all the time so doing extra exercise like mid section, is just another phase my body goes through and I end up losing more weight.

I had to put on about 5kg those 18months ago, I had people telling me I looked sick. you see I noticed the weight loss, but I always looked in the mirror and tell myself nope, I need to work harder. Then one day I saw a photo of myself.. And I realised I was way too thin. So stopped working out and tried putting on some weight which I did and really I'm content where I am now, but I do miss working out a bit.

 

This happened to me, not too long ago (seeing a picture of myself that made me want to gain weight). If you eat a caloric surplus and work out, you will gain both weight and muscle!

 

My wife has been on a keto diet for a while and she's lost weight and looking great, but I really haven't researched many diets and what they actually do. I also suffer from the IBS so my tummy is often triggered by anything and everything. I also often feel extremely bloated because of this 99% of the time. If I wake up and actually feel good these days, it's few and far between to the point where, really. I haven't felt good for months now.

Ive cut back on fat foods, doesn't help, I cut out alcohol, doesn't help. Sometimes eating only healthy actually has the reverse effect and I get very sick from it. I've always wanted to see a nutritionalist, but I'm always to afraid of blood tests etc. If they find something wrong with me.

For instance, too many healthy vegetables and fruit only give me stomach cramps and aches and bloat because of the gasses created when breaking down.

 

Usually around 5 - 7 reps of 10, but on days when I know i'm not feeling a long workout I try to find ways to sneak in mini workouts throughout the day so i'll still do a quick rep of 5 whenever I pass under the pull up bar. so I end up doing them every day. But within an actual workout, 4 times a week usually. And it didnt take me long to see results, I started seeing a difference within a few weeks and was where I wanted to be after a couple of months

Are there any particular foods you eat to gain weight? I want to gain about 10 - 15 lbs but nothing works for me, i've been able to grow a booty from squats but other than that I struggle gaining muscle mass too. I tried a protein supplement that was giving me an additional 1600 calories a day for a while and I still didnt gain any weight. And I already eat a lot as is lol, i'm an eater..and a carb heavy diet at that.
I've thought about maybe getting into weightlifting to gain mass, but I dont know if that would really produce the look i'm going for

 

Have you tried doing the fodmap diet? I looked into it when my mom was sick, I remember reading a lot of testimonials from IBS sufferers who said it helped them a lot

 

My legs are always slim and toned because I'm active along with my arms even though I no longer have done exercise for 18months they still maintain a toned look probably because always using them I put on weight from my belly button to wear I have my landing strip I guess. like that first tire roll if you call it that lol.

 

I will look into this. I hadn't heard of it.. And I seem to eat a lot of the red zone.

 

this eclipse is bullshit.. ill be dead by 1141 pm..