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QUESTION: “Tom, on your www.burnthefat.com website, you wrote: ‘Who better to model than bodybuilders and fitness competitors? No athletes in the world get as lean as quickly as bodybuilders and fitness competitors. The transformations they undergo in 12 weeks prior to competition would boggle your mind! Only ultra-endurance athletes come close in terms of low body fat levels, but endurance athletes like triathletes and marathoners often get lean at the expense of chewing up all their muscle. Some of them are nothing but skin and bone.’”

“There seems to be a contradiction unless I’m missing something. Why do bodybuilders and fitness competitors have to go through a 12 week ‘transformation’ prior to every event instead of staying ‘lean and mean’ all the time? If they practice the secrets exposed in your book, they should be staying in shape all the time instead of having to work at losing fat prior to every competitive event, correct?”

ANSWER: There’s a logical explanation for why bodybuilders and other physique athletes (fitness and figure competitors), don’t remain completely ripped all year round, and it’s the very reason they are able to get so ripped on the day of a contest…

You can’t hold a peak forever or it’s not a “peak”, right? What is the definition of a peak? It’s a high point surrounded by two lower points isn’t it?

Therefore, any shape you can stay in all year round is NOT your “peak” condition.

The intelligent approach to nutrition and training (which almost all bodybuilders and fitness/figure competitors use), is to train and diet in a seasonal or cyclical fashion and build up to a peak, then ease off to a maintenance or growth phase.

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QUESTION: Dear Tom: I’ve been going to the gym for the past year now, but I have only lost 2 pounds. I eat about 1800 calories a day and I do 3 cardio and 3 weight training sessions a week. I am 5 feet 5 inches and 128 lbs. I would like to be at 120 lbs. To lose 8 more lbs isn’t a lot to ask, but I’m really frustrated. I’ve been VERY persistent, and I rarely cheat except once each weekend, but at this rate, it will take me another 4 years for me to reach my goal! Please help!

ANSWER: Don’t worry, it won’t take another 4 years! In fact, you can reach your target wt. within the next month if you start getting feedback, charting results and making some strategic changes to your program.

First, it’s important that you understand how a year could go by with almost no progress.

Have you been doing the same nutrition, same calories, same cardio and same workout for the entire past year with no changes? If so, then you shouldn’t be suprised if you’ve continued to get the SAME results (very little).

If you do more of the same, you usually get more of the same.

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QUESTION: Dear Tom: I have been following your Burn The Fat system with good results. I am losing body fat and maintaining my current lean mass. I’ve noticed that during my calorie deficit phase I sometimes suffer from light headedness and nausea out of the blue for no particular reason but not during my maintenance phase. I was looking into it and read an article that said that toxins from the food in the “typical American diet” of processed crappy foods get stored inside our fat cells along with excess dietary fat when we overeat, and when we create a calorie deficit and burn the excess fat in our bodies, we release those toxins back into the blood stream. Have you ever heard of this? Any truth? ?

ANSWER: Yes, your fat cells can accumulate numerous types of toxins. For example, almost everyone has traces of pesticides in their bodies. Many people freak out when they hear this, so they become more likely to fall for all kinds of bizarre and usually unproven “detoxification” rituals. It is a shame that our environment has become polluted, but the real questions are whether trace amounts of these substances pose any health risk and whether you actually have toxic levels in your body.

One group of substances that has come to attention recently in the context of fat loss, (in addition to health concerns), is organochlorines, including DDT, PCB’s and Dioxins. There is scientific evidence that these chemicals can be stored in fat cells and are released into your system when fat is lost.

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QUESTION: Dear Tom: I have been working out for around a year now and I cannot get my lower abs into any type of shape. Despite doing 900 various crunches, ab roller, and 100 sit-ups four days a week, along with running and my regular workout on the weights, I still have a tire around my waist. What else can I do?

ANSWER: “What should I do to get abs?” is still one of the most frequently asked questions I receive out of the 7,000+ emails that come into my office every week. Although the question is often phrased differently, my answer is always the same:

Seeing your abs, or any other muscle group, for that matter - is almost entirely the result of having low body fat levels. You get low body fat from proper diet (as well as cardio and strength training), not from doing hundreds of ab exercises every day.

You didn’t mention whether you knew your body fat level or not. My guess is that it may seem like your lower ab muscles are “hard to develop,” but it’s not really an issue of “muscle development” at all, you simply have too much body fat and are storing it in your lower abdominal region more readily than other parts of your body and you can’t see the muscles through the fat.

Most people don’t have their fat distributed evenly throughout their bodies. Each of us inherits a genetically determined and hormonally-influenced pattern of fat storage just as we inherit our eye or hair color. In other words, the fat seems to “stick” to certain areas more than others.

Men often tend to store fat more readily in the lower abdominal region (the “pot belly”, “spare tire”, “beer gut”, or “love handles”). In women, the “stubborn” areas are usually the hips, thighs (”saddlebags”) and the triceps (”grandmother arms”).

You could focus on more “lower ab” exercises like hanging leg raises, reverse crunches and hip lifts (”toes to sky”), but even these won’t help as long as you still have body fat covering the muscles. You can’t “spot reduce” with abdominal exercise.

The lower abs is often the first place the fat goes when you gain it, and the last place it comes off when you’re losing it. Think of ab fat like the deep end of the swimming pool. No matter how much you protest, there is no way you can drain the deep end before the shallow end.

I would suggest cutting back the volume on your ab training and spending that time on more cardio work instead. Personally, I only do about 15 minutes of ab work two times per week. (About two to four exercises with reps usually ranging from 10-25 reps).

Here is a recent ab routine that I used (for bodybuilding/ ab-development purposes). I do this routine only twice a week and I change the exercises approximately every month so my body doesn’t adapt. I prefer slightly higher rep range than other muscle groups, but as you can see, it is far from doing a thousand reps a day. (if you want to see what my abs look like, just checkout my picture below:

A1 Hanging leg raises 3 sets, 15-20 reps

Superset to:

A2 Hanging knee ups (bent-knee leg raises) 3 sets, 15-20 reps (no rest between supersetted exercises A1 & A2, 60sec between supersets)

B1 Incline Revere Crunches 3 sets, 15-20 reps

Superset to:

B2 Elbow to knee twisting crunches 3 sets, 15-20 reps

For maximum fat loss, you should do cardio 4-7 days per week for 30-60 minutes (the amount is variable depending on your results). You could continue running or mix up the type of cardio you do (stationary cycling, stairclimbing, elliptical machines, and other continuous aerobic activities are all excellent fat burners without the high impact and joint stress of frequent running).

If time efficiency is an issue for you, you could perform high intensity interval cardio training and achieve very efficient results with even briefer workouts (20-30 min per sessions, or less, if the intensity is high enough)

Once you are satisfied with your level of body fat and your abdominal definition, you can cut back to 3 days per week for 20-30 minutes for maintenance.

As far as nutrition goes, here are a few fat-burning nutrition guidelines in a nutshell:

• Eat about 15-20% below your calorie maintenance level. If you use a more aggressive calorie deficit of 25-30%, then do not keep calories too low for too long; increase calories to maintenance or maintenance +10-15% 1-2 days per week.
• Spread your calories into 5-6 smaller meals instead of 2-3 big ones. Be very conscious of portion size. eat too much of anything and you can say goodbye to your abs. Period.
• Eat a source of complete, high quality lean protein with each meal (egg whites, lean meat, fish, protein powder, etc.).
• Choose natural, complex carbs such as vegetables, oatmeal, yams, potatoes, beans, brown rice and whole grains. Start with aprox. 50% of your calories from natural carbs and reduce carbs slightly (esp. late in the day) if you are not losing fat.
• Avoid refined, simple carbs that contain white flour or white sugar.
• Keep total fats low and saturated fats low. Aim for 20% of your total calories from fat (and no more than 30%). A little bit of “good fat” like flax oil, fish fat, nuts & seeds, etc is better than a no fat diet.
• Drink plenty of water - a gallon is a good ballpark to shoot for if you are physically active.

1000+ reps of ab work four days a week is an amazing feat of endurance, but thats not how you get visble, rock hard, 6-pack abs!

You probably have outstanding development in your abdominal muscles. (you certainly have great muscular endurance). Unfortunately, if your abs are covered up with a layer of fat, you wont be able to see them even if you do 10,000 reps a day!

You “get abs” from reducing your body fat and you reduce body fat mostly through diet and cardio.

If you’d like to learn more about how to decrease your body fat level and improve your level of abdominal definition, then visit: www.burnthefat.com