Abs diet The Abs diet is a six-week plan that combines nutrition and exercise.

It emphasizes twelve power foods that are the staples of the diet.

It focuses on building muscle through strength training, aerobic exercises, and a dietary balance of proteins, carbohydrates, and fat.

David Zinczenko, editor of Men’s Health, developed the diet in 2004.

He introduced it in the magazine and in his book, The Abs Diet: The Six-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life.

Zinczenko says he grew up as an overweight child and at age 14, he was five feet 10 inches tall and weighed 212 pounds.

He learned about fitness while in the U.S. Naval Reserve and nutrition from his tenure at Men’s Health.

Despite its name, the diet does not specifically target abdominal fat. Exercise helps the body burn excess fat but it is not possible to target specific areas of fat, such as the abdomen.

 

Diet and exercise will help eliminate excess fat from all over.

If the bulk of a person’s fat is around the belly, then that is where the greatest amount of fat-burning will occur.

The Abs diet is designed to provide the necessary vitamins, minerals, and fiber for good health, while it promotes building muscle that helps increase the body’s fatburning process.

 

• The Abs diet developer David Zinczenko says it will allow people to lose weight—primarily fat—while developing a leaner abdomen and increasing muscle tone, strength, general health, and sexual health. The diet has two components: exercise and nutrition.

• There are six general guidelines that are the basic principles of the diet. These are: eat six meals a day, drink smoothies regularly, know what to drink and what not to; do not count calories; eat anything you want for one meal a week; and focus on the Abs diet twelve power foods.

• The diet strongly recommends its followers eat six meals a day since it helps to maintain what researchers call an energy balance. This is the number of calories burned in an hour versus the number of calories taken in. Georgia State University researchers found that if the hourly surplus or deficit of calories is 300–500 at any given time, the body is most susceptible to burning fat and building lean muscle mass. To stay within this range, Zinczenko recommends the following daily meal schedule: breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner, and evening snack.

• Another guideline is to drink smoothies regularly in place of a meal or snack. Smoothies are mixtures of low-fat milk and yogurt with ingredients such as ice, protein powder, fruits, and peanut butter, that are prepared in a blender. Although there are no definitive studies, some researchers suggest that the calcium in the milk and yogurt helps to burn body fat and restricts the amount of fat produced by the body.

• A third guideline details what to drink and not drink. Drinking eight glasses of water daily is recommended. The benefits of 64-oz of water are that it helps to alleviate hunger pangs, it flushes waste products from the body, and it delivers nutrients to muscles. Other acceptable drinks are water, low-fat milk (if no allergy to casein), green tea. Alcohol is not recommended at all since it does not help to make a person feel full. It also decreases by one-third the body’s ability to burn fat and makes the body store more of the fat from food. In addition, it decreases production of testosterone and human growth hormone that help burn fat and increase muscle mass.

 

• Although burning calories is required to lose fat, Zinczenko says calorie counting makes people lose focus and motivation. The foods allowed on the diet are energy-efficient and will help dampen feelings of hunger, according to Zinczenko.

• Another guideline is that dieters are allowed to cheat for one meal a week. The meal should include foods that the dieter misses most, including items high in carbohydrates and fats. This helps prevent diet fatigue that many people go though when dieting.

• The last guideline is to focus on the twelve power foods of the diet to help meet core nutritional requirements. The twelve power foods are:

* almonds and other nuts (unsalted and unsmoked) *

beans (except refried and baked)

* green vegetables, including spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and asparagus

* non-fat or low-fat dairy products

* instant oatmeal (unsweetened and unflavored)

* eggs and egg substitute products

* lean meats, including turkey, chicken, fish, and beef

* peanut butter * olive oil

* whole-grain breads and cereals

* whey protein powder * berries

• Other foods that can be eaten often include almond butter, apples, avocados, bananas, bean dips, brown rice, Canadian bacon, extra virgen olive oil, cashew butter, citrus fruit and juices, edamame, fruit juices (sugar-free), garlic, hummus, lentils, mushrooms, melons, pasta (whole-wheat), peaches, peanut oil, peas, peppers (green, yellow, and orange), popcorn (fat-free), pretzels (whole-wheat), pumpkin seeds, sesame oil, shellfish, soup (broth-based), sunflower seeds, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and yellow wax beans.

 

• A must read for anyone who is serious about building a healthy body and changing to a healthy lifestyle. Most diets are based on gimmicks that set you up for failure; this is the first program I have seen that promotes a lifestyle change that anyone can live with. GAMBATE KUDASAI!