A
Abs diet
Definition
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,carbohy-
drates, and fat.
Origins
David Zinczenko, editor ofMen’s Health, devel-
oped 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 atMen’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 necessaryvitamins,
minerals, andfiberfor good health, while it promotes
building muscle that helps increase the body’s fat
burning process.
Description
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,
proteinpowder, fruits, and peanut butter, that are
prepared in a blender. Although there are no definitive
studies, some researchers suggest that thecalciumin
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 ofwaterdaily is recom-
mended. 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 low-fat milk,green tea,
and no more than two glasses of diet soda a day.
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.