My 16 week body transformation - show me the abs!

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My objective and motivation

Get a six pack (or as much ab definition as possible) - within 16 weeks

I’ve never been able to see my abs. I know I have some, somewhere - everyone does (so people tell me) but I’ve never been able to get lean enough to see sufficient definition to actually see them. 

Interestingly, everyone has abs, but not everyone can necessarily get a six pack (or eight pack for that matter). The reason for this comes down to genetics - the lines between the ‘packs’ are bands of connective tissue and not everyone has the same amount (see this article for more details). So, when I decided to do my 16 week body transformation my objective was to see if I could get lean enough to see good ab definition (ideally a six pack but that could have been literally unattainable). Following my experience, I do believe that anyone can get lean enough to get visible ab definition and I’m going to share what worked for me with the hope that it helps you attain your body transformation goals.

I needed to drop what fat I could in order to make the ab definition visible, but I also wanted to avoid losing muscle as much as possible. I wasn’t looking to lose fat “at all costs”, I wanted to keep as much muscle as possible to look ripped rather than skinny.

Research - the minefield of advice

I did plenty of research both online and offline and ended up using a lot of the basic principles that are applied via Ultimate Performance. If you’re unfamiliar with UP they are a fairly exclusive chain of gyms which are only used for personal training (you can’t just get a membership and go and use the gyms). While I didn’t go down the personal training route, I did buy their books which had plenty of helpful tips and advice which I incorporated into my program. I also read a number of Layne Norton’s articles on BodyBuilding.com which I found to be insightful. The problem with things like “getting a six pack” or losing weight in general is that there is so much conflicting advice online that it can be very bewildering. Most of the advice has little in the way of data supporting the advice given or even personal experience on what the author has tried. My suspicion is that because the market is so saturated the way to get more ‘views’ is to come up with something that’s novel or contradictory because otherwise you’re just restating what’s already known. You’re unlikely to get a lot of views by saying that in order to lose weight you need to limit your caloric intake - however that’s the approach that I took, and it worked. 

In addition to being a cautious about some of the specific diets (keto, paleo, high such-and-such, low thingy) I’m also cautious when I read articles which seem to almost guarantee that you can get a six pack within 4 weeks or even 8 weeks for that matter. Unless your metabolism is very fast, you’re pretty lean at the start and perhaps are losing weight extremely fast, I'm not sure how realistic those timelines are (at least for me). I didn’t look that much different after 8 weeks - I actually think that these types of articles might put people off making progress. Maybe if I don’t have the promised six pack after 6 weeks of working out and eating the way prescribed maybe it just doesn’t work, or doesn’t work for me? For me it took a good 12 weeks to get visible abs, and the final few weeks made a big difference to how I looked. This is why the principle of logging and monitoring is so crucial so you can measure progress even if you struggle to see it at first. At the beginning of your transformation the difference between before and after losing 5 pounds is going to be much less visible than when it is towards the end. Depending on where you're starting from, getting visible muscle definition may take shorter or longer, the important thing is that you're making progress. It comes down to your body fat percentage. Professional bodybuilding aim for sub-10% body fat, which is very low. If we said, for argument's sake that you get visible abs at 12%, it will take someone longer to get there if they're starting at 25% body fat than someone who is starting at 15%. I decided to commit to 16 weeks based on a couple of factors, I wasn't sure I would get the results I wanted within 12 weeks, and I honestly didn't think I could commit to more than 16 (just adding on another 4 weeks) - so I went with 16. You will have to work out what makes sense for you, but 12 is probably a good place to start, if it's too short you might not be confident that you're making progress (especially if you have to adjust your diet as you go), if it's too long you might feel that it's just too long to be manageable. 

Core principles

The core principles that worked for me are as follows:

1. I logged diet, exercise and weight constantly and used the data to measure progress and adjust along the way. I think this is the most important of all the principles. 

2. I made sure I was in caloric deficit - this is what made me lose the fat

3. I kept my protein high - this both helped me to avoid losing muscle and helped me avoid feeling too hungry (protein is more satiating/makes you feel fuller longer than other macros)

4. For ‘cardio’ I primarily relied on NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) - AKA 10k steps a day (for good measure I did also include more formal cardio - especially towards the end of the transformation - more on this later)

5. I lifted weights regularly - this was primarily to support my objective of keeping the muscle I had (I also did some exercise focused on abs to give them a better chance of pushing through the fat to be visible)

In the following articles I’ll be doing some deep dives into these principles and I hope that you find them helpful in your own body transformation. I have no doubt that you can be successful if you follow the principles consistently for long enough - it’s not easy, but the general principles are, I believe, fairly simple. 

Commitment and discipline the mental aspect

Setting a time based goal makes body transformations a bit easier I think. Although my aim was to have visible abs, I set a timeline of 16 weeks. I think without having an end in sight it would have been harder to stick with it. You should also not underestimate the mental effect that going through something like this will have. There were times (although rarely) where I was going to bed hungry. In one case I woke up so hungry that I had to go downstairs at 4am to get a yogurt. You will have less energy than usual because of the lack of calories and you will find that much of your thought turns to good and what you will be eating next and when. You will also have to work through getting back on track if you have any mess ups along the way. A late night order of pizza and wings might equate to more than your daily total allowance but that doesn’t mean that you should give up. One mess up won’t undo the weeks of work you’re putting in. The actual effects will be more visible when you do your weekly check-ins covered in the logging article later. 

Results

Over the 16 weeks I went from not having any visible abs at all to being able to see them clearly. I lost a total of 20 pounds (starting at 168.6 pounds and ending at 149 pounds) which averages out at 1.25 pounds per week. I don’t think that I lost much muscle mass although I may have lost a bit. Here are my final before and after photos: 

I think everyone can do what I did to a greater or lesser degree and over the course of the next few articles I will do my best to share what worked for me in case you also find it helpful. I would say I wish you luck in your body transformation - but you don’t need luck just a method and the commitment to keep going! You can do it!