By Paul Chek, HHP, NMT
Founder, C.H.E.K Institute

Today, there are more people than ever in pursuit of the elusive washboard stomach. This is quite a paradox, considering the fact we have more modern medical, exercise and nutrition technology than ever, yet we have more obesity -- washtubs -- than ever! How can it be that, even among the people who go to the gym regularly and are often doing 100 sit-ups and crunches or more every day, washboard abs are seemingly unattainable?

It's really quite simple ...

Most people working on a washboard stomach are making one or more major mistakes in their application of the foundational principles that underlie success in any physical or athletic endeavor. For your body to reduce enough of its fat content to actually appreciate the muscles you've worked so hard to show off, it has to be absolutely convinced you can safely get by with such a low percentage of body fat.

To see washboard abs of merit, males will need to reduce body fat to approximately 9 percent or less and women will have to get to approximately 13 percent or less. This is not easy to do! After all, body fat serves as an energy reserve, a site for storage of toxic chemicals it can't currently eliminate from the system safely, thermogenesis, organ protection and much more.

For example, the female body resists getting below 13 percent body fat because it is programmed to always have enough energy on board to feed a developing fetus and maintain energy reserves necessary to stabilize hormonal production. These functions are threatened once a woman's body fat drops below 13 percent. The only females I've seen successfully reduce body fat below 13 percent, while maintaining a healthy menstrual cycle and body, were eating high quality whole foods proportioned for their unique metabolic type. Such a woman is both strong AND healthy!

In fact, a washboard abdomen is a sign of strength and durability, and Mother Nature doesn't support false advertising. Only those resorting to chemical tricks such as metabolic stimulants and drugs can develop a washboard in the presence of an otherwise unhealthy body. But, there is always a cost in the end: You lose it and it is even harder to regain each time you try.

Proper Eating Habits

I will lay it out straight and simple and can assure you that each time you break one of Mother Nature's foundational principles, your chances of developing washboard diminishes significantly.

1. Eat organic foods. Commercially farmed foods have high levels of pesticide residues, even in New Zealand, a country reported to be among the cleanest and most natural in the world. As I show in my recent book, How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy! (p. 57), when scientists analyzed a child's lunch right from the cafeteria line in a New Zealand elementary school, they found residue from 22 different pesticides, many of which were at levels several times the safe limit.

Most consumers, then, are exposed to a variety of toxic substances. When you bring in more toxic chemicals from your food or environment than your liver can effectively process, toxins are shuttled into your fat cells. This is because inadequate nutrition often cripples the liver's detoxification pathways such that the conversion of fat-soluble chemicals to water-soluble chemicals can't effectively take place.

The result in such situations: These partially converted chemicals damage or sclerose the liver if they are not shuttled into the fat to be stored until the body can complete the process effectively. In short, in the presence of high levels of toxic chemicals, the liver keeps the fat cells around as a storage site in order to save itself from being damaged.

When there is adequate nutrition in the diet, the pathways of detoxification are enabled, allowing for the conversion of fat-soluble chemicals to water-soluble chemicals that can safely be excreted by the kidneys. In the absence of optimal nutrition, no matter how hard you exercise, your chances of reducing the fat around your midsection will be reduced in proportion to how toxic your body is due to the fact that reducing toxins is also depends on the following variables:

• Proper hydration
• Optimal nutrition
• Adequate exercise
• Sound breathing mechanics
• A functional bowel
  

Compounding the fact of fat accumulation, many pesticides are estrogenic. That means, when you consume those substances through your foods, you are more likely to have a harder time building muscle because of estrogen's antagonistic effect on testosterone, thus you become less efficient at removing toxins.

As you consume more estrogenic pesticides, your detoxification pathways become progressively more challenged, increasing the likelihood of shuttling excess toxins and hormones into fat until it can be effectively processed by the liver. In some people, the failure to eat and live according to sound health principles will result in disease or death, regardless of how fit they are. (By being fit, I mean a measure of work capacity, not of health or well-being!)

2. Eat right for your metabolic type. This simply means that you must eat properly for your racial and ethnic origins, which is a major influence on your genetics.

For example, if you are a native of New Zealand, you will need a diet that is a mix of produce and flesh foods (such as fish and game) in equal proportions because that is what the environment provided the people who live there for thousands of years. If you are an inland Aboriginal, you will do better on a diet of about 80-90 percent plant matter and only 10 percent flesh foods because of the conditions in the desert, the environment to which your body has adapted. Coastal Aboriginals typically eat about 75 percent of their diet as flesh foods due to the availability of animals.

Adapting to Your Body's Proper Eating Habits

If you study the work of Weston A. Price (see "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" at www.price-pottenger.org), you will find that the amount of animal foods consumed by any native tribe was determined by availability, not by religious or cult idealism, as some would have you believe! If you don't know your metabolic type, there is an easy test you can do in my book (or follow this link to the free Mercola.com online test).

If you eat wrong for your metabolic type, your body thinks you are having an energy crisis and begins to accumulate fat. You may be eating plenty of calories, but, as Bill Wolcott says, "You don't feed lions leaves and you don't feed giraffes steak." If you do, both will get sick and eventually die. You are no different. Eat right for your metabolic type, eat high quality organic foods and soon, your washboard will begin to appear!

3. Keep well hydrated. To be properly hydrated, you must drink water, not coffee, tea, juice or other commercial drinks. Often, these are dehydrating agents, or have a high enough solute content that they act as foods in the body.

To determine how much water to drink per day, divide your body weight in pounds by two and consume that many ounces of water daily. If you use the metric system, multiply your body weight in kilograms by .033 and consume that many liters of water daily. Billions of chemical reactions in your body that depend on water take place each second. Without it, your body starts saving water in your tissues, making you look puffy and feel tired, not healthy and vital.

I also recommend you drink only high-quality filtered water or bottled water, and not from the tap. Tap water contains numerous industrial chemicals that are now ubiquitous in most environments, not to mention most cities chlorinate their water to kill bacteria. These unnatural chemicals will kill the friendly bacteria in your gut too, leaving you with increased likelihood of dysbiosis. For other important tips on selecting and drinking water, please see my book, How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy (pgs. 78-80).

4. Use Big Exercises! There is no such thing as spot reducing, meaning all the abdominal exercises in the world won't improve your chances of seeing your abs!

I've consulted professional athletes who could do so many crunches and sit-ups, they burned a hole in the carpet. But all they had to show for it was rock hard abs hiding under Jell-O pudding and bad posture! If you want a six-pack you can see and appreciate, you need to focus on the big, high-energy movements in the gym, like squatting, lunging, rowing, cable pushes (see "Gym Instructor" video series), and some of the more challenging Swiss Ball exercises like push-ups off the ball, supine lateral ball rolls, supine hip extensions with knee flexion (see "Swiss Ball Exercises For Athletes" or "Strong 'N' Stable" video programs).

Initially, these energy demanding multi-joint exercises should be performed for 1-3 sets of 12-16 reps at a moderate tempo with a 60- to 90-second rest period. This will elevate your metabolism, remove fat and expose your abs, preparing you for the more intense exercises on the next page that will give you a beautiful pronounced washboard.

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