Get your summer abs out!

By: Nick Wolanski, Junior Mr Scotland

Hi guys, hope every one is well and training hard. With summer just round the corner I thought id write a diet on getting nice and lean cause am sure all of you are booked up to fly out for a wild holiday and will want to show off your physiques down the beach.

The plan:

The diet isn't going to be anything crazy as I think keeping it simple brings about the best results, especially for younger athletes who respond to virtually any sort of well thought out training routine due to a faster metabolism.

The first thing you should avoid is STARVING YOURSELF. This is a common mistake made by many people. If you starve yourself your body will hold onto fat as much as it can as it thinks it is in survival mode!

Instead all we need is a well thought out nutrition plan alongside a couple of hard cardio sessions a week and you'll have yourself a ripped and hard physique to show off all summer.

The central idea behind dieting to get ripped is to maintain the muscle you have already built whilst ridding your body of fat. You should be fully aware that you will not be able to build any more muscle tissue when trying to get lean.

The first thing to sort out in your diet is your water intake. Water acts as a diuretic. This means that the more water you drink the more water you excrete from under your skin. This gives you a much harder and dry look when you have lost fat. Extra water also helps the absorption of your protein which will help fill your muscles making them look big and full.

The amount of fat you currently hold will determine how long you will diet. Around 8 weeks should be ok for the majority providing you are willing to work hard as it's not an easy thing to do. It takes a great deal of will power to get through it! However stick with it and I guarantee you will be happy with the results.

For the first two weeks you should begin bringing your total calorie intake down slowly. Your protein intake should be1.5 multiplied by your body weight in pounds.

So if you are 140 pounds then you will be eating 210 grams of protein. This will ensure that muscle loss is kept to a minimum during your diet. Eliminate any sugary drinks, sweets, bread, milk, pastries, crisps, Mc-Donald's etc.

The idea of this is to speed up your metabolism by eating properly prepared clean foods. Your body will adjust and start the fat burning process.

The foods you want to be eating are turkey, chicken, lean fish, protein shakes and egg whites. For your carbohydrates you should eat brown rice, sweet potatoes, porridge and yams. Any vegetables and in particular, broccoli, spinach and green beans. You can eat a couple of egg yolks for some good fats.

You want to be eating 5 or 6 moderately sized meals. Eating smaller meals more frequently will again speed up your metabolism and allow you to burn calories at a much higher rate. However the main benefit of this in my opinion is the effect it has on your stomach, in particular your abs!

Your stomach will shrink when eating smaller more frequent meals as it is naturally very small. It becomes larger and more expanded from eating the conventional three large meals a day. The benefit is a much tighter stronger and defined mid section!

Eat the last two meals without carbohydrates as eating carbs at night time wont help at all. Throw in any vegetables that you want to fill out the plate as they contain fantastic anti oxidants and broccoli in particular aids fat burning due to its high iodine content. Another advantage of rough veg such as broccoli, spinach, and green beans is that they slow down the digestion of foods meaning your protein and carbs will be absorbed much more efficiently providing you with more energy.

Now that the nutrition is sorted you need to get your training in check. Train a little lighter than normal if you train heavy. Bring your reps up to the 10 to 12 range as this will help burn fat during your workouts. Keep your workouts intense but don't over do it as you are consuming fewer calories than normal and will have slightly less energy. 2 or 3 cardio sessions a week will speed up the fat burning process.

I wouldn't say it's a must unless you are planning on dieting to compete as many individuals can get lean by just eating cleanly. However if you are unsatisfied with progress or if you plateau then 30-40 minutes of moderately paced cycling will do wonders!

As far as supplements go I'd keep it simple! A multi vitamin and some Creatine Instant if you like will do the trick. If you need a real push, then try Fat Stripper.

There you go guys a very simple plan to follow which will enable you to look phenomenal this summer no matter what you're doing. I hope this helps and wish you all a great summer and as always feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Nick.