Sexy flat abs! On a woman there's no doubt they look superb, and if you're a female with lean flat abdominals, you feel very good about your body and your confidence soars. A waist and hips that are trim but feminine and sexy. You probably know the look you want to achieve. Not the rugged, chiselled, chunky six-pack abs that "the guys" aim for, but rather the flat, flab-free stomach that looks simply stunning on a woman. If you're a female reading this, the hard ripped abs look can be achieved, if that's what you really want, but by far the majority of women prefer a more curved, sexy look, but still with very flat lean abs. Every year, as summer approaches, along with images of swimsuits, pools and beaches, many women set out to tone their stomachs and lose some weight. Aside from looking stunning, as a female, strong abs play a big part in your level of health and well-being, and midsection strength can help prevent back problems such as lower back pain. Fantastic, if you're one of them, now we'd like to save you lots of wasted time and effort. That is if you were thinking, as most people do, that you'd need to do "endless" boring cardio workouts along with countless ab crunches and sit-ups to achieve nice abs. A concept that's important to grasp is that, the BEST exercises to achieve lean abdominals don't differ significantly when we compare female and male abs programs. The fact that often amazes people is that, for the same exercise routine, men and woman will have quite different results, so the good news for women is that there's usually not much danger of ending up with masculine looking, chiselled ripped abs. Many women find it difficult to achieve the level of weight loss they want, because they're worried that if they lift weights, or anything heavier than small dumbbells, they'll end up looking like muscle bound freaks at a "Mr. Olympia" contest! So, the reality is, due to the different hormone levels in females and males, weight training won't bulk your muscles up. Many women who lift quite heavy weights become very lean and sexy, without losing their curves, and this has a lot to do with the fact that the higher the percentage of lean muscle they have developed, the greater is their resting metabolic rate or RMR. The higher your RMR the more calories your body consumes, or metabolizes, daily, which means you're burning more calories day and night, even while you're asleep! Amazingly, around 60 to 70% of your daily calorie expenditure is due to your resting metabolic rate. Your physical activity and the thermic effect of eating food account for the remainder of the calories you burn in a day. (A definition, from Wikipedia, of the "thermic effect of eating food" or TEF is "is the increment in energy expenditure above resting metabolic rate due to the cost of processing food for storage and use.") So, as a woman, what sort of percentage body fat do you need to really "bring out" or show off your abs? It differs between individuals, but for females it's usually in the 15% to 18% body fat range. Males need to get around 5 percentage points (or more) lower in body fat than females in order to achieve a real ripped six-pack. For guaranteed results in the shortest time frame, it's a matter of the right diet and the right exercises for both men and women. As mentioned above, the best exercises are very similar for both genders, which we discuss in our articles on exercises at AbsGuide.com, and this can often be the easiest part. The other critical factor of following the right balanced diet, low in processed food, can seem the hardest part to some, but it's essential for results, and SO worth the little discipline needed! See our diet articles at AbsGuide.com for more details. Also we highly recommend checking out the "Truth about Six Pack Abs" which will give you THE most complete and honest guide to developing the ultimate set of six pack abs, or flat lean abdominals. Source: Original article by Richard Beale http://www.absguide.com July 2008
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