They’re a favorite subject of mass media- fashion spreads and fitness magazines, infomercials, billboard advertisements, action flicks, even soap operas. I’m talking about people with gorgeous six pack abs and they’re the envy of millions everywhere.

Watching movies and TV, it’s easy to think that America is filled with physically fit men and women with lean, shredded abs. Sadly, like most things on the silver screen and on the boob tube, this is just fiction.

Figures recently collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that 66% of adult Americans are overweight. Given the unhealthy fast track lives most of us lead, it’s not really surprising. We spend most of our waking hours on our butts- in our office chairs, in our vehicles and at home on the couch or the computer chair.

Indeed, the creature comforts technology has allowed us to enjoy has made lazy, inactive sloths out of countless folks. The delicious morsels we munch on while watching other people with six packs on Baywatch re-runs aren’t helping things either.

You know what? We aren’t at all helpless. It may seem impossible but getting lean enough to get a well-defined six pack on our midsections is just a matter of finding the right workout that fits with a tight schedule.

Exercises that increase total body strength build muscle mass of course, but did you know that muscle-building exercises also lead to a higher Basal Metabolic Rate? Our BMR dictates how much calories our body uses up while maintaining basic body functions like breathing, heartbeat and other organ and muscle functions.

Our basal metabolic rate is our normal rate of metabolism- when we’re at rest. The high percentage of calories it consumes means raising our BMR through regular exercise will result in more calories burned during and even after our workouts. The key to rapid fat-loss is using-up more calories than we get from the food we eat.

When we do intense strength-building exercises and our BMR is at a high enough level, it’s even possible to gain a six pack without dieting! For people with low will-power when it comes to gastronomic delights, all that’s needed is to get rid of excess calories by working-out harder in the gym. We gain flab because the excess calories we still have are converted into body fat.

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