Live Longer: A Canadian study of more than 8,000 people over 13 years found that those with the weakest abdominal muscles had a death rate more than twice that of the people with the strongest midsections.

Lift More Weight: A stronger core supports your spine, so you can lift more weight in every exercise. Case in point: Canadian researchers found that men bench-pressed 40 percent more on a stable surface—which best supported their spines—than on an unstable surface.

Prevent Injuries: Research shows that men with the best-conditioned abdominal muscles—guys who can perform at least 73 sit-ups in 2 minutes—are five times less likely to suffer a lower-body injury than those who can knock out only 50.

Improve your Posture: Tight lower-back muscles from excessive running pull your spine out of natural alignment. Strengthening your abs can correct this muscular imbalance, improving your body’s posture to allow it to function properly

The pursuit for six pack abs goes quite deep. You strive for a six-pack as if your life depended on it, and now science proves that it does.

At a meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity recently, research was presented declaring that waist circumference is more conclusive than either weight or body-mass index (BMI) as a measure of disease risk.

Therefore, having a lean and trim midsection has basically been dubbed one of the most important aspects of fitness.

Miami cardiologist Arthur Agatston, M.D., author of The South Beach Diet, puts it into his words: “Abdominal fat is different and more dangerous than fat elsewhere.

Unlike fat directly under the skin, belly fat adheres to organs, and is also associated with increases in C-reactive protein (CRP) and other markers of inflammation that can lead to heart disease and ultimately death.” Do we have your attention yet? Good. We’ll trust you lay off the greasy foods from now on.

A key fact you need to keep in mind when it comes to abs is that if your body fat is too high, it doesn’t matter how hard you work your abs, they won’t show. For most men, anything over 10-12 percent body fat keeps your abs in hibernation.

During the next month, use the following steps to work your abs. Also, to help with your nutrition, try this eating tip from Nancy Clark, R.D., author of Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook: “I make two peanut butter-and-honey sandwiches every day; I eat one for lunch at 11 and one for my second lunch at 3,” Clark says.

Notice that the 3 o’clock feeding is a second lunch, not an afternoon snack. Too many people equate snack time with snack foods, such as junk food. You’ll eat smarter (whole grains and muscle-building protein) and consume less at dinner if you allow for a second actual lunch.

Plus, you’ll have more energy for a better workout in the afternoon or even evening.

This will, in turn, keep your insulin levels stable. When insulin is in excess, from too much sugar and not enough exercise, it can turn on you, depositing fat into your gut. Or even worse, “When the pancreas burns out after years of producing excess insulin, that’s when buildup that can cause heart attacks and strokes begins in the arteries,” Dr. Agatston says.

But enough scary stuff here, there’s still time to hit the gym, and the beach for that matter.

Six Pack Abs Tips

1. Make Sure to Stay Hydrated:
This one’s almost too easy, but drinking plenty of water not only helps you burn fat, but also builds more muscle. “All creatine does is force fluid into the muscle,” says Hays. “Your body will do that itself if there’s enough water readily available and you have enough natural creatine in your body.”

2. Train Your Abs with Two Types of Exercises:
Some abdominal exercises are based on movement. Others focus on balance, making your abs contract harder to keep your body stable. “Most men have difficulty with either stabilization or mobilization,” says Carter Hays, C.S.C.S., a Houston-based personal trainer and a performance-enhancement specialist for the National Academy of Sport Medicine.

Include both types of moves in your ab workout to keep up the challenge.

For instance, try performing a Swiss-ball crunch (stabilization), followed by a Swiss-ball rollout (mobilization). To do the rollout, kneel in front of the ball with your forearms pressed against it. Keeping your knees and feet in place, roll the ball in front of you so your hips, torso, and arms slide forward.

Try to advance as far as you can without arching your back, then pull back to the starting position to complete the rep.

3. Get More Out of Your Cardio Sessions:
Strip away abdominal fat by switching around your cardio routine so you run hard early. In a study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, eight men ran for 30 minutes on 2 separate days.

In the first session, the men ran at a relatively high intensity, 80 percent of their maximum heart rate, for 15 minutes, then slowed to 60 percent for the final 15 minutes. In the other session, they ran the slower part first. Surprisingly, the men burned 5 to 10 percent more fat when they ran faster at the start of the workout.

“And this is only a 30-minute workout,” says Jie Kang, Ph.D., the study’s lead author. “If you stretch that to a longer workout three to five times a week, things can add up overall.”

Here’s why it works: To burn fat, your body first breaks down fat tissue into fat molecules. “Our study found that this works better when you exercise at a relatively high intensity,” says Kang. Next, molecules go to your cells to be burned, which Kang says can occur at relatively lower intensities.

The best part: You’ll feel as if you’re burning fat easier than ever. Kang measured the participants’ perceived effort—how hard they felt they were working. It turns out the body feels fatigued late in a workout, regardless of what you do. So, step it up in the beginning to shred off more fat!

4. Skip Extra Ab Workouts:
Edging closer to sharp abs can tempt you to work them every day., but don’t! Training more can actually make your abs show less. “You don’t need to overwork your abs—they’re no different from any other muscle,” says Hays.

“If you’re always in a state of overtraining, you’re going to get more laxity in your muscles.” In other words, they’ll appear soft. Instead, add resistance to make moves you already do more challenging. For instance, hold a light weight plate during a Russian twist or Swiss-ball crunch. Then give your muscles plenty of time to rest and recover.

5. Accomplish More Total-Body Exercise:
Isolation moves like crunches are great for developing your muscles, but they don’t burn much fat. You’re better off training multiple muscle groups at once, says Hays. Total-body exercise burns more calories and also causes a greater release of muscle-building hormones.

6. Go as Deep as Possible:
Abdominal muscles are surprisingly, deeply multi-ayered, but most men focus only on the outermost layer with exercises like the crunch. Try to look for moves that work the abdominal muscles closest to the spine, such as the plank.

Strengthening these tiny stabilizers will provide a solid foundation to allow your six-pack muscles to grow stronger and bigger over time.

Try combination moves, like the reverse lunge to cable chest fly. Stand between a cable station’s weight stacks and grab a pulley handle with each hand. Hold your arms straight in front of you.

Then step back with one leg, bend your knees, and let your arms move out to the sides. Pause when your back knee is just about off the floor and your upper body looks like a T, then push yourself back up while you pull your arms together.

Repeat the move with your other leg in the back position.

7. Hop Up Off the Floor:
Define the lower portion of the rectus abdominis (your main, six-pack muscle) with a Swiss-ball reverse crunch, but instead of doing the move on the floor, hop on a bench. “It allows for a greater range of motion and balance,” says Gregory Joujon-Roche, C.P.T., president of Holistic Fitness, in Los Angeles.

For your fantastic looking abs to show, you will first need to lose the excess weight, and here are seven key steps that can help you begin to lose body fat.

Eating 5 to 6 Small Meals A Day Is Important

When you are trying to burn fat, eating only three meals a day simply will not cut it. Your main goal is to keep your metabolism working and burning as much fat as it possibly can. When you only eat three meals per day, it has time to slow down, and this totally defeats your purpose.

Not only will your metabolism burn fat, but also it is hard at work draining energy and nutritional content that the meals you eat supply.

To aid your metabolism into working for you, the key is to keep it going, and this is achieved by eating 5 or 6 smaller meals a day. When you eat something small in between your regular meals, this will allow your metabolism to continue working in burning that excess fat off.

Another advantage is that you will not feel those hunger pains as often, in between meals. This in itself will cause you to want less food during your regular meals, so you will naturally eat less.

Protein bars that are high in protein and low in carbs are an excellent snack choice for in between meals. The brand Pure Protein bars is recommended.

Drink that water!

There are many benefits that we receive when we drink plenty of water. Water is important at any time, but especially when you are trying to lose weight and dieting. Our bodies are made up of 70% water, and it is important to we continually stay well hydrated.

When we consume food, water helps our bodies to utilize the nutrients, by helping to transport them to our body’s cells, as well as determining how the cells will use the nutrients. This is very essential when it comes to losing weight.

To maintain a healthy body, water is also very important in the process of eliminating wastes and flushing out all other toxins. Your complexion is also something that will benefit greatly from water.

When your ultimate goal is to put on muscle mass, water is also important for the elasticity of your skin. Drinking the right amounts of water can help you avoid stretch marks that can appear on skin that does not have adequate elasticity.

Water will also help to cushion your joints, which can be very important when you are trying to lose extra weight, because you will partially lose some of the fat cushion in your joints, and this is important for avoiding injury.

Remove The Bedtime Eating Habit

When you are sleeping, your metabolism slows down and does not burn off food as it does during the day. So, eating within three hours of your bedtime can mean your body will simply be storing the food you just consumed as fat

Cardio Exercise Is Very Important

The best diets in the world will not be able to benefit you to their fullest, if you do not incorporate cardiovascular exercise into your plan.

To achieve the best results, you should plan to do your cardio exercises right after you get up, spending about 20 minutes in the mornings before breakfast on your exercises, and at least 4 times each week.

Ultimately you will want to reach 45-minute cardio sessions, so you may try increasing your workout time by 5 minutes until you are able to do this. By doing these exercises early, you are able to take advantage of the fact that the glycogen stores are low at this time, and it allows your body to burn the fat faster.

A key fact to remember while doing cardio is you will want to be able to reach a heart rate level of 65% of what your maximum heart rate is. This can be figured by subtracting your age from 220, and then multiply it by 0.65.

You will want to maintain this heart rate level during your entire workout session. The importance of raising your heart rate is this is the perfect fat burning zone. Stopping once in a while just long enough to check your heart rate will ensure that you are maintaining the right level.

High Protein Is A Must!

Your entire goal of being able to keep your metabolism burning off fat effectively, without losing much muscle, is dependent upon your efforts of taking in high amounts of protein.

Carbohydrates, being your body’s main energy source is burned off first, then your fat will begin being used as fuel. To keep your body from using the muscle you have worked hard to achieve, you will want to make sure to take in high amounts of protein. In doing so, you will succeed in keeping your metabolism going.

Lower Your Carbohydrate Intake

We have already established that your body will burn carbs before it gets to the fat to burn. So one key step in losing weight is to cut down on your carbohydrate intake. It can be helpful to consume your daily amount of carbs with your breakfast meal, ensuring that you eat a combination of both protein and carbs.

Daily Multi-Vitamin

When you diet, this will generally mean a change in your eating habits. Because of this, it is important to take a daily multi-vitamin to ensure that your body is still receiving its essential amount of vitamins and minerals that are so important to staying as healthy as possible.

A Few Helpful Hints To Consider

- Since it takes around 15 minutes after you eat for your body to know it is full, just by waiting 15 minutes before you decide you want a second serving can help tremendously in preventing issues with over eating.

- As long as the foods you are eating are not overly high in carbs, do not hesitate in eating plenty of vegetables and fruits with your meals.

- 8 hours of sleep every night will provide you with an adequate amount of energy for the following day, and this is very important when you plan to restrict your carbohydrates intake.

The most important thing to remember when trying to flatten your abs, is that you have to cut fat (lose weight) by burning calories. Otherwise, the fat content around your midsection will remain as you build up the abs underneath. So keep in mind your diet and nutrition and try to make some cuts in the number of calories you consume daily.

Keep in mind, that genetics also play an important role in your bone structure and the appearance of your body. For example, if your parents are overweight, chances are you may need to work a little harder to achieve your weight loss goals.

The best equipment to use to flatten your abs is the Swiss ball. When using the ball, you are working each and every one of your stomach muscles through a full range of motion. Using all your muscles produces better, quicker results compared to that of just doing crunches.

Another great thing about using the ball, is because your gaining more muscle faster, you will burn excess calories easier.

This is because the more muscle you have, the easier it is for your body to burn fat. Furthermore, varying your daily workout routine is wise. Our bodies tend to get used to the exercise we do on a consistent basis, so changing things up often, allows your body to keep burning calories at a healthy rate.

For instance, one week go jogging while the next week try swimming or hiking instead. Keeping a fresh routine will also help you stay motivated while flattening your abs.