Atkin's Diet

[kandrathe]

A crunch is just the stomach "crunching" portion of a sit-up. The benefit comes from the isomorphic strain on the abdominal muscles. It tones the abdominals and makes the "six pack" as it were. Now, Pete's other advice was that if you have strong well defined abdominals beneath a layer of fat, no one will see them. So, you need to burn off the fat. Fat really doesn't turn into muscle, well if it does, not much. Fat stores energy. The only way to burn fat is to consume less calories than you expend so that your body will retrieve the reserves you've built up. One must be careful about this process (i.e. why starvation diets are dangerous) because if you stop consuming enough, the body will harvest its raw materials from any source including internal organs. So it is better to lose a few pounds per week, rather than make a drastic change.

The best way to burn fat is to find an exercise that you will do consistenty, same with diet. Don't think of it as a one time thing to achieve the result you want, but rather a commitment to a lifestyle change to adopt eating and exercise habits that you enjoy, and will keep you healthy.