Most of us want six pack abs. Especially since Bollywood stars started ‘building’ their bodies and ending up looking like desi Arnold Schwarzenegger wannabes sans the acting skills.

Nowadays, the trend of attaining washboard abs (the kind sported by Salman Khan and John Abraham) is followed by the youth as well as ‘older’ men going through a (ahem) mid-life crisis. For some, the bubble of attaining the perfect fat-free belly dream pops after they spend a few days in the gym.

Belly fat is extremely stubborn. It won’t melt soon. Attaining six-pack abs requires not only a rigorous exercise regimen but also tremendous care in diet. Some are discouraged by the demands of doing a hard-core workout and others by their seemingly unchanging stomachs. Some, out of frustration, even resort to ‘medicines’ or herbal products promising the miracle of a flat belly, but they are soon disappointed.

All hope is not lost, yet. The secret to defeating belly fat lies in this article. Here are some practical tips I learnt through experience. They must be followed rigidly. The slightest deviation from them resulted in my belly becoming a rebel and going completely out of control. But I soon discovering that the belly’s uprising can be suppressed by observing the following commandments.

Are you ‘soft’ around the edges? Do you have a ‘muffin top’? Here’s how you can get a smaller waistline and a flatter stomach … without restoring to liposuction!

All talk, no action

Rule number one: Stop listening to every Tom, Dick and Harry with big bellies and tons of advice on how to lose them. Talk is cheap, as they say, and if they really knew, they’d have ‘shown’ it.

Fat, fat everywhere and not enough muscle to burn it!

Rule number two: know your fat and understand its close relationship with your muscles. Muscles, other than giving you strength, are what burn fat and speed up digestion. They begin to decline from the age of 28 onward and so, even though your diet may be the same, your weight will increase. The lesser the muscle, the lesser number of calories burned. Not only that, this muscle then converts into fat.

Muscle decline is easily preventable through a good, power workout and by including white meat in your diet. The best kind of white meat is fish and chicken. In that, ‘desi’ chicken is the healthier and preferred kind.

Less is more

Another golden rule is also the most obvious: eat less … but eat smart. I have friends who complain that they only eat two meals a day and yet are large around the midsection. So, why doesn’t this rule work for them? Simply because if their ‘two meals a day’ include two eggs, cheese, paratha and lassi for breakfast and meat with naan as their last meal, then I’m sad to report that my friends are consuming double the calories than their daily need. A healthy diet for a flatter stomach would include nutritious yet high-energy food. An example of that would be a peanut butter sandwich made in bran bread with a cup of black coffee for breakfast and an early dinner of vegetable curry cooked in olive oil and 150g of chappati. They will immediately notice the reduction in their belly size without ever needing to exercise!

Stepping into action

Now to the ‘fun’ part: exercise. Walking at the speed of 10 minutes per kilometre for about 30 minutes will burn 300 calories. You must also swing your arms forward and backward (fully extended) so that you are also working your shoulder, deltoid and torso muscles.

Forward, MARCH!

Ever wonder why young soldiers have such toned bodies? That’s because walking, in the manner of a military drill, burns more calories and works a whopping eight muscles — shoulder, deltoids, torso, triceps, quadriceps, calves, biceps and forearms. You can take advantage of this technique as well, just channel your inner soldier and hum a military drill the next time you go out for a walk.

Another way you can walk and simultaneously work on your bicep is by carrying two dumbells of a kilogram each and simultaneously lift and lower them during the walk in such a way that your biceps and triceps are in action.

Early birds get the flattest stomachs

Ideally, you should walk in the mornings as it carries a host of advantages: less pollution and lesser chances of inhaling harmful vehicle emissions, oxygen in the atmosphere is highest during the daytime; the rush of endorphins from the early morning workout will follow you for the rest of the day, etc.

An important thing to remember is that you burn more calories on an empty stomach than on a full stomach. And you must always have high-energy food in a very small quantity at least an hour before workout.

Besides a 30-minute brisk walk, you will have to do a ‘power’ workout that leaves you panting and out of breath, because if you’re not, then your workout is useless. A higher heart-rate during exercise burns calories faster.

‘Train’ yourself

Before you begin your power workout, and assuming you are a novice at this, it is highly advisable that you join a gym for a couple of months and have a professional trainer show you the correct postures and angles for each exercise. Incorrect posture or form can lead to muscle sprains and sometimes tearing of the muscle and other injuries that may take a long time to heal.

Come home to your gym

Once you are confident that you have learned the basics, you can build your own gym at home. It is very affordable — all of the things you will need (rods, dumbbells, a workout bench, etc.) will come within a Rs30,000 budget. Another helpful piece of equipment are resistance bands. They can easily fit into your laptop casing and therefore are very convenient to travel with. Armed with two handles, one lock and a resistance band of 30lbs will give you your own little gym-in-a-bag. Stick the lock in a door and you can work out all of your muscles. It’s because of all of these that I have stopped going to gym now.

If you don’t have the budget, space or inclination to build a home gym, you can still do a power workout using your own body weight. This skill, however, can only be perfected through practice. You won’t need to do any other kind of workout if you can do at least 20 chin-ups, 100 squats and 100 push-ups every day. Shadow boxing for 15 minutes is a substitute for all of that.

It is important to combine your workout according to your preference, mood and capacity. And remember to take it easy in the beginning — Rome wasn’t built in a day and your belly won’t vanish in a day either.

The road to a better body requires commitment — you will have to control your diet and exercise regularly, otherwise you’ll be under your belly’s control rather than the other way around. Every time you feel lazy, remember: If you don’t find the time to exercise today, you will definitely find time to be ill tomorrow.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, June 1st, 2014