Are Oats The Secret To Flat Abs?

Looking to flatten your midsection? If so, you may need to look no further than your pantry each morning. One of the best six pack ab foods that too often goes missed in many people’s diets is oatmeal.

Now, I’m not talking about the ‘Peaches N’ Cream’ or ‘Apple Cinnamon’ oats you see on your grocery’s shelves, all subdivided into ready-to-eat packets for your convenience.

I’m talking about good old-fashioned steel cut oats.  Oats that take longer to prepare and don’t come with any ingredients other than, well… oats.  Pure. Simple. Nutritious.  This is what real oatmeal has to offer.

Most people don’t realize just how powerful of a food oatmeal is when it comes to getting flat abs, so let’s walk you through the benefits.

Low Sugar

First, as long as you do go ahead and purchase the plain oats as just mentioned and not the flavored varieties, you can expect to receive a very low sugar option that’ll keep your blood glucose levels stable.

As anyone who’s serious about getting flat abs knows, keeping your sugar intake under control is step one for success.

Oats help you achieve this.

While being low in sugar, they’re also carbohydrate rich, so this means they work perfectly for the post workout period.  They’ll quickly replenish lost energy, helping you recover from that hard workout session.

High Volume

Next, another big benefit to oatmeal is that it’s a high volume food, meaning you can eat a larger volume of it without worrying about weight gain.  This is ideal since most people who are dieting often feel like they’re living off very little food.  They look at their dinner plate and just wish they could eat more. Doesn’t matter what the food is in most cases, they just want more food.

Oatmeal again comes to the rescue here.  Per 100 calories of oatmeal, you will get more total food volume than if you had eaten say rice or another grain.

This means you won’t feel like you’re dieting, even though you are.

Rich In Fiber

The next big benefit to eating oatmeal is that it’s also rich in dietary fiber.  This is important because not only will it help to keep your digestive system healthier, but it also ranks low on the GI scale because of this benefit.

Adding mostly all low GI foods to your diet is one of the best methods to promote better abs.

The higher the fiber content of any carbohydrate, typically the better for you it is.

Satisfying

Finally, simply put, oats are satisfying.  There’s nothing quite as hunger-busting as a bowl of hearty, warm oats, so this breakfast really earns top marks for fat loss diet plans. 

Just be sure that you are only adding healthy ingredients to flavor it if you so choose to.  Cinnamon, drizzling on a little sugar-free maple syrup, slicing on a banana, stirring in some natural peanut butter, or mixing in your favourite protein powder are all healthy options that will keep your diet intact.

So keep oats in mind next time you wake up and are hungry for your morning meal.  Even as a snack, they work fantastic as an energy boosting food, particularly post workout,  that will help you get one step closer to six pack abs.

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4 Foods That Turn Fat Burning On Low

If you’re on a fat-loss mission, one thing that you must keep in the back of your mind at all times is the type of foods you are eating. Most people already know the importance of getting the right number of calories into their day, but few realize just how important that actual foods are that they eat.

Eat the wrong foods and you can actually turn down the dial on fat burning, essentially sabotaging your progress.

Here are 4 foods that you should be avoiding at all costs.

Deep Fried Anything

If the food is deep fried, step away. Most people realize that these are not to be included on a healthy diet plan, but they don’t realize just how bad they are.

Not only do you often have carbs, which will spike blood glucose levels, but then you also add fat into the picture, which gets quickly transported to your butt, thighs, and lower abs when blood sugar is high.

Not a good combination.

High Sugar Breakfast Bars

Speaking of sugar, that morning breakfast bar you start your day with? That’s another one that has to go.

These ‘fruit’ based breakfast bars are simply too high in processed carbs, too low in protein, and contain no healthy fats at all.  Not an ideal mix to get your day off to a good start.

Not only that, but they’ll more than likely make you hungrier mid-morning than if you had skipped them entirely.

Opt for some good old fashioned eggs or oatmeal ( oats are best post-workout )

Processed Snack Foods

Likewise with processed snack foods.  Granola bars, crackers, low fat chips – anything of the like is all going to make reaching your goals that much harder.

Upon digestion, these foods immediately cause a surge of insulin to enter the body, which then takes up all that glucose and turns it into fat quickly.

Upon doing so, you are then left very hungry and irritable, and will more than likely reach for more processed foods.

This makes sticking with your diet next to impossible and soon, weight gain will follow.

Sugary Alcoholic Drinks

Finally, don’t overlook how bad sugary alcoholic drinks can be.  Not only is alcohol bad in itself as it immediately turns off fat burning as soon as you consume it, but in addition to that, with the added sugar you now have in the picture, that sugar will get converted to body fat immediately as well.

While a glass of wine with dinner once or twice a week typically isn’t a huge issue, if you’re downing cocktails every Friday after a long hard work-week, you can count on one thing: a stall in fat loss progress.

So keep these things in mind and make sure they aren’t making an appearance in your plan. If they are, you now know why you are not seeing the results you were hoping for. 

Stay solid

Lochs :-)

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