Fitness | Health | Body

Five Things I Did to Get Three-Pack Abs in Two Weeks

More Than Just Abs: My Journey to a Stronger Core And Healthier Life

How frequently do you exercise? Is exercising a part of your daily or weekly schedule?

Over the years, I’ve learned two important fundamentals of a good workout.

First, it’s not about the duration of your workout, but rather the intensity. Second, if your heart isn’t pumping and you’re not sweating, your body isn’t reaping the benefits of the workout. Without benefiting, your body will not change.

Although I’ve been working out consistently for the last nine years to maintain my physique, there is one thing I’ve never managed to achieve defined abs. I’m not looking for an Instagram fitness influencer abs but sculpted enough to show the hard work I was putting in daily.

Recently, I’ve seen more definition in my abs in less than a month, and I was really surprised!

I always thought it would take months or even years to achieve significant muscle definition. However, it turns out that with the right approach, the body of our dreams can be achieved in a matter of minutes and weeks, rather than hours or months.

If you’re looking to enhance your ab definition or aiming for a six-pack, here are some things that worked for me and might work for you as well:

Weights Became My Secret Weapon

For years, I focused on high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts like the 7-minute challenge, and ab-focused exercises such as stair climbers, planks, and Russian twists.

Everyone I knew, including the fitness gurus I followed, emphasized the importance of daily HIIT workouts, claiming it was the most beneficial exercise for the body and the best way to achieve more in less time. Despite following this routine for years, I never saw the results I expected in my abs.

I even incorporated yoga into my routine to help with my ab definition. I always thought that Yogis looked amazing! Long and lean, similar to ballerinas. Toned but not bulky.

Yoga helped my body become toned and tight, but it lacked that sculpted, defined look I craved. It was frustrating — I put in the effort week after week, but the results never came.

But worst of all, I didn’t know what I was doing wrong.

While bodyweight exercises are fantastic for overall fitness, they primarily target existing muscles.

Recently, I found out that strength training with weights provides controlled resistance, which stimulates muscle growth. This added muscle mass creates more definition and a more sculpted appearance. Adding weights to a workout also increases our metabolism, even at rest.

Increasing metabolism helps us burn more calories throughout the day, contributing to a leaner physique.

If you’re a beginner like me, start with light weights such as two-pound dumbbells. Over the years, I’ve learned that if we want a sculpted and defined body, we can do light weights with high repetition. And this is what I’m doing.

Once I incorporated weights, I started seeing a difference. My core became more defined, and every time I do my workouts, I can see the foundation of a six-pack ab.

Repetition Is Key

Like many people doing daily workouts, I get bored frequently.

I never stuck to a workout movement two weeks in a row.

When we open social media, hundreds of fitness influencers flood our screens with all their programs, workouts, and diet recommendations.

I thought the more movement variations I did, the more I would work my body and keep adapting to new moves. I believed that constantly changing movements would build my muscles faster.

Turns out, not sticking to one workout or movement for at least 4–6 weeks was one of the reasons why my body never changed and became sculpted. I didn’t work the targeted muscles long enough for them to transform.

For the past three weeks, I’ve been doing the same exercises every day, including Romanian deadlifts, biceps and triceps curls, pull-down movements, squats, and bridges.

Previously, I used to do a different move every day, which meant that my body wasn’t able to develop the muscles I was working on. Surprisingly, now that I’ve been consistent with these classic movements, I’ve noticed changes in my body.

The lumps and bumps started smoothing away, and the ab definition started showing. Even my daughter remarked one morning, “Mom, did you lose weight? Why is your waist so small and snatched now?”

Sculpting your body isn’t about doing as many moves as possible. It’s about being consistent and patient and finding the moves that work for you. No matter how boring and old-school they may be.

Take Your Time

Even with consistent movements, it still takes time for your body to change. I’ve been working out consistently for nearly a decade and never had the body of my dreams.

Change doesn’t happen overnight.

We live in an instant society. It’s easy to think we should take shortcuts to get the body of our dreams. Whether it be sculpting it using a spray tan and strategically shading our body, taking Ozempic to cut our size in half within weeks, or the old-fashioned way of getting liposuction.

However, what we often forget is that good things take time.

A toned back and sculpted abs don’t happen overnight. We must consistently work at it and have the discipline to see it through. The more we focus on building the body of our dreams, the more we learn which moves to do, what to eat, and how to change our lifestyle.

A toned and sculpted physique goes beyond the moves and weights we do in the gym. Our lifestyle plays an important part in it as well. Questions we need to ask ourselves are: am I drinking enough water, am I getting at least 8 hours of sleep every night, allowing my muscles to heal and build themselves? But most of all, am I eating the right foods?

Calorie Deficit to Change Your Body

You are what you eat.

In this case, if we are trying to build and sculpt our body to show muscle definition, not only do we need to be mindful of what we eat but what we don’t eat as well.

Every gym teacher I had and every influencer I followed all told me the same thing, “If you workout, you can eat whatever you want.”
Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, “When you work hard at the gym, you can then “reward” yourself for that hard work.”

Nothing is further from the truth.

I noticed changes in my body when I started eating clean and consuming less food. I follow a Japanese diet, which means I eat minimal red meat and sugar. I also do intermittent fasting, mainly at night, as I prefer having my meals during the morning or day.

However, the most important lesson I’ve learned recently is that instead of focusing on losing fat, we should focus on building muscle.

Many people tend to focus on cardio, such as running or HIIT, to lose fat. While cardio is good for the heart, it does little for shaping the body.

When we want to change our body, what most of us aim for is changing our physique, not our weight. As we progress, we may notice that our body looks firmer or that clothes fit better.

For example, I weigh the same now as I did before I started exercising and eating healthily. However, my bust, waist, and hip size have decreased by four centimeters and my body is toner than before.

In addition, since starting my strength training program, I feel stronger. I am now less breathless when running or climbing stairs for extended periods.

I no longer have a scale in my house and prefer to assess my health based on how I feel and how my body is composed rather than referring to numbers on a scale. It’s not about being skinny. It’s about being healthy.

Sleep

When we’ve spent hours in the gym, shaping, sculpting, and shredding our muscles, the next thing we need to do is let them recover.

We often think our muscles and body are shaped and sculpted in the gym. The weights we lift are what contour our body lines.

Lifting weights shreds our muscles and allows them to renew and repair themselves. However, after the shredding occurs, the muscles need time to recover.

This is where sleep comes in. It is when we sleep that our body recovers. To improve deep sleep, aim for 7–9 hours of sleep each night, maintain a consistent sleep schedule, and stay hydrated throughout the day.

Building muscle and shaping our body goes beyond just working out. This is why athletes and people like Mark Wahlberg go to bed early. They let their muscles do the work while they sleep.

Discovering ways that fine-tuned my body has changed my life. I now feel stronger than I was in my 20s. Youth isn’t a guarantee for fit. In my twenties, I must admit that even though I was slim and looked good, I never felt good.

Remember the following text: Climbing too many stairs used to leave me breathless, and I couldn’t carry anything heavy without losing my balance. Running just a few steps would leave me gasping for air.

I had neglected to focus on building a lean core and muscle definition for two decades. I always told myself that I would work on it when I have time.

Now, thanks to technology and the wealth of information available to us, achieving the body of our dreams doesn’t have to remain a distant goal.

While I’m still working towards getting six-pack abs, my current three-pack brings a smile to my face.

All these steps have worked for me and have made me the best version of myself. And as the saying goes, “If I can do it, so can you.”

What are you waiting for?