Let’s find out how you can shred your body fat to get a shredded look.

Start leaning

Can you see your abs already? If you are not able to see them, first, you will need to diet to reduce your body fat. You will need to lose subcutaneous water weight that is abstracting the definition of your abs. If you already have a belly that hangs over your waistband, you have lots of walks to do. First of all, you will need to get rid of that belly and the extra fat present in your body and only after that you can get a shredded body. So, let’s work on eliminating those extra flab and fat. Your diet will help you to do that.

Find out what you are eating

Instead of doing any guesswork, let’s use mathematics to find out exactly what you are eating. You should be aware of how much you are eating. You need 1 g of protein and 10 to 11 calories for every pound of your body weight. 20% of those calories that you need to consume daily should come from fat and the rest from carbs. So, if you’re a 200 pound guy, you will need 200 g of protein and 2000 to 2200 calories every day. About 420 calories can come from fat and 880 calories can come from carbs. The protein and fat intake will stay constant but carb intake may go down or up as necessary. Do the necessary calculation and make a chart so that you can follow it every day and get the maximum benefit possible from whatever you are eating.

Prime the muscles

To get the shredded look on a particular day, you should not work out later than three days before the day. If you have an event on Sunday, you should do your last workout of the week on Thursday. Why should you do that? Muscles will bulge most when they’re full with glycogen. Glycogen is the carbohydrates stored in muscle. You need to give your body some time to recover and replenish its glycogen stores. If you train on Saturday and you have an event on Sunday where you want to show your shredded look, you’ll not be able to do that because you will look flat and soft as the carbs stored in your muscles will be depleted.

Also the last workout of the week before your special day should focus on areas that you want to highlight. So, you may work on your chest and arms. You need to do that because glycogen is replenished fastest in muscles that need it most, which means the muscles which are worked on.

You should not work on your abs during this time. Generally you need to work on your abs but not before any special day. Other muscles will pump up well to swell further when more glycogen is added to the stores. But your abs will not be pumped like biceps or shoulders and so you don’t have to drive glycogen to your abs, especially during this special event. If you drive more glycogen to your abs, they may inflate too much and that will reduce the definition. Also do not perform any cardio just before the special day. Interval training like cardio will be counter-productive because they use stored carbs for fuel. If you want, some light walking or other aerobic training can be done if it is very much necessary for you. But do that with very low intensity and for a lower duration.

References

1. Alpha Shredding Total System To Get Shredded
2. NIH study finds cutting dietary fat reduces body fat more than cutting carbs
3. High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss