If you wish to get a set of ripped abs and get that sexy 6 pack look that we often see nowadays in magazines and on the television then you are going to need to get rid of that fat layer that lies over the abdominal muscles. It is this layer of fat that hides away those muscles and gives a flabby look.

Increasing the calories burned and lowering your calorie intake is the usually the best way to get rid of this fat. In this article I’m going to focus on lowering your calories so you will know how to get ripped.

You only need to look on the shelves in bookshops or in one of the many DVD shops to discover so many items about dieting. This can be very overwhelming. Reducing calorie intake, however, is what most of them come down to. The biggest problem a lot of people face however is keeping motivated and staying on the diet. To achieve your goal of getting rid of this layer of fat and keeping those sexy abs demands a change in lifestyle and more of a long term view.

The question that we need answered, therefore, is how do we stick to reducing our calorie intake and keeping motivated? I have found that the best way to achieve this is to set short-term goals and not look beyond that short-term goal. Many sporting disciplines such as weight training can benefit from this stepwise approach.

Going straight out and lifting a huge weight is not advisable. The best way would be to work up to it slowly. The safest and best way would be to slowly increase the weight lifted until finally after some weeks you should reach your ultimate goal. This same approach works with weight loss or fat loss.

I have found the greatest success by aiming for around a 4 pounds weight loss over a one month period. Compared to those dieting books and DVDs this may seem very little. However, with most of these crash diets it is easy to become quickly demotivated and as a result of the sudden slowing of the body’s metabolism it becomes increasingly difficult to lose weight.

If you were to attain the goal of just four pounds a month in weight loss, that would be a massive forty eight pounds over a twelve month period. A sure fire way to get ripped. These small gains can easily add up into one large gain. To keep motivated, at the end of each month I reward myself and then set my goal and plans for the next month.

So if you are looking to get rid of fat or following a program to get a lean ripped body or just to look and feel more healthier and slimmer then a small gradually increasing regime is the fastest way to go.