Weight Loss

In No Time, Flat, Step 1

Seven days stand between you and a cabana on the beach. Here's the fastest way to whittle away your middle

By: Trevor Thieme, Photo Illustrations by: C.J. Burton
[ Updated: Jul 14, 2008 - 5:08:14 PM ]

There's something to be said for slow and steady. It's what allowed China to build its Great Wall, Boston to complete its Big Dig, and the marathon to be invented in the first place. But when it comes to sculpting the human body, few men have the patience for it, and right now, you're no exception.

It's already summer, the most popular season for cashing in vacation days, according to the Travel Industry Association of America, and you've got yours earmarked for a slice of sand-and-palm-tree-covered heaven. Problem is, heaven is largely shirtless, and between an all-consuming workplace and a frenetic home life, it's easy to let your lean, fit body go all Mallo Cup around the middle. Now you're confronted by one undeniable fact: Your flight leaves in 7 days, and your belly is going to be on it.

For most guys, the belly is the place where fat goes first—it's the place where our ancestors stored extra food before they invented the doggie bag. Today, however, with the advent of a global food economy and top-of-the-food-chain status, there's little need for it, and most men attempt to fight thousands of years of natural selection through crunches and situps. Problem is, Mother Nature has guarded against that, too.

"You can't spot-reduce fat," says David Pearson, Ph.D., director of the Strength Research Laboratory at Ball State University, in Indiana. "But the good news is that most of us have a great set of abs buried beneath, and when we lose body fat, they appear automatically."

The fitness plan below will help you coax them out. It's a series of short-but admittedly intense-strength and aerobic workouts carefully calibrated to burn the maximum number of calories while giving you the optimal amount of rest for building lean, fat-burning muscle.

The Weight Workout
When most people think of losing weight, they think of hitting the jogging path or slogging it out on a rowing machine. They're right, but only in part. Building muscle is just as important as aerobic exercise when it comes to long-term weight management-perhaps even more so. The reason is simple: A pound of muscle requires your body to burn 50 calories a day to maintain it. Add 3 pounds of new muscle, and your body will burn through an additional 1,050 calories per week just sitting around.

To build the most muscle in the least time, we've focused here on compound exercises-exercises that engage as many muscles at once as possible. (For example, a dumbbell curl exercises just one muscle group-your biceps. A dumbbell squat, on the other hand, exercises every muscle in your legs, including your quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, and glutes, and that translates into more lean tissue growth, more calories burned, and more admiring glances on the white sand.)