Are Abs Really Made in the Kitchen?

Why the saying “Abs are made in the kitchen” is BS.

Have you ever pulled a 6 pack abs out of the air fryer and stuck that on you and called it a day?  JK. We know that’s not literally what that statement means, but are abs really made in the kitchen?  As in, is what you eat really accountable for 80% of your fat loss while exercise only accounts for 20%?

Where did that even come from? The 80/20 principle actually came from an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto.  He observed that only 20% of his pea pods were responsible for 80% of his peas.  What the heck does that have to do with fat loss?

It is true that we will eat more than we exercise.  The average person eats around 3-5x a day while only exercising for an hour or less per day.  When we look at it from this perspective, diet could potentially be responsible for more of our fat loss or weight gain, simply because we do it more often, hence having more opportunity for energy consumption than expenditure.

What is safe to say is that both diet and exercise are important  in your fat loss journey. To say that exercise is less important than diet is simply untrue.  The calories you burn during exercise are your active calories burnt.  The beauty of exercise is that even after you exercise you are still burning calories from the workout your just did.  The principle of EPOC, excess post oxygen consumption is also know as the after burn effect where your body will continue to burn calories while it is cooling down.

You reap the benefits from your workout for long after your workout has ended.  Could you imagine if calories kept adding on after you finished eating like a slot machine that you were waiting to stop?  Eek that would be scary.

Bottom line:  BOTH diet and exercise play a huge part in your body composition.  You can’t out train a bad diet and you can’t diet your way into a ripped body.  You need muscle mass and the right amount of calories.