There is a real good reason why commercials for weight loss supplements and exercise equipment always show rock-hard bellies with sharply defined abdominal muscles. Everybody wants to have them and the opposite sex is attracted to them.The stomach is the number one area that most people would like to improve.

The majority of those people will do close to anything to get those abs except for the one and only thing it requires to get them. That is plain and simply hard work. That’s why using supplements are so popular. They make promises of the results people truly desire without physical exertion or sweating. Whether or not these supplements actually do any good is the point of many peoples debate.

The majority of the supplements that are available on the market today have active ingredients that are not approved by the appropriate government agencies as being safe for human use. Many of these special elements have no scientific evidence to back up their wild claims of how great they are. Ingredients such as ma huang, ephedra, and aristolochia have been shown to produce adverse effects like heart palpitations, kidney failure, and, in the most extreme cases, even death.

Herbal supplements are under no regulatory agency in the United States and thus a manufacturer could put almost anything in a pill, call it herbal, and then sell it on the market without ever presenting any proof of safety or efficacy. Ingredients are only banned once enough people become ill to raise an alarm. Do you really want to be one of those people just to get the six-pack of your dreams?

The good news is that you can still get a killer six pack without using these drugs or so-called herbal supplements. By simply using a carefully planned program of exercise, diet and hard work, you to can change your belly and get those six pack abs of your dreams. It may not be as easy as popping a couple of pills everyday but the results are by far worth it and you will enjoy the reward even more since you earned every bit of your rock hard abs all by yourself.

The first thing you need do is find something to use to keep records in and as plan book for your program. Exercise journals are great for this purpose because as you enter daily information into it, you are putting together complete records that can be referred back to in the future. It can also be some great encouragement for you to look at how far you have come in terms of weight loss and muscle gain.

If you have a personal digital assistant (P.D.A.), you can simply find an application that allows you to track your workouts and personal statistics. There are dozens of companies out there that make programs for the P.D.A. So you can be sure to find one that makes an application suitable for your handheld. If you prefer to be non technical, go out and buy a basic school notebook and use one page daily to record the information about your exercise program. The important information you should be writing down is as follows.

Date (include the time of day)

Your Weight

Exercise done for the Day

Daily Meals

Measurements (once weekly)

Tracking this information will help assist you in figuring out what is working for you and what does not work for you. Writing down your daily meals is a real important step. Research shows that the most successful dieters are the ones who keep up an honest food journal every single day. When you have kept an accurate count of your daily intake of calories, it is really hard to deny the truth and eat that one extra chocolate chip cookie. Be aware of your calories and you will not overeat.

Another trick from successful dieters is to weigh yourself daily. While some people may disagree, by keeping a daily record of your weight this will act as a check on overeating and skipping workouts. The desire to see the number on the scale drop can help prevent any diet misbehavior. The best time to weigh yourself is in the morning as soon as you wake up and have emptied your bladder.

Try to weigh yourself at the same time every day to get the most accurate assessment of your weight. As far as measurements go, taking them weekly is appropriate. This allows enough time to see a real change so you will not become discouraged. You may want to consider measuring biweekly if the weekly change is not enough and you prefer to see more dramatic changes.

Once you have gotten your exercise log prepared it's time to think about making yourself an exercise schedule. For the best results you should incorporate cardiovascular exercise with weight training as well as some abdominal work. Exercising aerobically burns fat and calories as well as decreases the amount of fat that lies over the abdominal muscles. Many times people do hundreds of sit-ups and crunches and never see a change in their bellies. That’s because unless you reduce the overall fat that covers your muscles, you can not see the definition underneath. You simply need to reduce your body fat index versus build more stomach muscle.

Some excellent choices for aerobic workouts would be swimming, interval training, and speed walking. You should ideally work out four to five times through out the week. Strength training is also very important because you need strong muscles in order to power your aerobic training. Additionally muscle burns more calories than fat and takes up less space, too. The final part of your rock hard ab building program is the abdominal work itself. Traditional sit-ups will work out just fine but try moves with a twist for an extra boost in metabolism. Pilate’s moves are a great way tighten abdominal muscles as well as belly dancing. There are a wide variety of moves and routines you can work into your schedule to get you closer to your ultimate goal of rock hard six pack abs.

You should expect to spend at least three months working towards your goal. Change does not happen overnight, especially if you have more than five pounds to lose. Stick with it and keep your training log current. Before you know it, you will be sporting rock hard killer abs. The work involved may seem hard at first but after the first few days it will get allot easier. As long as you keep a positive attitude towards reaching your goal it will go by in no time.