MORPH INTO A GRID STAR!

FAT-BLASTING STRATEGIES & GUT-BUSTING WORKOUTS

Unless you have an awe-inspiring six-pack of abdominals, you've probably spent countless hours in front of a mirror, looking at that midsection flab and wishing it would go away. Too bad you didn't spend that time exercising. You wouldn't have anything to worry about!

But let's lift that layer of your belly skin and look underneath. Fat tissue is a sickly yellow-white color, and resembles a flow of small bubbles. There might be tissue, blood vessels and even nerves interlaced in the blub. If you think it looks like an inner tube, you're more correct than you think. That ring of gut, love handles and all, can serve as an inner tube to protect your organs.

Deeper analysis reveals the composition of your fat. It's not 'water weight,' or it would be easier to lose. Only about 15 percent of body fat is water. Another 80 percent or so are lipids (let's get real, it's fat) and another five percent or so are proteins.

If you've heard about 'two types of fat' and 'three types of fat' and even more types, the buck (and the doughnut) stops here. Most men need to know about only two types: visceral and subcutaneous.

If your abs feel flabby, that's subcutaneous fat. It lies in layers just under the skin. Those guys with a 'hard beer belly' have visceral fat. This is fat between your organs and muscles. Both can be reduced, but visceral fat is considered by some researchers to be easier to lose. Sorry, beer-guzzlers, there's no excuse The hard fat, or visceral, is more dangerous. It makes you more likely a candidate for heart disease, stroke and intestinal problems. It's "metabolically hyperactive," says Glenn A. Gaesser, Ph.D., author of Big Fat Lies, because it not only stores the fat, but also releases it at "a breakneck pace." And where is it released? In your bloodstream, with the possibility of clogging the arteries. Enough of the soft version of fat can lead you down the same road.

Before you get depressed, tackle your lard container once and for all. Your 'inner tube' doesn't have to stay inflated to protect your organs. And it's not an inevitable sign of aging. Sure, most men store fat around their midsection as they age. But that's no reason to accept it.

You can, once and for all, get that stomach lean. So let's break out the 32-size pants and tight shirts. Here are 20 ways how. Next up are two workouts. The first features standard, time-tested exercises requiring little or no equipment. The second is more challenging, with a Swiss ball, dumbbells, barbell and overhead bar. Get in the habit of performing the first session on a regular basis, augmented perhaps once weekly with the second set. First up are the 20 tips for grid greatness... 1. If you eat numerous fatty foods, such as fried meats, gooey pastries, chocolate and the like, and you've had trouble before getting off the ab-bloating gunk, take it one at a time. One week, cut one food from your diet. Do something good for yourself as a substitute; there are no calories in getting a massage. The next week, cut out the second bad food, and so on.

2. Recognize that if you eat a lot, you have to exercise a lot. Keep track of how you eat. You don't have to count every calorie. At least note "heavy meal" or some description, along with the amount of exercise you do (in minutes) that day. You might believe you "eat a lot but exercise a lot" and find it's not really true.

3. Satisfy your cravings with frequency in-stead of fattening foods. If you haven't already, switch to three smaller meals a day with three snacks in between. "Also, don't go longer than three hours between any of these eating episodes," says Ellington Darden, a developer of Nautilus equipment and author of The Nautilus Diet.

4. Don't gorge. Think big meals are okay, as long as you exercise? Think again. You have flexible muscles in your stomach area, and yes, that inflated feeling finally goes away. But why push out the very area you're trying to reduce? Besides, if you're following the above rule about eating several small meals and snacks, you shouldn't be gorging anyway.

5. "Drink lots and lots of water," adds Darden. While he is a proponent of the water being very cold, it is a fact that water volume will help you feel full.

6. Cut the caffeine down to two or three cups a coffee a day or less. Caffeine is an appetite stimulator.

7. Fit exercise into your regular day. Take the stairs instead of the elevator and walk instead of riding.

8. Suck in your gut more often. It might sound crazy, but that little trick you do to impress women walking by does some slight strengthening of your stomach muscles. This doesn't mean you have to hold them in a hard clench all day (you'd probably get indigestion), but the more you reign it in, the more habit-forming this little trick will become.

9. Begin a regular program of aerobic exercise. Running 30 minutes a day three times a week will do more to reduce your gut than crunches, even if you buy the latest ab-whatever gizmo. There are many forms of aerobic exercises: aerobics classes (and other classes, such as spinning, boxing aerobics, etc.), running, brisk walking, swimming, bicycling, or using equipment like the stationery bicycle, elliptical machine, rowing machine, and stairclimber. If you get bored, vary the types of aerobic exercise. Just keep up the aerobic workouts. It will not only chisel away the fat, it'll strengthen your heart and should you feel emotionally better because of the endorphin release.

10. Hate sit-ups? Good. They're nothing special. Throw out what you learned from your high school coach and do appropriate exercises for your abs. If you like variety, learn different ways to do crunches. If you like one type of crunch to do all the time, do this one: Lie on your back with your feet flat against a wall. Keep your lower legs level with the floor. Loosely hold your hands behind your head and pull forward to do a crunch. Don't pull up your head with your hands. Increase the quantity week to week, bit by bit. You don't have to get up to 500 or some other out-of-orbit number if you eat right and do other exercise.

11. Go ahead--use that contraption. Can't live without your Ab Roller, AbSculptor, Ab Trainer, AbWorks, or other device ordered from an infomercial? No problem, as long as it doesn't provide chronic soreness. Just divide your time between the device and crunches. And don't think that using any product for "only 2-3 minutes a day" will give you hard, flat abs. You still must do aerobic exercise and eat right.

12. Don't forget to stretch your abs. Lie on the floor, before and after your crunches, stretch your toes and your arms above your head. Arch your back slightly if you can't feel the ab muscles when you stretch them.

13. Know that unlike other muscles, the abdominals can be worked every day. They don't need the resting phase that other muscles do. Many personal trainers, however, recommend that you take at least a day off every week or two.

14. Build strength training into your routine, especially chest exercises. Having larger pectorals and arms creates the illusion that your waist is smaller. But there's an even better factor: muscle burns more calories than fat. "Each one pound of muscle added to your body requires approximately 50 extra calories a day to keep it alive and functioning," says Darden. Thus you create a fat-burning furnace that keeps you slimmer even when you're busy 9 to 5, doing some pencil pushing.

15. To juice up your abs and get stronger, do back exercises. That's right. Your lower back muscles help support your abdominal area, and the stronger your back is, the more crunches you can do.

Practice better posture. Pull your shoulders back. You help your stomach look smaller, and it's better for your back.

16. You can help follow the posture rule by keeping your hamstrings pliable. Stretch hamstrings generously to loosen them. Tight hamstrings can be caused by sitting too much, and just about every guy seems to have that problem.

17. To reward yourself for hard work, give yourself a break in some other aspect of your life. Don't take on the new project at work. Buy yourself something glamorous and useless. Do something selfish.

18. Don't get discouraged if not much happens the first week of your new ab-tightening routine. You might lose some water weight, but you probably won't look different. It takes at least three weeks for a pattern to be established, say psychologists, and that doesn't mean it will always be effortless.

19. View your efforts as setting a lifetime routine, rather than just being a short time to get your abs lean. That's the fad-diet mentality. You don't want to start all over in a year, do you?

20. Don't let lapses get to you. Just get back on track. "You're only human," says Darden. "There's no disgrace in backsliding. You must progress forward. Be calm and remain consistent." And throw away all your "fat pants." You'll never need them again once you succeed.