It’s been said more times than it needs to: Abs are made in the kitchen, not at the gym. This is true in a sense.
Abs are primarily made during embryonic development in your mother’s uterus.
Well defined abs are made much later in life through some combination of exercise, eating not-terribly, drinking protein shakes, shaming yourself with instagram scrolling, and intermediate photoshop skills.
Ten years may seem like a long time, but if you’re 14-years-old and reading this, you’ll be 24 by the time you’re posting shirtless selfies on Tinder looking like buff Jesus.
If you’re 34-years-old, you’ll be shredded just in time to be considered a “hot dad” a la the movie American Beauty, which had zero sinister or unwholesome plot points.
If you’re 74, good on you for setting goals during your senior-years. You may never achieve the results you’re looking for (without some hefty chemical supplementation), but by remaining active, you’ll keep your mind sharp, which will most definitely make you a more desirable sexual partner in your assisted living community.
“So what?” you may ask. Well, the stakes are higher than ever before: 17/20 women surveyed said they would’ve looked past glaring flaws in their most recent failed relationship if he looked more like this guy.

Here’s how to get 8-pack abs in a relatively short amount of time, in relation to the arc of history.
Starting out: How to get defined abs
If you currently cannot see your abs when standing upright, the first step is to prove to yourself they’re actually there at all.
- Lie on your back and hold your head upright in the “crunch” position
- Using your fingers, dig into your lumpy flesh until you can feel your ab muscles
- You may have to dig deep
Once you realize there are muscles there, the next step is to repeat this crunching motion many, many more times. Don’t even count. Set a timer for five minutes. Go until you’re exhausted, breathe for 10-seconds, then keep going.
You’re just starting out, but this is basically the process. Do this for another decade.
What you should eat
Don’t restrict your calories to 1,300 per day. I mean, if you do, you’ll see results way faster. Probably in fewer than 10-years.
But you’ll be exhausted and largely non-functional in most other areas of life.
Also, calorie restriction will make you hate exercising, which you’ll need to do regularly whether you feel like it or not.
This isn’t to say you can eat anything whenever you want. For instance, a lot of people eat mindlessly when they’re stressed out. Cutting out these excess calories will supercharge your march towards sex symbolism.
How to do this?
If it were 1940, I’d tell you to smoke more cigarettes. Now that we’re a fifth of the way through the 21st century, I’ll tell you to chew some gum or take a walk. Admittedly, it’s not nearly as powerful as the ol’ cancer stick, but terminal illness negates most of what you’d gain in terms of aesthetic beauty.
An easy place to start: Don’t overeat before bed. You’ll feel better and maybe have more sex.
Cardio is key, unfortunately
In addition to doing 5 minutes of crunches basically every day for the rest of your life, you won’t get visible abs until you lose some gut.
Vigorous aerobic exercise has helped many living creatures achieve that skinny fit look that’s hot right now.
Horses = ripped
Bears = not ripped
Ants take somewhere around 14 billion steps a day, and they’re so ripped, their skeletons are on the outside of their bodies.
Sea lions have dumb flipper feet — thus take zero steps per day — and they’re the russet potato of the animal kingdom.

There are plenty of books out there that’ll inspire you to do cardio, but here’s a novel approach:
Find someone you hate that’s into running. Train to beat them. Once you beat them, train to demoralize them. When you’ve successfully shamed them out of the sport, buy an expensive bike, participate in triathlons, and put the bumper stickers all over your car.
Don’t even think about quitting
The recipe is straightforward. All you have to do is preheat the oven and hope you don’t take the cake out while it’s still doughy or charred to a hideous crisp. If you do:
- An hour of cardio, four-times per week
- Five-minutes of crunches pretty much every day
- Don’t eat too much of anything that’s obviously unhealthy
You will have well-defined abs in 10-years, guaranteed.
Chances are, you may have very defined abs in as few as two-years, if you stick to the plan.
But 10-years is a long time. It only takes a month of sadness-eating or a spell of demotivation to put you back at square one.
Abs are a lifestyle, not a result.
So if you ever feel like quitting, just remember: Somewhere, there is a man out there with ab definition, and he wants to sleep with your wife/girlfriend/exclusive-sex-partner. If you don’t look like a marble statue, she will cheat on you.
Now go get that 8-pack!