Brutally Honest Timeline To See Your Abs (Realistic)

Most fitness influencers are lying to you about how long it will take to see your abs. I've coached over 25,000 people through this process and done it myself, and there are 4 stages you have to go through before your abs actually show. And most people quit at stage 1. So here's what each stage looks like so you know exactly where you are And what's coming next? Stage one, the outline. Here's what happens: You start a calorie deficit. You're eating right. You're going and working out. In the first week or two, you might see the scale drop a few pounds, but you look in the mirror and nothing has changed. In the second week, the scale might continue to drop, but you look in the mirror and nothing still changes. Third week, fourth week, you keep losing weight, but your stomach looks exactly the same from when you first started. So you think it's not working. You think. There's something wrong with your body. You think your genetics are broken. You start to get discouraged, and then you change the plan or try something new, or worse, you end up quitting because you're like, why am I putting in all this effort but not seeing my stomach change? And this is the mistake. You stopped at stage 1. The plan was actually working the whole time. You just couldn't see it yet. Think of your abs like a sculpture underneath a bedsheet. The sculpture is there right now. You watching this You already have abs. Everyone does. But there's a sheet over them. That's your body fat. And for some of you, that bedsheet is thick. Take one of my clients, Victor, as an example. You can see he's made a pretty impressive transformation. But in the first few weeks of us coaching together, he didn't really see a difference in his stomach despite the scale going down. And he was questioning, is this even working? Am I ever gonna be able to see my abs? Maybe I just don't have the best ab genetics. But I told him, just keep going, keep pulling the bedsheet off of the sculpture. And that's exactly what he did to make his transformation. But if he quit 3 weeks in when he wasn't seeing a difference, he would have never lost over 70 pounds and been in the best shape of his life. And by the way, if you're interested in learning more about my online coaching program, You can click the link in the description below of this video. So here's the truth about stage one: it's the longest stage, and it's the most frustrating because you're doing all the work, but you're not getting the visual reward yet. But the work is happening; progress is being made. The bed sheet is moving. You just need to stick with it long enough to fully pull it off. So stage one, you can't see anything yet. But stage two, this is where one morning you'll look in the mirror and something will look different. You won't. You won't see abs yet, but it will look different. And this is where it gets pretty annoying. Stage 2, the top 2. Here's what happens. You wake up one morning, you have some good lighting, you flex in the mirror, and you see them. Your top 2 abs. Just barely, but they're there. You get excited. It's working. Finally. And then you look down at your lower stomach. Still soft, still round, still looks exactly the same as it did a month ago. So now you have this weird split. The top half of your stomach is starting to look like someone who works out, and the bottom half looks like someone who's never worked out in their life. So now you have this weird split, and it's messing with your head. And this is where people start to panic. They think something that they're doing is wrong, so they got to change their workouts or do more ab exercises or do more cardio. But the truth is, you can't spot reduce fat on your body, meaning you don't just do a lower ab exercise circuit or do a special kind of cardio to lose belly fat because your body doesn't lose fat evenly, and usually your lower belly fat is last in line. Think of it like a beach at low tide. When the tide goes out, it doesn't drain the whole beach at once. The highest part of the sand dries first. The top of the beach, that's your upper abs. Those are the first to show. But the lowest part of the beach, down near the water, stays wet the longest. Even when the top is completely dry, the bottom is still underwater. That's your lower belly fat. It's the lowest point of the beach. The tide is going out, the water is leaving, but it leaves from the top down. And you can't make the bottom dry faster by staring at it or doing anything special. You just have to let the time pass. It just takes longer because that's the last place the water leaves from. I see this a lot with clients around month 2 or 3. We look at their progress photos and we see their upper abs are showing, but their lower stomach is still there, and they start to ask me what we should change. And my answer? Don't change anything. The plan is working. The worst thing you can do right now is panic and change the plan. So here's the truth about stage 2. It looks uneven. It feels frustrating. But that's normal. That's biology. Every single person who's ever had a six-pack has went through this stage. You are not going to be any different. So if you're in stage 2 right now, you're closer than you think. You've almost pulled the bed sheet off. Don't add more cardio. Don't change the plan. Don't do more ab exercises. Just stick with what you've been doing. The lower abs are coming. They're just next in line. Except that's what makes stage 3 so difficult, because this is where your body starts to fight back. Stage 3, the lower shelf. This is the stage that breaks people. Not because they're not disciplined, but because the rules change and nobody tells them. Here's what happens. You've been in a deficit for a while now, probably months. It's been working. The scale has been dropping. And as you start to see those upper abs, everything almost seems to slow down. The scale barely moves anymore, maybe 1 pound in 2 to 3 weeks. You're doing the same things that you were doing— same calories, same training, same effort— but the results really start to slow down. And this is where people think they've plateaued, so they increase cardio, decrease calories, and it backfires. Because now you're exhausted, you're starving, you're irritable, your workouts feel terrible, and you think you just need to work harder. But this creates the vicious cycle of doing more, not seeing more results, and driving yourself insane. Think of it like a last ice cube in a glass of water. You pour a glass of water, set it on the counter, and walk away. Come back in 10 minutes, most of the ice will be gone. It melted They melted pretty fast, pretty easy. But there's one ice cube left, still sitting at the bottom. Smaller than it was before, but it's still there. You check again in 5 minutes. It's still there. Smaller again, but still there. The last ice cube takes longer to melt than the previous 5 ice cubes combined. You can't microwave the glass, and you can't just smash the ice cube. You just have to let it sit there and melt at its own pace. And if you get impatient and dump the whole glass out, you lose everything. All of the progress gone because you couldn't just wait for one last ice cube to melt. So am I telling you to sit there, do nothing, and just continue to wait just like phase 2? No, you should be making adjustments around phase 3 when that last lower belly fat is still hanging on. But what most people do is incorrect because they slash their calories By 500 per day, or they start adding in 1, 2, 3 extra hours of cardio throughout the week. And that backfires because when you get more hungry, irritable, you end up overeating, gaining back 3, 4, 5 pounds. And it's not that you ruined your progress, but you're setting yourself back. So instead, you're going to make one of two changes. Number one, decrease your daily calories by 100 to 200 per day, or you're going to add in 2 to 3 days a week of 15 to 30 minutes of low-intensity steady-state cardio. This can be the treadmill, stair stepper, incline walk, whatever you want. And this will be after a workout or on rest days. Pick one of those 2 things, not both at the same time, because you just need small adjustments. You just need to turn the heat up in the house by one extra degree to get that last ice cube to fully melt. And once And once you do that, you'll be there. You'll have the abs that you've always wanted. But here's what nobody tells you and what most people lie to you about. Now it's time to make a choice. Stage 4, the decision. Stage 4 is not a fat loss stage. It's a decision stage. Because getting here is one thing. Living here is a completely different thing. And most people can't do both. Because here's what nobody on social media is telling you. Being this lean doesn't feel as great as it looks. You'd thought you'd feel amazing. You thought you'd have more energy, more confidence, and some of that may be true, but let me tell you the dark side of what actually happened. You're hungry all the time. You're thinking about food and your next meal all the time. Your workouts suffer. You're not able to lift heavier, progress in the gym, push yourself on those last couple of reps. Your sleep suffers. Your libido suffers. Your social life starts to get a little bit weird. Everybody's going out to eat and perfectly fine, with it, and then you're over here freaking out because you're not sure if you're going to be able to fit it in your calories, and you start to bring Tupperware to a restaurant. Please don't do that. You look incredible and you feel terrible. And that's the truth about being 8% body fat, shredded. It looks like the finish line, but it's really a fork in the road. Think of it like renting a penthouse suite. The view is unbelievable. Top floor, you can see everything. You look out the window and you think, man, this is it, I've made it. But the rent each month is insane. Every single month it costs you everything. Your food is restricted, your energy is drained, your social life is gone, your workouts are flat. That's the rent. And every month you have to decide, is the view worth the rent? Some people say yes, for a photo shoot, for a vacation, for summer, for a few weeks. The view might be worth it, but most people, myself included, don't want to pay that rent for more than a couple of months at a time before they're broke, they're burnt out, they're miserable. And when this happens, they don't just move out of the penthouse, they completely crash and go back to a trailer park. They binge, they overeat, they end up gaining all of the weight back because they were restricted for so long and tried to live there. And now there's a unit that's 2 floors down from the penthouse. Still a great view. You can still see your abs. You still look lean. People still ask you, wow, what do you do for your workouts? You're in great shape. And the rent is half the price. You can eat more food. You can go out with your friends. Your workouts feel incredible again. You sleep better. You have more energy. And that's the decision. Do you want to stay in the penthouse that you can barely afford rent, or do you want to go 2 floors down with a 90% just as good view and actually enjoy life again? And I've been the penthouse guy, but for me, I decided it wasn't worth it for longer than a couple of weeks. So I made the decision to move 2 floors down because I'd rather be a little bit higher body fat percentage but enjoy all of the things we just talked about. And we've coached hundreds of clients who have made that same decision, that a quality of life is better than just taking a picture for social media. I'm not saying don't get to the penthouse, you should, but what I'm saying is it might not be worth living there because it might not be as cool as you think. Now that you know the stages, knowing them and actually getting through them are 2 different things. Stage 1 is where most people quit, and stage 3 is where most people crash. Having someone in your corner who has walked thousands of clients through these exact stages might make the difference for you in achieving your goals. And that's exactly what we do in our online coaching program. We not only build you a personalized workout and nutrition plan, But you'll get paired up with a coach who walks you through every step of this, holding you accountable and ensuring you see progress. If you want to learn more about my online coaching program, you can click the link in the description of the video below. And after you do that, if you're in stage 1 or 2 thinking, what do I actually need to do to get this thing moving? I made a video on 7 habits that are keeping your belly fat stuck. You can click right here to watch that video next, and I'll see you over there.