I have been thinking about doing this for awhile. My birthday is July 11th, and this year, in 2009 I will turn 50. My goal is to have six pack abs by then. I am starting the program on Jan. 5th, which gives me 6 months to work on it.
About 2 years ago, I decided to lose a few pounds and went from 150 to 144. I did this by losing some muscle in my legs and working out more and eating less---wow! What a concept!

My Background
I am genetically pretty lean. My bone structure is on the small side, even though I am tall-5’9”. I store body fat unevenly, mostly in my midsection. I have always argued that even though I am lean, the fat in the middle looks out of balance. I have friends who store their body fat in the hips and breasts, giving them a more curvy and balanced look. I always felt those women look better in a two piece bathing suit than I do. My good friend Richard Boyd from ptonthenet.com once told me as we were running in Australia that my arms and legs look like they belong to a triathlete, but my midsection looks like a beer drinker’s---!!! Its harsh, but I agree, and I definitely love to drink beer, wine too-ok I drink. So I have been thinking of doing this for awhile. What would it take for me to be leaner and see my abs? How lean would the rest of my body need to be? I certainly wouldn’t have any breasts, but that’s ok.

I am in good shape. I am a personal trainer, and I teach workshops for personal trainers. So many people say -“oh, that’s why you’re in such great shape” and that is wrong. I love to move, to exercise, and to feel like I am fit. That is why I got into the fitness business, to help others experience the positive effects of being fit, how that permeates into all other aspects of your life. So that helps-that I love to exercise. I ride my bike for transportation except during the winter. When I ride my bike, I average about 75 miles each week just riding roundtrip from Brooklyn into Manhattan to see my private personal training clients. Besides that, I do cardio either in the gym or go jogging. I lift weights about twice a week, but have done less lower body weights in the last 1.5 years, to reduce the muscle mass in my thighs. I have done yoga through the last 3 years, sometimes more regularly than others, but love the classes. I sometimes take other group classes.

My eating habits are pretty good. I don’t eat meat, but eat dairy and seafood. I eat lots of fruits and vegetables, but also love pizza and potato chips. I love french fries, and beer and wine. My heritage is German, and we love to party!

I will write about my workouts and my eating so you can give me feedback and get some insight into how much effort it takes and what I am doing to work on this goal. Please give me your feedback so you can reach your goals too!


What I have to do ---I think
I am good at incorporating exercise and activity into my life. Just to be clear, I consider exercise when you demand some work from your body, with a desired response (like burning more calories per minute than you do by just casually walking; or increasing muscle definition). Activity is the stuff you do like walking, or just moving more in general. Activity for me is riding my bike for transportation, since I ride on the streets and can’t go that fast, and need to stop a lot. Or walking across central park from the west side to the east to see the next client.


I think I need more “core” exercises. That means exercises specifically designed to get your midsection harder, or bigger so you can see the muscles easier. When you bump into me on the subway, my abs have to fire, contract in order for me to avoid falling, to catch my balance, and stabilize my spine. But I think exercisers want more than that. I want more than my abs to function, I want my midsection to look hard! Same with my butt! So, I am thinking about this. I run, and ride my bike, and we all use our lower bodies more than our upper, and our legs look more toned because of it. When I deliberately do upper body exercises, and take more yoga classes, my upper body looks more muscular, more toned. But I don’t do that enough for my midsection. I don’t deliberately target that are of my body. So that is what I need to change.

I think it would be interesting to try eating less food each time I eat, and to spread them out more during the day. I have listened to many nutritionists say that this is really a good idea to increase the efficiency of calorie burning. So that would mean eating half the egg white sandwich, and then the other half later on. Or eating half the cereal/yogurt mixture and then more later.

I also need to drink less. Besides the health of my liver, I need to cut some calories that way.