Six Pack Abs Made Easy

I was flying home from a recent business trip and had finished reading my latest edition of Runner's World magazine. Out of reading material and not wanting to strike up a conversation with the cowboy sitting next to me I reached into the seat back pocket to see if I might find someone's leftover magazine from a previous flight. Hoping for Maxim, I pulled out Sky Mall. Ahh Sky Mall, parting suckers from their money at 30,000 feet.

As I flipped through the Sky Mall magazine, two items caught my attention. The Cookie Diet and the Giddyup! Core Exerciser (pictured on right). From what I can tell, you sit on this $520 contraption and it gyrates back and forth and up and down and that's supposed to strengthen your core muscles... while you just sit there... doing nothing. According to the website "Exercising has never been this easy!" Newsflash folks: Exercising is not supposed to be easy.

I'll tell you what. If you're going to drop $520 on that ridiculous piece of equipment then I might have a better solution for you. For a mere $300 dollars you can call me daily and I will berate and yell at you until you drop down and do some sit-ups. Unless, of course you're paying all that money because you're into the gyrating up and down thing. In which case do not call me, call a 900 number, it will still be cheaper.

I can totally picture someone buying the Giddyup and sitting on it in front of the TV, eating a Baconator, all the while imagining that they are "exercising". Shortly thereafter they will relegate the Giddyup to an unused room because it's freakin' huge for a piece of exercise equipment that only works one muscle group (allegedly). Before you know it the Giddyup will either be completely forgotten or nothing more than a prop when your kids play Cowboys and Indians.

Chances are pretty good that if you're not happy with the way your abs look it's because they're hidden behind a layer of fat and not because the actual abdominal muscles are not large enough. The first step to great looking abs is a healthy diet and running. The second step is more running and after that, even more running. Once you get down to less than 15% body fat you can start worrying about the sit ups and crunches to help tone the muscle group. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that great looking abs will take a lot of work. Riding a mechanical bull and eating Diet Cookies is just not going to get it done.

Alright my dearly beloved readers, I want confessions in the comments section. Who just ordered the cookie diet?