The Women's Health Big Book of Abs: Sculpt a Lean, Sexy Stomach and Your Hottest Body Ever--in Four Weeks

by Adam Bornstein, Editors of Women's Health Maga

The essential diet and workout guide for any woman looking for a sexy, sculpted stomach

The key to a flatter belly—and a hotter body—starts with your core. Designed for beginners and fitness buffs alike, this makeover manual is jam-packed with hundreds of useful tips, the latest findings in exercise and nutrition science, and cutting-edge workouts from the world's top trainers. All designed to fight flab and whittle your waist the right way—for good!

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: The World’s Greatest 4-Week Diet and Exercise Plan: Lose 10 pounds or more in 4 weeks! The No-Gym, No-Crunch Workout The Look-Hot-on-Top Workout: Blast fat in just 10 minutes! Last-Minute Beach Vacation Workout The Pre-Baby and Post-Baby Workouts: Special exercises for new moms Mouth-watering recipes that take fewer than 15 minutes to prepare! (Gluten-free? Lactose intolerant? No problem!) Including a step-by-step, 4-week eating and exercise plan, easy-to-prepare recipes, and hundreds of exercises, The Women's Health Big Book of Abs is the ultimate guide to a leaner, fitter, sexier body—starting with your core.

Genres: Fitness, Nonfiction, Sports

857 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had more exercise tutorials than anything else. They could've gone into more detail about processed foods instead of having a small section that was just like, "avoid them". They could have told you to read ingredient labels to really determine if you should or shouldn't eat something. The soda thing was also giving people an unclear idea. They said, "drink water, coffee, and tea and treat sodas and juices like desserts". This is false. Soda consumption should not be treated like a dessert, it should be cut out completely or it will sabotage any attempt to lose weight.
It was good how they cleared up that you DO NOT have to give up bread or cheese to be healthy, it depends on what kind of it you eat, and you shouldn't cut out sweets completely, because that will just make you crave them until you give up.

[Kate M. Colby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive overview of the science, nutrition, and exercise behind getting flat abs. Despite the superficial and sometimes kind of silly language and categorization, the book does have good techniques and actually focuses on full body strength training. Probably the best thing I learned was that stabilization exercises are better for your abs than crunches and that you don’t really need to do specific core exercises. Your abs will get stronger and thinner from your regular fully body strength training if you’re doing proper workouts.

[Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

No stunning revelations from reading this book but it did have a very large exercise section breaking down 197 different exercises to help a reader get flat abs. Not all exercises were ab exercies though since the key to being healthy incorporates cardio and full body ST. I liked that the exercises utilized a variety of training methods such as bands, dumbells, body weight, bars, and steps/benches. Exercises were also paired in groups such as "the skinny jeans workout" or the "travelers workout." I guess it's good to superficially dumb it down for newbies. I was not overly impressed with the menu included in this book simply because I think it would be expensive to follow. I can't afford to have fancy salmon and mahihi mahihi in dishes several times a week, it's more reasonable and cheaper to eat plain old grilled chicken so they didn't need to try and be too fancy.

Overall a good resource to thumb through but I would personally prefer to just follow a ST DVD than to flip through the pages of this books workouts.

[The Geeky Bibliophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of great information in this book about the most efficient ways to get a good ab workout. Some of the exercises look pretty tough, including some that are marked as 'easy' exercises. I'm not certain all of them would be do-able in the beginning, but it's a goal to work towards, I suppose.

It also contains information about food, giving tips on what you should and shouldn't eat, and provides several meal suggestions and recipes for healthy, nutritious meals.

Definitely worth a read if you are looking to lose weight and improve your fitness level.

[ladywallingford · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book helped motivate me to get back on the healthy wagon after the holiday season. Plus, I feel like it's actually possible to lose the ab weight. I just worry that the workouts featured may be too much for the beginner.

[Janis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has a ton of workouts to choose from. If you like new things and hates boredom this is great for you. Food section is good but there are better books out there.