Adding muscle, but loosing the six pack? What am I doing wrong?

[Anonymous]

I still am a bit underweight for my height.
So I started to try and eat a bit more and do some workouts. I have dumbells, a pull up bar, elastic bands or whatever they are called.
My shoulders got broader and now are more muscly, but seems that the six pack started to fade away.
So I searched for a routine for abs on internet. It consists of sit ups, crunches, leg raises, planks. And I can really feel the burn and the exercises get tougher by day, but the six pack is not coming back for the moment :)
What the hell happened and what to do toget it back?

[OpenClose]

Where your fat is stored depends mostly on how you are gaining that fat. I know because I did the exact same thing, but I have Oral Allergy Syndrome where I have to eat mostly processed foods.

I started off gaining weight where I wanted to, adding figure to my arms and giving me better proportions. Then it started going to my gut.

Turns out, a surprising amount of foods have added sugars in them. Glucose is fairly fine in normal amounts. The body can do all sorts of things with glucose. Fructose is a problem, however, because only the liver really seems to know what to do with it. It turns it into liver fat, which is stored around the gut.

Also, keep in mind that muscle does not absorb fat. Instead, muscles demand energy, causing your blood sugar to drop. When sugars stored within the blood and liver start to get low, the body switches to breaking down fat from every part of the body, regardless of where the energy is actually being used.

So crunches and situps won't help immediately or directly. What is going on is that there is fat stored in the gut which fills in the spaces between the muscles, smoothing out the six-pack. You need a really low body fat percentage for them to really show up. By doing situps, you can make the muscles larger, but it won't target fat specifically in that area.

I would advise you continue to work out and bulk up, taking fat with you as well. Having the fat helps you bulk up because of the extra energy and nutrients you need. At a certain point, you tone down your workout and reduce your calorie intake to reduce the fat around the muscles, exposing the muscles themselves more.

Most weight trainers I know are also somewhat hefty, and if you look at strong-man competitions, they have plenty of fat as well. They are usually stronger than men in the "Mr. Universe" competitions with chiseled bodies. I would imagine Arnold Schwarzeneggar's muscles atrophied faster in his prime compared to men like Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (The Mountain).

I think this is also why women aren't as bothered by weight as men are.

[WeaponZero]

You can't add muscle while maintaining the kind of calorie deficit needed to keep your six pack. That's why bodybuilders go through cycles of bulking and cutting. You're either working on your six pack, which means deficit, or building muscle, which means surplus.

[aoifeislovable]

I suggest more protein in your diet, eggs are great but are high in cholesterol, so try either more meat or protein shakes:)

[Mistnigqa808]

" still am a bit #underweight for my height." That is your problem right there I take it. Since you seem to have what I like to call those "for girls only abs" where yeah they're VISIBLE (well were) but were not actually there and or thick if that makes sense. Because you never probably worked them hard enough and now it's showing due to their lack of size LOL.

You betta start eating and working out whenever you aren't sore to even that crap out man ^_^

[Mistnigqa808]

"for girls only abs" you usually get those via being skinny as hell HAHA. They look good, but they're also useless for anything else besides impressing girls (not fighting nor weight lifting though)

[Stefan1738]

Abs are made in the kitchen not the gym. You likely gained some fat, reason why your abs are no longer visible. Clean up your diet.

[RasAlGhul]

u never had a real six pack xD being skinny doesn't mean u are fit... its normal get fat too get some gains... build up the muscle and after u are happy start lean up