Abs are made in the Kitchen, not the Gym.

If you want a six pack, its primarily about diet. Granted you have to do ab exercises and sprint cardio work, but its mostly about your eating habits. When I arrived here at Phromthep in October, I had a six pack, but I was much stricter with my diet and less concerned with my overall fitness. I ate three small meals a day: rice, veggies and chicken. And by 6:30 at night I was dead tired, often putting my head down while waiting for others to finish their meals.

My I've lost the six pack---well, its still there just hidden a little-and I've lost the desire to maintain it because I have other fitness goals now. But here is the catch: I'm in much better shape now, exponentially better shape.

When I was at my previous gym, I didn't eat enough; just trained Muay Thai twice a day, and rarely ever ran. I didn't think running was important. I did upper body weight lifting three times a week as well so my arms were much larger and stronger, and I looked fit.

Now, I've reversed my figure and my fitness plan. Instead of focusing on upper body weightlifting--which I can do back home in a gym--I can easily run 20K a day through the steep hills here; my legs are massive and my kicks are much more powerful. I have much much better balance in the clinch and it has positively affected my punching and blocking.

But in order to sustain myself during the long runs, I eat a lot. And I eat a lot of rice at night and I get midnight cravings for yogurt, which is a NO NO if you are looking for the Calvin Kline physique. Back home, I could easily get back the six pack in a month's time by monitoring my diet and exercising for an 1 and 1/2 six days a week because my fitness level is so high now from my current training.

Meanwhile, my goals have changed. I would rather be running, training and enjoying my diet--not abusing it---and be able to rupture the spleen behind the superficial six pack with a powerful front kick, than to be focusing on superficial appearances.