Should I start doing ab exercises after losing weight?

[jshtick]

I have a 36 inch waist, so i dont have a whole lot of belly but still looks bad on me (I'm 6 feet, 170 lbs). I have never worked my ab muscles. So was thinking of starting with plans/sideplanks and other ab exercises but i keep reading that this would only stick my belly out further. Since the muscles would push the fat out.

So my qs was should I first wait to lose the fat first before going gungho on the abs exercises?

[GeneralSerpant]

I think it's rather negligible that they'll push the fat out, and If I also had to guess, I'd say that people just say that as an excuse to not work abs.

Over the whole body, it's just important to maximize muscle:fat ratio.

[PeterGibbons316]

I'm at about 20% body fat right now and had stopped working abs for a while because I figured "why bother, no one will see them anyway?"

I soon realized that was a mistake. Having a stronger core > appearing to be fatter by whatever negligible amount my larger abs creates.

Now I've been working my abs 3 times a week and having a stronger core is really helping a lot of my other exercises.

[Slackadjuster]

Do your ab work! Don't think too much about this. Unless you are doing a lot of weighted ab work, to failure, Your abs aren't going to grow enough to increase your waist size.