Building muscle is cool, but if you can't see them, then maybe they're not really there! Sure, your strength is a sure sign of muscle growth, but still, don't we all want that six-pack? In order to get a six-pack, you need to lean down enough so that the muscles in your abdomen show through.

For that, you need to lose body fat. But how? Here are my Top Ten tips for losing body fat. Note that I didn't say, "for losing weight." Anybody can lose weight. Die, for example. Hang out in the sauna. Fast. Practice binging and purging. All these things will help you lose weight. But they're not necessarily good for losing fat.

Here goes:

1. Don't go on a drastic diet. Doing so will only cause you to abandon the fat-loss ship and binge on crap that shouldn't be in your house.
2. Don't buy junk food. Anything that you shouldn't eat should not be in your house. Not even for "desperate times." You have to have to work for your guilty pleasures – if it's only a 10 foot walk away, it's too easy. But if it's across town, then you have to think about it. And that's good.
3. Vary your diet – don't eat the same thing every day. This serves two purposes – first, when food bores you, you eat more of it, and two, varying the things you eat every day will help you to vary your caloric intake each day. Your body acclimates to a given caloric intake and if you drop your intake by 500 calories each day, you should lose a pound of body fat per week (if you did no exercise at all). However, interestingly, your body will soon adjust to that drop and you'll stop losing weight!
4. Exercise. Incorporate both aerobic and anaerobic activities. Aerobic means "with oxygen" which indicates that you should be doing exercise that uses a lot of oxygen, like running, cycling, and intense hiking. Anaerobic means "without oxygen" (which is not technically correct, since we have to breathe when we work out with weights – weight training is the best form of anaerobic activity. Do both.
5. Cut out the crap first. Doing so, you could easily drop 500 calories from your daily diet. Cut out the Starbucks, the doughnuts, the candy. Empty calories make you fat and will kill you.
6. Jump rope. Ever see a fat boxer who jumped rope? Nope. You haven't. Fat boxers don't jump rope. They eat small puppies.
7. Never sit when you can stand or walk when you can run. The idea is to ramp up your metabolism and one very good way is to keep moving.
8. Ironically, you need to eat fat to lose fat. Otherwise, your body begins to hoard fat and use protein and carbs for fuel rather than body fat. Not what you want. Salmon, beef, and eggs are good sources of fat. And don't separate the egg white from the yolk. Nature knows that protein and fat go together. One without the other is pointless.
9. Diet pills can help in the short-run, but they become less effective over time. I'd suggest that you refrain from using them. Remember that it took you months if not years to gain that unwanted body fat. It won't vanish in a few weeks.
10. Weigh yourself once a week. Don't bother doing it every day. Your weight will fluctuate day-by-day, even if you're on a downward trend; it is this downward trend that we want to follow, not the daily ups and downs. 2 pounds a week is still a great goal.

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I know we're all in a hurry to get big, lose body fat, and otherwise enhance our athletic performance. In that light, I'm starting a series, a Top Ten if you will, on getting things done better and faster.

The first part of this Top Ten is all about building muscle: What are the tricks, tips, and techniques for building muscles that are bigger, faster, and stronger?

Without further ado, here they are:

1. Do compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, rows, pull-ups, and overhead presses. In that order of preference. These exercises stimulate more muscle growth because they employ more muscle fibers at once, cause increased growth hormone production, and also facilitate the mind-muscle connection.
2. Do 2-4 sets of each exercise.
3. Do sets of 6-10 reps.
4. Train to concentric failure on the last "heavy" set of at least one exercise per workout. This means that if you work chest, back, and shoulders, do at least one set of Bench Presses, for example, until you cannot do another rep without help.
5. Throw in a forced rep or two every few weeks.
6. Cycle your training. Don't go stale. I suggest using mini-cycles of 3-6 weeks on, one week off. The harder you train, the fewer weeks of hard training you do before a rest.
7. Cycle your supplementation. I suggest 3 days on, 1 day off. Repeat. Make your diet coincide with your training. This means that every 3 to 6 weeks, you take some time off.
8. Work toward progress. A little progress is better than none at all. Tweak here and there to keep progress moving. There's no sense in trying to build Rome in a day. It won't work and you'll get hurt and/or disappointed.
9. Get plenty of rest and drink a ton of water. Reduce inflammation by cutting out junk food including sugar, high fructose corn syrup, caffeine, and other crap. It does you no good. Even if it tastes really yummy and gives you a killer buzz. Nothing in life comes easy.
10. Everything is subject to change. Nothing is written in stone. Including these "rules."

That's it for now. Next up: Fat-loss Top Ten.