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1. Losing your gut. OK, the first thing you need to know is, there is no such thing as "spot training." This means, you lose fat from all over your body at once; if you exercise your abs, you're not "focussing" fat loss on your midsection. You'll need to do abdominal exercises to get that sixpack you're looking for, but spending your whole day doing crunches isn't going to do much for your body fat levels.
You'll probably want a three-tiered approach: cardio, weight-lifting, and nourishment. For cardio, I recommend twenty minutes or more in the morning, before breakfast; this way, your system will be burning more fat for the energy you need. If fat loss is your goal, it's probably wiser to use a stationary bike than to go cycling outdoors, because outdoors you'll have to be watching out for cars, stopping at stop signs and traffic lights, etc. Running can be done outdoors or on a treadmill.
Weight-lifting... Nobody wants to look like the Flex models, but, surprisingly, their kind of training will help you achieve your goals better than any Pilates or aerobics classes. If you put on an ounce of muscle, that ounce will be burning calories 24 hours a day; and fat loss takes place when you burn more calories than you consume. So what you want to do is pretty much the same moves as the musclebound.
You'll want to do large movements, that incorporate two or more joints moving, at a weight that is challengingly heavy. Things like squats and bench-presses, big macho things; the "two joints" rule is a good guideline, for a bench press you'll be moving your elbows and your shoulders, for something less helpful, like a curl, you'd only be moving your elbow.
In a few weeks' time, you'll probably want to start doing a "body-part split," where you work out certain body parts on certain days; but I wouldn't worry about that yet. For now, give yourself a routine that starts with large muscle groups and moves down to smaller ones -- start with your thighs and end with your abs, in other words. You want to start with the things that take the most energy and end with the things that take the least.
For the actual six-pack, the conventional wisdom is to ignore sit-ups and focus on crunches, being sure to move slowly and without momentum, so it's your risus abdominus that's doing all the work. I'm embarrassed to say this, but I'm actually a big fan of those wheelie things; don't bother to order one or buy it from a store, just get yourself a rubber wheel and a rod and a pair of bicycle handlebar grips, altogether it's under five dollars.
As for nutrition: eat well, cut down on fats, add some high-quality protein. There are just a lot of tips that you can use, a lot of tricks to learn; instead of making yourself a five-egg omelette, use 4 eggs' worth of egg whites (available cheap in a carton at your grocery store) and one fresh egg, with yolk. That kind of thing.
2. The supplement industry is rather insane, isn't it?
The answer is probably that you shouldn't worry too much about it. You will want a little bit of extra protein, since your body is now trying to build new muscle cells. Don't overdo it. Buy yourself some whey protein isolate powder (I recommend vanilla or unflavored ONLY, the chocolate/strawberry/pineapple flavors are gagworthy), mix a scoop in with some orange juice once a day, possibly twice, between meals.
If you have specific health needs, or if you're past a certain age, then there are certain supplements that it would make a lot of sense to take.
Later, if you get more intensely involved in the lifting, I'd recommend you start taking some creatine; and if you get more intensely involved with the cardio, you'll probably want some kind of recovery drink, like a high-quality form of gatorade.
Also, the most important supplement you can take, is water. Every cell in your body, every electrical impulse inside you, relies on water. You're going to need a LOT more water when you begin to exercise more.
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