You’ve probably heard a fitness guru declare, with biblical certainty, that “abs are made in the kitchen.”

It’s one of the more absurd clichés. The guys you see in Men’s Health, or in supplement ads, or posing down in a bodybuilding contest, built those bodies in the weight room, and then employed superhuman discipline tostay out of the kitchen while dieting down to photo-ready shape. But there’s one more part of their program, and it involves something the average meathead doesn’t like to think about: cardio. We know anecdotally that bodybuilders do a lot of it. But is it absolutely necessary?

“I think it is,” says Christian Finn of muscleevo.net, a veteran fitness expert who’s trained himself and others to get ultra lean. But it also depends on how low you need to go. “You can get ‘looking good on the beach’ lean without any cardio,” he says. “And there are folks with fast metabolisms who can get ‘abs visible from across the room’ lean without cardio. But for most people most of the time, some form is going to be necessary.”

(Related: How much fat is covering your abs - and how to get rid of it)

That brings us to the more pressing questions: how much cardio, and what kinds?

Cardio and Low Body Fat

In a recently published case study of a natural bodybuilder, the authors reported that he did five 40-minute cardio sessions a week in the final month of his contest prep. He did well: In 14 weeks, he cut his body fat in half (from 14 to 7.2 per cent) and finished seventh out of 19 entrants. But he also lost 11 pounds of muscle, which was 43 percent of his total weight loss, and higher than expected. The researchers wondered if excessive cardio created too big a calorie deficit, noting that the less body fat you have, the less there is to lose.

Another possibility is one that a lot of cardio-averse lifters worry about: endurance exercise will interfere with their ability to increase or at least maintain their strength and muscle mass. A recent study in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitnessoffers two reasons for concern:

- Strength and endurance exercise develop different fibers in different ways, only one of which will look impressive on the beach.
Both types of exercise drain glycogen from muscles, potentially leaving a lifter with limited fuel for training when he’s simultaneously cutting calories.

- You won’t be surprised to learn that the interference effect is most pronounced in the muscles you force to do double duty. Running especially has been shown to affect strength and size in your lower body, due to the fact that running induces more muscle damage. Walking and cycling are safer choices.

Which brings us to intensity. We know high-intensity interval training—HIIT—causes less interference with strength training. But that’s because it’s so similar to strength training, which, as Finn points out, “is itself a form of intense intermittent exercise,” if you’re doing it right. Intense exercise requires recovery. Two forms of intense exercise only increase that requirement, especially when you’re also dieting down to reach single-digit body fat. “It can often lead to you feeling burned out, tired, and irritable,” Finn says.

(Related: MH's five best HIIT workouts ever)

That’s why cardio exercise, for lifters, is a lot like the 2016 presidential election. You have to decide which is the lesser of two unattractive choices. But unlike the election, one of those cardio options—low-intensity, steady state walking or cycling—is clearly better than the other. “Three to five hours of lower-intensity cardio, spread across four to five weekly sessions, is usually enough to get the job done,” Finn says. But if you can do less and still get the results you want, you should.

Now we get to perhaps the biggest irony of physique training: Those abs you see on the leanest guys may have been started in the gym. They may have been enhanced in the kitchen, mostly by staying out of it. But they were finished on the treadmill. Which could be the least motivational cliché of all time.

Lou Schuler is an award-winning journalist and contributing editor toMen’s Health. Check out his new book Strong: Nine Workout Programs for Women to Burn Fat, Boost Metabolism, and Build Strength for Life, with coauthor Alwyn Cosgrove.

Let’s get the obvious reason you overeat out of the way: food tastes really good. And some of it tastes really, really good. The truth, though, is that everyone likes food, yet some people struggle to find their stopping point more than others. We asked Men’s Health Nutrition Adviser Michael Roussell to help you understand why. “Being aware of the reasons you might overeat can help you identify the behaviours that are holding you back from the results you want,” says Roussell. Use his advice so that you can fill up – without filling out.

1. You Use Food as a Reward (Too Often)

“Food is more than just calories,” says Roussell. “It’s part of your culture and your experiences, and it’s also a great reward.” And that’s all good. But it’s easy to make rewarding yourself with food a regular habit, rather than a special event.

Ever had a hard day at work and said, “I deserve a glass of wine”—and then proceed to drink the whole bottle? Ever done that more than once in a week?

“You need to be realistic about the caloric cost of using food as a frequent reward,” says Roussell. Start noting all the places you allow high-calorie meals or binge-drinking to creep in because you “deserve it.” If it’s once a day, or even once every two or three days, you’ve identified a key area where you need to adjust your mindset.

2. You Frequently Say, ‘What the Hell!’

See if this sounds familiar. You eat a slice of pizza for a snack, and immediately grab another. You hesitate, but then think, ‘What the hell, I’ve already blown my diet. I might as well eat the whole thing!’ (Researchers literally call this the “what the hell effect.”)

Try to keep a logical perspective: having an extra piece or two of pizza isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of your diet. “You can just eat a little less later in the day, or adjust your diet a little tomorrow,” says Roussell. “Just remember that there’s a big difference between eating 300 extra calories of pizza versus 1,000 or more.” (Keep track of exactly what you eat and get daily protein, fat and carbs targets that will help you reach your goals with the Men's Health Personal Trainer tool.)

3. You’re Too Tough on Yourself

“The worst things you can do are beat yourself up when you eat junk food, or feel bad if the scale isn’t moving,” says Roussell. “Shame can drastically damage your weight loss efforts.”

For example, in one study, University of Toronto researchers rigged scales to make dieters think they had gained five pounds even though the participants had actually lost weight. Those who felt greater shame about their weight gain subsequently ate more ice cream than those who weren't as bothered by their results. Wake Forest University scientists observed similar findings.

The bottom line: “If you eat too much of a food that you really didn’t want to eat, don’t beat yourself up,” says Roussell. “Vow to do better the next time and move on.”

4. You're Distracted

How often do you just eat—without watching TV, browsing Facebook, or working at your desk?

“Multitasking lessens your body’s ability to sense the amount of food you are eating and thus how full it should make you,” says Roussell. “In fact, studies show that eating while you watch a screen of any kind leads to consuming more food and a reduced ability to remember how much you ate.”

Roussell’s advice: engage in eating as its own activity, and be mindful of what you’re putting in your mouth. Scientists have found that those who could recall exactly what they ate for lunch downed 30 percent less than those who couldn’t. The scientists say that remembering recent eating might enhance awareness of how satiating the food was, which then has an effect on subsequent consumption.

Related: 5 Of The Best Snacks For Weight Loss

5. You’re Really Tired

Lack of sleep and the ensuing fatigue has major implications on your ability to control overeating. Read: being tired saps your willpower.

A 2013 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that not getting enough sleep can cause people to eat up to 5 percent more calories per day—primarily after dinner. Fatigue also increases stress, another driver of willpower depletion.

Focus on getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night to help strengthen your dietary resolve and curb overeating.

And for best results, try to keep a consistent sleep schedule, so that you aren’t as inclined to oversleep on the weekends. A recent Australian study found that people who sleep later than normal on Saturday and Sunday have greater levels of fatigue on Monday and Tuesday than those who rise at their regular time. 

Once the preserve of trend-aware sisters and ladies who lunge, green juices have cemented their place in the mainstream with an entire industry built on the promise of liquid panacea. And while it’s true that you can get a bunch of your RDA’s from juice, it takes more than popping a bottle or two to rack them up – and a juice-centric diet is not something MH prescribes.

Though cold-pressing preserves more nutrients than other juicing methods, it still removes the all-important fibre, which you require in order to put a cap on blood-sugar spikes (the bit you should be worried about). Fibre is what stops your liver from turning that into fat, and where there is fruit there will always be sugar.

However, you can soften the comedown by combining your drink with low-GI, high-protein foods to slow digestion, says Oliver Barnett of the London Clinic of Nutrition. A chaser of raw nuts, hard-boiled eggs or cheese will take the heat off your liver. Alternatively, opting for flaxseeds as an extra ingredient when you’re at the juice bar will work too. When it comes to juicing, eating is most definitely not cheating.

Getting your nutrition right can make or break a training plan. Follow these five tips and use the Men's Health supplements package to keep yours on track.

Mornings can be an arduous task. The temptation to have that extra five minutes under the covers and skip breakfast can leave you running out the door, tie skewiff and laces undone. Calories burned? About 50. It's a start. Or so you thought. According to new research by the University of Bath, skipping breakfast may not be the beginning to your V-shape body after all.

The study, focusing on energy balance, examined the effect of daily breakfastcompared to morning fasting and found that those who ate around 700 calories before 11am experienced better blood sugar control than those who skipped their morning Muesli. It also found that the breakfast-savvy few were more likely to expend more energy - burning around 442 kcals having eaten in the morning, which is a solid 30 minutes on the treadmill.

So instead of burying your head under the duvet to delay the inevitable, or staving off those pangs of hunger that strike halfway through your commute and carbing up at lunch, stock up in the morning to shift those unwanted pounds and satisfy your stomach. 

Doing 100 reps of any exercise isn’t easy.

Doing 100 reps of burpee-pullups as fast as possible may be one of the hardest challenges you’ll ever perform at the gym. It works every muscle in your body and leaves you feeling like your heart and lungs are going to explode.

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Related: THE 21-DAY METASHRED—30-Minute Cutting-Edge Workouts That Torch Fat Fast. One Guy Lost 25 Pounds in Just 6 Weeks!

Here’s how to do it: Stand in front of a pullup bar. Do a burpee, and then immediately jump up into a pullup. When your feet hit the floor, drop into a burpee again.