Q: hi mike, i am so close to getting a six pack, but there is this layer of fat that wont go away! i can see it if i pull the fat down on my stomach...how should i get red of this? Thank you.

A: Getting that last bit of fat off is hard. First off, if you haven't yet, read my fat-loss article. If you haven't been doing the things I mention there you need to start doing them.

If you have been all the right things alreday, then it comes down to two choices. One is to keep at it, make your diet even cleaner, hit the gym even harder, maybe do a bit more cardio. It will cost you some of your muscle mass, but you may be be able to fight your way to six-pack. I personally prefer a different approach however... Assuming that you've been losing weight and fat for awhile trying to get to the six-pack and that now the progress is becoming painfully slow, my advice is to stop trying to cut fat and switch over to building muscle for awhile. That means eating more to ever so slowly gain weight (the slower the better) and muscle. This revs up your metabolism and gives you more of a jumpstart on the next cycle of losing weight and fat making it a lot more likely that you'll be able to lose enough to see your six pack.

Under this approach, you start eating slightly more (mostly more carbs) to gain about 1 pound of weight every couple weeks. The faster you gain weight, the more likely the new weight to contain fat and not muscle, so gain as slowly as possible. After maybe 3 months and 6 pounds of weight gained, you reverse back, cut out some carbs and restart the process of losing weight and fat. Hope that helps!