I HAVE BETTER ABS THAN THIS, AND MY LIFE WASN’T RUINED, BUT I STARTED ALMOST A YEAR AGO: I Spent 80 Days Trying to Get Abs and It Ruined My Life. Crash weight-loss is a disaster, maybe worth it if you’re a movie star trying to get in shape for a part, but even then you shouldn’t let yourself get this far out of shape.

In my case, my weight had crept up to 240 last year, a substantial part of it from eating crap at the hospital while my dad was dying. Now I’m at 217, and I’ve added a significant amount of muscle. But I did it over 10 months, not 80 days. And that’s how you should do it, if you want to do it. Your body doesn’t like big, fast, changes.