I have heard some of the craziest things in the world regarding abs. One of them 
being he's not strong he's fat. Granted this is the exception rather than the rule. Many people think that you can target belly fat by doing tons of ab workouts. That is only going to work if you already have an extremely low body fat to begin with. You will build your abdominal muscles and there are some fantastic benefits to that, but there won't be anything visible. This is why many of the Strength competition guys look like they have extra belly. It's really just a small layer of fat over the muscle. Also for people that are trying to gain a lot of muscle, also called 'hard gainers', consuming enough food to grow muscle without gaining a little fat is extremely difficult if not impossible. Did you know the guys and girls you see in bodybuilding competitions are normally weaker during competition than the rest of the year? That's because they eat more to pack on the muscle and then eat less and do more carido to have the lowest body fat possible to compete.
being he's not strong he's fat. Granted this is the exception rather than the rule. Many people think that you can target belly fat by doing tons of ab workouts. That is only going to work if you already have an extremely low body fat to begin with. You will build your abdominal muscles and there are some fantastic benefits to that, but there won't be anything visible. This is why many of the Strength competition guys look like they have extra belly. It's really just a small layer of fat over the muscle. Also for people that are trying to gain a lot of muscle, also called 'hard gainers', consuming enough food to grow muscle without gaining a little fat is extremely difficult if not impossible. Did you know the guys and girls you see in bodybuilding competitions are normally weaker during competition than the rest of the year? That's because they eat more to pack on the muscle and then eat less and do more carido to have the lowest body fat possible to compete.
Let's break this down a little though. For those of us not entering a strong man or body building competition any time soon, the logic is much simpler. If you have enough willpower to keep working those abs to the point where you can see that area getting bigger, you are still working out more than the average American. More muscle also means you burn more calories so if you have not been increasing your calorie intake you should be loosing weight. The best way would be to work on all muscle groups evenly. Even if you could get just your abs and nothing else, would you really want to be as over balanced as this guy?
My personal experience with this was in high school. I wasn't athletic and didn't participate in sports but I did get into kickboxing. It was mainly cardio but we did plenty of crunches, planks, and pushups as well. However not giving a damn about being healthy (as teenagers normally don't) I finished every workout session off with a Mountain Dew and anything that I was burning I was eating more to compensate. Not on purpose, just because I was hungry more often. Point is my abs were getting bigger but my body fat percentage wasn't going down any. My aunt noticed that I was filling out and told me I needed to slim down. I explained my situation and she laughed at me. She told me that I was silly and working out tighted up the fat. You are allowed to laugh all I could do was sit and stare at her dumbfounded. Point is that you can get bad information from anyone even if they mean well.
Granted you are talking to someone who sill doesn't have defined abs so feel free to believe what you will. However if you want the lowdown from a professional here is my favorite article on the subject.
/Actuator/
Pictures by sumoman.co CC-BY
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