In his fascinating new video, Jeremy Ethier breaks down many factors you might be missing when it comes to fat loss and developing abs.
Most people underestimate how much body fat they need to lose before their abs become visible. Luke initially thought he was in the low-to-mid 20% range but actually started at 29.2%. Nicole guessed 23%, yet her true starting point was 33%. In general, men don’t begin to see abs until they drop below 20% body fat, with a clearly defined six-pack appearing closer to 15% or lower.
For women, visible abs typically emerge somewhere between 25% and 18%. Because people often misjudge their starting point, achieving a six-pack usually takes much longer than the popular “90 days” claim, often anywhere from six months to over a year.
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For Luke, reaching 20% body fat required losing roughly 20 pounds of fat. To preserve muscle while cutting, a sustainable rate of fat loss is about 0.5% to 1% of body weight per week. A moderate pace sits around 0.7%, but in this case, the target was pushed to 0.9% weekly. That translated to about 1.5 pounds of fat loss per week for Luke, putting him at around 90 days to reach 20% and about 140 days to hit 15%.
If muscle is built during the process, body fat percentage can drop even faster, making visible abs possible in as little as 60 days. The same approach was applied to Nicole using her own numbers.
While these timelines are longer than most expect, they can be optimized through three key areas. The first is diet. Instead of aggressively cutting calories, the focus was on making the deficit more manageable through smart food choices. Luke’s intake was set at 2,000 calories per day, creating about a 500-calorie deficit, while Nicole consumed around 1,600 calories, resulting in a 300–400 calorie deficit. Because both worked rotating shifts, their plans also included convenient snacks and desserts to help manage hunger, which remained a constant part of the process.
The second factor was full-body strength training. This helps signal the body to retain muscle while losing fat. Focusing only on abs is not enough, training needs to cover the entire body.
The third was cardio, primarily in the form of walking. It’s low-impact, easy to recover from, and sustainable. Both started at around 5,000 steps per day, with a goal of reaching 10,000, adding an estimated 200 calories burned daily to support fat loss.
Sleep also played a critical role. Research comparing people sleeping 8 hours per night to those getting only 5.5 hours found that while both groups lost similar total weight, the well-rested group lost a much higher proportion of fat. In contrast, the sleep-deprived group lost more lean mass, with fat loss reduced significantly.
By the six-week mark, both had made noticeable progress. Data from over 18,000 DXA scans shows that men tend to store more fat around the midsection, while women store more around the hips and thighs. At the start, Luke’s abdominal fat was over 7% higher than the rest of his body, while Nicole’s distribution was more even. This helps explain why women may achieve a flatter stomach earlier, even though men often develop more pronounced abs later due to higher muscle mass.
At the 45-day check-in, Nicole’s waist dropped from 72.5 cm to 66 cm, while Luke’s decreased from 85 cm to 78 cm.
The final phase proved the most challenging. As they leaned out, hunger, fatigue, irritability, stress, bloating, and water retention increased. At very low body fat levels, pushing harder by cutting more calories or increasing training can actually backfire.
That’s why the fastest path to abs isn’t always the best one. Since more than 80% of people who lose weight struggle to maintain it, the final stage focused on sustainability. Nicole increased her intake by 300–400 calories, while Luke added about 500, shifting the goal toward maintaining their results while keeping healthy habits in place.
After 120 days, Luke reduced his body fat from 29.2% to 15.6%, losing 25 pounds of fat and gaining 5 pounds of lean mass. Nicole went from 33% to 19.5%, losing 20 pounds of fat while adding 3 pounds of lean mass. Their strength improved as well: Luke increased from 40 to 63 push-ups and from 14 to 21 pull-ups, while Nicole went from 4 to 18 push-ups and from 3 assisted pull-ups to 8 unassisted.
The key takeaway isn’t that everyone can get abs in 60 or 90 days. It’s that the timeline depends on where you start, how well you preserve muscle, and whether your approach is structured in a way you can sustain long term.
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