It’s the same old story every spring. You try flexing your abs in the mirror only to find them covered by a thick layer of fat that you’ve been trying your hardest to ignore for months. You jump on the scale and are shocked to see you’ve put on a few pounds since last summer and with only a few weeks left until the beach season, you start to panic. It’s time to hit the gym, hard, but that’s just such a chore. If only there was a way to permanently turn that flabby belly into the chiseled physique of a bodybuilder. Well, as long as you’re not afraid of needles, there’s one goofy trick you may want to try.

Photo: Andre Taissin/Unsplash

South African-born tattoo artist Dean Gunther recently shared one of his funniest projects ever with his social media followers. In photos and clips posted on his Instagram and Tik Tok channels, he detailed the story of a young man struggling to get toned abs in the gym, but failing miserably. In the end, he comes to Gunther’s tattoo shop in Manchester for an ingenious alternative.

The story is one that most of us chubby guys can relate too, at least in part, and it actually served as an inspiration for the talented tattoo artist. He told British tabloid The Sun that he had seen bad attempts of tattooed six-pack abs before and wanted to give it a go himself.

“I had seen really bad ones attempted before. Because I specialize in color realism I wanted to give it a go,” Gunther said. “I thought it would be funny as hell.”

After finding a test subject for his goofy project, Gunther ran into a roadblock soon after starting work. The client apparently wanted to quit just one hour into the first day, but was convinced to go on, and made it to the two days of heavy inking.

The end result is impressive and laughable at the same time. The toned, tanned abdomen looks realistic, but you can tell it’s not real from a mile away. Still, it’s bound to draw attention at the beach, and it beats suffering in the gym for an actual six-pack.

Having started gymnastic training when she was just 4-years-old, Lyza Brooks Mosier has always been in great physical shape, but she managed to tone up her physique to an impressive level over the past year, after falling in love with strength workouts last summer. She has been waking up at 5:30 to train ever since, and works out for about 30 hours a week, five days a week.

Photo: Lyza Brooks Mosier/Instagram

“Lyza is completely self-motivated as she wants to become the best of the best,” the girl’s mother, Jill, told Caters News. “She stays on top of her game by getting up at 5:30am to train – we have set up all sorts of gymnastics stations in our storage room where she would go for hours to workout.”

Jill says that Lyza has always been an active child, but she fell in love with workouts after attending her fitness classes last summer. She has been working out ever since and has made amazing progress. Even though their parents sometimes get criticized for pushing the 10-year-old too hard and robbing her of her childhood, Jill insists that they have nothing to do with Lyza’s intense training.

“She loves hearing that she inspires others however we also get the occasional mean person as well who say we shouldn’t make her train so much, but I assure you, we have nothing to do with this – I have four kids and Lyza begs to workout,” Jill Mosier said.

Despite the occasional negative comment, most of Lyza Brooks Mosier’s 50,000 Instagram followers are inspired by her dedication and declare themselves impressed by her amazing physique.

“You look amazing girl, so fit and healthy,” one person commented on a post.

“You’re so strong Lyza! I want your abs,” wrote another.

Lyza is one of several children who have been drawing attention and occasionally sparking controversy on social media because of their muscular physiques at such young ages. Just last week we wrote about Arat Hosseini, a 6-year-old Iranian boy with an incredible physique.

Despite what many gym-addicts will tell you, getting defined six-pack abs is really hard, and for some of us downright impossible. No matter how much we work out, we just can’t seem to get that layer of fat on our abdomen to go away, so those well-developed ab muscles remain concealed underneath. That’s where the plastic surgeons at Masterpiece Hospital come in. By performing a procedure called abdominal etching, they remove some of the fat on your abdomen to make that hidden six-pack visible. There are no plastic or silicone implants involved, just some abs-focused liposuction.

Photo: Masterpiece Hospital/Facebook

“We don’t do implants because they don’t look good and don’t last long,” Masterpiece Hospital CEO, Raweewat “Sae” Maschamadol, told Coconuts Bangkok. “We’ve been doing this for about three to four years now, we get anywhere from 20 to 30 customers requesting a six-pack every month.”

 

Abdominal etching involves methodically sucking out the fan around the patient’s abdomen to really bring out their six-pack. It’s actually nothing new, as it was first performed by a Texas surgeon during the 1990s. However, Raweewat claims that he has traveled abroad to study different procedures and has developed his own technique. He adds that the two-to-four hours surgery is neither dangerous nor painful.

Getting an instant six-pack no doubt sounds like a dream come true for many people, but the thing is it doesn’t work on everybody. You actually need to have well-developed abdominal muscles for the surgery to actually work as intended. Dr. Raweewat says that about 90 percent of the people who come into his clinic for abdominal etching are fitness junkies who just can’t get an enviable six-pack by merely working out.

“In order to naturally get a six-pack, one needs to work out as well as get lean. Most of our clients come in with a lot of muscle, they just want to save themselves months of leaning down,” the Thai surgeon said.

Masterpiece Hospital and their abdominal etching procedure recently went viral in Thailand after male model Ome Pangpaparn who underwent the surgery, shared some photos of the results. Her had apparently been trying to get a six-pack the old-fashioned way, but just couldn’t get rid of that layer of fat that stubbornly concealed the fruits of his labour. So he turned to plastic surgery.

“Fitness is not always the answer,” Pangpaparn said. “I worked out regularly, but I still couldn’t get rid of the fat around my stomach. I do what I can. But in the parts I can’t, I leave it up to the doctor. I am confident that it will bring me more happiness.”

To be fair, Ome is no stranger to plastic surgery and cosmetic enhancement, as you can clearly see in the above photo of the model holding up a photo of himself as a young boy.

Abdominal etching is not exclusive to Masterpiece Hospital. It’s performed by many plastic surgeons around the world, but according to one study, it does have some risks. About one-in-10 study participants were left with post-surgery pockets of fluid called seromas, that may require draining, and about one-in-5 suffered minor complications such as “over-etching”.