The Beer Wasn't The Problem. I Checked.

By Mike Sullivan, 47 · Reader story

At 47, I eat less than I ever have.

The gut has never been bigger.

The beer went first. Two months without a drop. The gut stayed exactly where it was.

I barely drink these days anyway. A beer gut, without the beer.

So I figured it was on me. A hundred crunches every other day, until my back hurt and the gut hadn't changed. Three winters on a treadmill at 5:45 in the morning.

The one place I saw a change was my wrist. My watch got loose.

For years my standing joke was that I've got a six pack, it's just covered by the one pack.

Then my kid asked me if there was a baby in my belly. I said no, buddy. I retired the joke after that.

The gym made it worse. The place is full of twenty-somethings living their best life, doing my same routine, and their gut was gone within months. Mine stayed.

I was sure I was doing something wrong. My brother-in-law is 54 and his shirt sits flat. The first thing he said sounded like he was telling me to give up.

"You can do everything right and still carry it"

He said: "After 40, the gut is first on and last off. If it comes off at all. You can do everything right and still carry it."

I told him that's a hell of a thing to hear in year six.

It explained the younger guys, though. They're not past 40 yet.

Then he said: "You're not going to shrink it. You can change how it sits, though."

I told him I'm not wearing a girdle

Because that's what "change how it sits" sounded like to me.

Besides, I've seen compression shirts at the gym. They show no mercy on a guy with a gut.

He said that's because those guys wear them as the shirt. This goes under your shirt, like an undershirt. It's got panels in the front and sides. Holds everything together.

I still didn't buy it. A real gut is solid. There's not much to squeeze.

He said: "It doesn't squeeze you thinner. It holds it together, so nothing hangs over your belt and the shirt on top sits flat. Same day. Not some eventually thing."

My own system was shirts a size up, worn untucked. My real size shows the gut the second I lift my arms, and the size up is baggy and looks like shit. There is no size that just fits.

That was my way of handling it. Maybe yours is the belt under the belly, or the shirt that stays on at the pool.

I wasn't all the way sold, but I ordered one.

"You been working out?"

The first morning I expected a fight to get into it. It took about ten seconds. Goes on like any tank, shirt over it.

I figured people would be able to tell. Under my polo you couldn't see a thing.

I caught myself in the elevator glass on the way in. I wasn't sucking it in. The shirt sat flat.

A coworker asked if I'd been working out. I didn't correct him.

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Is it cheating?

Not correcting him felt like getting away with something. I'd been trying for six years. The fix took about ten seconds.

The first day it felt like faking it.

Then I thought about my eyes. They went at 43. I bought glasses, and nobody calls glasses cheating.

And nothing about it is fake. The gut is still there. The tank just holds it together while I work on the rest.

I was never chasing abs anyway. I just wanted to stop sucking it in to look normal.

I spent six years thinking I wasn't trying hard enough. That was never it. I just didn't have the right thing under my shirt.

Odds are you don't either.

Real people, real results

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Two paths

Path 1: Keep doing what I did. Year seven of crunches and treadmills, hoping it goes different than the first six.

Path 2: Wear one under your shirt for 90 days. Look in the mirror at day 90. If you don't see it, return it and get every cent back.

The tank is $29.90, sized by body weight up to 5XL. They do Buy 2, Get 1 Free with free shipping.

It comes with a 90-day money-back guarantee.

If it does not work for you, send it back. Full refund. No questions asked.

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P.S. My brother calls it my cheat shirt now. He also added two for himself to my last order.