Buying Abs in a World That Values Illusion Over Integrity
Let’s be real—you want abs.
Not the kind you get after eighteen months of eating clean and doing abs with cardio 4 itimes a week. You want the kind that look good now. The kind you see on influencers who may or may not be financed by pharmaceutical companies and cosmetic surgeons. You want the shortcut. The life hack.
I get it. And the cosmetic folk have an answer for you: Abdominal Etching, also known as Ab Sculpting.
Sounds something like something out of a biohacker’s wet dream: go under the knife, have a surgeon strategically vacuum fat from between your abdominal muscles to artificially carve out the appearance of a six-pack, and wake up with the core of a Greek god—or at least the core of a moderately fit Instagram model.
It’s not magic. It’s high-definition liposuction with a fancy name and an even fancier price tag. The surgeon doesn’t add muscle; they simply remove fat from the lines that are supposed to be there, creating shadows where discipline should have built definition.
And it’s not just for reality stars anymore. Rumors swirl that Drake—aka BBL Drizzy himself, the man who allegedly turned to a surgeon for a more… pronounced posterior—may have also opted for a little front-end work to match the back. Then there’s the Liver King, the primal-faced liar who built an empire on “ancestral tenets” and raw testicles before confessing his physique was built on steroids, growth hormone, and—you guessed it—sculpted abs. His entire philosophy was a performance, and his body was the central prop, bought and paid for.
And yes, for the South African man wondering, this “procedure” is available right here. Clinics in Sandton and Camps Bay will gladly take your money to give you the temporary illusion of a body you didn’t earn.
It sounds tempting, doesn’t it? Why grind when you can just… sign a consent form?
Here’s Why You’re a Clown For Even Considering It.
Let’s pause for a moment of brutal honesty.
You are considering paying a stranger tens of thousands of Rands to carve fake abs into your stomach because you lack the discipline to develop real ones.
Think about that.
You are so impatient, so seduced by the illusion of results, that you’re willing to risk infection, permanent scarring, lumpy deformities, and looking like a walking, talking anatomy chart drawn by a shaky-handed artist—all to avoid the hard work that builds not just a body, but character.
This isn’t a transformation; it’s a costume. One that melts the moment you stop starving yourself to maintain the fraud. It’s the physical equivalent of buying a trophy you didn’t win and putting it on your shelf. You might fool your followers, but you’ll never fool yourself when you look in the mirror and know that those lines were purchased, not earned.
There is no pride in a scalpel six-pack. There is only vanity, weakness, and the silent shame of knowing you took the easiest path available to a man with a credit limit and no self-respect.
The Alternative That Actually Makes You a Man.
If you genuinely want a powerful core—the kind that stabilizes your heavy lifts, protects your back, and actually functions—then you have to do the one thing the surgery allows you to skip: the work.
A real six-pack is not a destination. It’s a receipt. It’s proof of payment in discipline, consistency, and effort. Here’s how you actually earn it:
Get Your Diet in Check: Abs are made in the kitchen. Stop looking for a way out. Eat in a slight caloric deficit, prioritize protein, and drink water. It’s that simple. Not easy, but simple.
Train For Function, Not Just Form: Stop with the endless crunches.
Heavy Compound Lifts: Squats and Deadlifts. These will fire up your entire core as a stabilizer more effectively than any silly ab machine ever could.
Real Ab Work: Weighted Cable Crunches, Hanging Leg Raises, Ab Wheel Rollouts, Pallof Presses. Movements that require strength and stability, not just repetition.
Embrace the Time It Takes: It might take a year. It might take two. That’s the point. The journey forges the discipline that the surgery allows you to bypass.
The choice is yours.
You can be the man who walks into the gym with a fraudulent, scalpel-carved torso, knowing deep down that his integrity is as hollow as his muscle definition.
Or you can be the man who walks in with a smooth midsection today but stays consistent, pays his dues with sweat and discipline, and one day earns a physique that is 100% his—a true reflection of his work ethic, resilience, and self-respect.
One path makes you a joke. The other makes you strong. Choose wisely.
