Rumors of Ryan's 6-Pac Make Internet Swoon

Aug. 15, 2012 -- The latest edition to the presidential ticket may pack a hefty punch on the policy side, but at 162 pounds and 6 to 8 percent body fat, Paul Ryan is as fit and trim as his budget plan.

The Wisconsin Republican is not shy about his intense health regiment, often candidly responding to questions about his infamous addiction to the P90X exercise program and steering clear of sweets and fried treats on the campaign trail.

Ryan's devotion to physical fitness has not gone unnoticed by a growing contingency of online admirers. As thousands gathered in Virginia to watch Mitt Romney announce Ryan as his running mate, thousands more took to Twitter and Google to find out more about the House Budget Committee Chairman's rumored six-pac abs.

Google trends showed that in the 24 hours after news broke on Friday night that Romney would announce his VP pick, the second most popular search term associated with Ryan was "shirtless."

Since Ryan, 42, joined the Romney ticket early Saturday morning, Google searches for "P90X" have nearly doubled. The term "Paul Ryan P90X" went from zero people searching it on Friday afternoon to tens of thousands of searches on Saturday, according to Google trends.

Fan sites like Hey Girl It's Paul Ryan, a Ryan-inspired knock-off of the popular Ryan Gosling meme, kicked into high gear, pumping out sappy sentences to commemorate the VP pick.

The site, which started posting photos of Ryan overlaid with phrases like "Hey girl, unlike the debt our love will never hit a ceiling," took a hiatus in May but came back "in celebration of the success of our one and only," the hosts wrote in a post on Saturday.

In the four days since Romney's running mate announcement, nearly two dozen new photos have been posted to the site with taglines like "Hey Girl, I may be vying for #2, but you'll always be my #1" and "Hey girl, this ticket might have some incredible hair, But your ticket is still to my heart."

The meme jumped platforms and spawned a Twitter account as well, @PaulRyanGosling, which has since shot off a flurry of satirical tweets, many of which poke fun at Ryan's policies and fit physique.

"Hey girl, I just ate a corn dog. Don't ask. Don't tell," reads one tweet.

"Hey girl, you don't need that welfare check for groceries. I got a six-pack right here," says another.

After three years as a devout P90Xer even the grueling vice presidential campaign trail is not going to keep Ryan away from his workouts.

"I'm going to keep myself in shape, that's for sure," Ryan told Yahoo News on Monday.

Ryan is combining that intense workout, which mixes cardio and cross-training techniques, with a seemingly healthy diet.

Unlike the men at the top of the ticket, Ryan did not partake in any of the famously deep-fried treats at the Iowa State Fair on Monday.

When Romney stopped by the fair last year he was seen munching on a pork chop on a stick. And when President Obama dropped in after Ryan on Monday, he opted for the same along with a Bud Light. The president's offer to buy "Bud Lights all around on me" sparked a "four more years" chant that soon evolved into "four more beers."

Ryan apparently is not a dessert guy, saying in an interview with his longtime friend Tony Huml last year, "I don't eat sweets." Ryan did confess to Huml, whom he met in first grade, that when he does go to Frosty Freeze, his ice cream of choice is a swirl soft serve cone.

While ice cream cones may be a rare item in Ryan's diet, his two daily cups of coffee are a mainstay. He told Politico in 2010 that those cups of caffeine were his worse habit. In the same interview, Ryan touted his P90X workout as an exercise routine that "works."

"It works because it pushes your body in many different ways so that it gets out of its plateau," Ryan said.P90X's creator Tony Horton has stopped by the gym "five or six times" to work out with Ryan, Horton told CNN.

Ryan, who briefly worked as a personal trainer after college, leads daily P90X workout sessions with a bipartisan group of about a dozen congressmen in the Congressional gym when the House is in session.

"Im just kind of a work-out guy," Ryan told Politico in 2010.

Both Romney and Obama are active exercisers, although they indulge in their fair share of desserts while campaigning. Romney reportedly likes to hit up the elliptical machine for 30 to 40 minutes at hotel gyms. And Obama's love for a game of basketball is well-documented.