The "Abs" Solution

*Again, my friend Amberly suggested I do a post about abs/core workouts.  She thinks of better topics than I do.  Thanks Girl.  

So.  Abs.  Love them and hate them, right?  Yeah, me too.  One of the things I wanted to change the most when I started working with my nutrition/fitness guru was of course, my abs.  Key word here was "wanted" to.  I didn't think it could actually be done.  They had been ravaged by pregnancy and honestly, I had pretty much accepted that they'd never look the way they once did.  My guru begged to differ.  I realized that I had nothing to lose by at least trying.  I mean, they couldn't exactly end up worse.  

I started really working on them twice a week.  REALLY working on them.  I was doing all sorts of stuff that I had never done before.  Stuff that was fun and new and made crunches seem like they were from the stone age.  I hadn't ever realized there were so many ways to strengthen your core!  I'm not going to lie.  It took a LONG time to start seeing results.  Like, months.  But the more I cleaned up my diet, the better they looked.  You guys, abs are made in the kitchen.  They are strengthened at the gym.  But they are made visible through your diet.  I know.  It's a harsh reality.  But you HAVE to have a clean diet if you want to be able to see your abs.  There do exist genetic freaks who for whatever reason are completely immune to this rule.  But most people, especially women who've had a few rug rats, just can't get there without a super duper clean diet, regardless of how many crunches and cork screws they do.  

At first, even after I had completed a few weeks of pretty intense workouts, I didn't notice any change.  Someone told me to start taking pictures of my abs every week.  Um, the LAST thing I wanted on my phone was pictures of my sad sad tummy.  But I took their advice and started snapping pictures of my mid-section every week (they are in my "confidential" file on my computer) .  After about 5 weeks, I was ready to admit defeat.  But then something crazy happened.  I took a picture on week 6 and put it next to the first picture I had taken several weeks earlier.  And you know what I saw?  Progress.  They were tighter and flatter than they had been 6 weeks before.  Abs are usually the last place you see a difference.  Women especially tend to hang on to  stubborn belly fat.  It's just how we're programmed.  But I'm telling you, If I can get my abs back in shape, ANYONE can.  I'm not just saying that.  Seriously, I have a super short torso and at one point in my first pregnancy, my belly measured 5 centimeters bigger than most women measure who are having TWINS(read: damage)! I'm the last person in the world who believed I could get my pre-pregnancy tummy back.  Well, mostly back (freaking stretch marks).  It takes time, patience, discipline and hard work.  But for me, it's been SO worth it.

I'm not into selfies, but for the sake of proving to you that you CAN get your abs back, here's the progress picture I took after about 9 weeks of squeaky clean eating and intense core work.  Never mind the messy bedroom in the background.

Here are some of my favorite core exercises.  Mix them up and create your own killer ab workouts.

cork screw

 russian twist (I use a medicine ball for this)

weighted situp

ab roll-outs

FAVORITE: spiderman pushups (they work your abs, trust me.)