Belly v Abs

Belly.

It’s such a nice sounding word. Cute. Sweet. Happy. Probably comes from the holidays – even now (yes, I am in my 50s) I get together with my dad on Christmas Eve, and he reads Clement Moore’s “Twas The Night Before Christmas” to me. (I even put out a note to Santa still – it’s pretty funny going back through years and years of these. If you have kids, keep the letters!)

You know how it goes:
His eyes–how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
and the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

(It wasn’t until I lived in England in my 20s that I discovered that “jelly” meant Jell-O, not “jam without seeds.” I could never figure out the illustration on that page as a kid…)

So. Belly. Meaning, well, “that stomach area.” Or, more particularly, “that stomach area, described in a way that none of us want it to be described.”

Whatever happened to poor “Belly”? Maybe the link to Santa/”little round…”? No one wants one. Poor “Belly.”

As opposed to…Abs.

Short for rectus abdominis, this is the word that you want to have applied to your “stomach area.” It basically indicates that you are so bad-*ss that you have no fat in that area, so you can see the muscles of your core.

This word is current currency for a great midsection. Like, “Wow, she has such great abs!” (You wouldn’t hear someone saying “Wow, she has such a great belly!”)

While this word denotes kick-*ssery, it’s also not very friendly.

I personally am more in the “Belly” arena than the “Abs” arena.

I’d certainly like to be more in the Abs arena . . . and (sad, so sad) basically was for the bulk of my life. As I’ve blogged before, I didn’t even really think that much about it. It’s just how I was. Now, I’m a “Belly” person.

I just think that it’s a shame that we can’t have a more kick-*ss name for “abs” with some fat covering them – or a friendlier name for the opposite.

Anyway – that’s what came to me today on my drive to go work out.

I didn’t do much over the weekend.

Saturday was taken up with being dragged (oh, oops, accompanying) my husband to tile stores, etc. We’re remodeling our master bathroom, and he’s the design “maven” of the two of us – so I wind up basically tagging along and trying to decide which one of something he likes best, and choosing that one. Sometimes I get it wrong. Then I have to back out of “my” decision. It’s like a special marriage game.

Sunday was Mother’s Day, and I made a great brunch. While champagne was flowing a bit too freely, the biggest change was that I didn’t buy any danishes for the meal.

We only have “sweets” on special occasions.

So on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Easter (“brunch-y” situations), my Mom always picks up some bakery-fresh, gluten-free, kick butt danishes. She always gets like 9,000 of them too, for the 4 of us. I took over making brunch for the 4 of us years ago – but always kept the danish tradition. This year, I decided that I would just skip’em – and no one noticed. Yay! As Coach Pam says – “baby steps,” and just making better decisions.

It’s Monday, so, back to the old grind.

Today I went to TRX from 9:00-10:00 a.m. Our regular teacher is on holiday, so we had a substitute. She was exceptionally “perky” – and brutal.

The good thing about shake-ups like that is that substitutes never cut you slack.

They don’t know how “good you’re doing” compared to when you started. Like, our regular teacher knows that if I can even pull my knees in with my hips off the floor, that’s way way better than when I started, and he gives me all sorta kudos for doing it. This gal – nope. She kept urging me to get them higher, do splits, pull both knees in . . . Ay Carumba!! (She was Latin, and played salsa-type music – it was quite different than Chris, our usual guy, and his fairly mellow 80s music.)

One of the gals I’m always in class with, Amy, just started to laugh at one point … when the sub was trying to get me to pike up with one foot in the TRX, and then “Just take your weight off the other foot, Mommy.” This would have had me in a plank, with my feet about 4 feet off the ground. (See the photo.)

Amy (who was able to do it….b&tch… LOL) knew that this was miles outside my comfort zone. There were only 3 of us in the class though – and the other gal was completely new to TRX – so the sub spent the most time with her. Amy and I would look at one another when she’d tell us to “just do” this completely new and slightly impossible move – however, except for 2 moves (including that

“flying plank”), I actually did everything I was told to do. So there you go – stretch your boundaries.

Today at Crossfit at 3:00 we did a bunch of pre-workout stuff, then the main WOD was split in 2 parts:

PART ONE: 5 rounds of 30 seconds max kettlebell swings (1 pood), 30 seconds rest, 30 seconds plank left, 30 seconds rest, 30 seconds plank right.

PART TWO: 5 rounds of 30 seconds max kettlebell deadlifts (40kg), 30 seconds rest, 30 seconds max burpees.

In part one, I got on average 14-15 swings in the 30 second period, and was able to hold the planks.

In part two, I averaged about 16 deadlifts per 30 seconds, and 5 burpees. (The deadlifts were actually only supposed to be 1 pood, but I found the heaviest kettlebell I could find and used it. Because I am pretty good at deadlifting.)

It was only Chad, H, and me – Chad worked on his max snatch in Part One – H did Part One with me, but then H moved over to Performance with Chad for Part Two, which was actually doing bar deadlifts and then lateral burpees. I was fine working with the kettlebell, and it was a different move.

My biggest issue today is forgetting to eat/not making time to eat. I walked the dog for about an hour in the hills before heading over to TRX, and it was so nice outside that I didn’t get home fast enough to make a breakfast. So I wound up having a Quest bar.

I need to get more with the program. However, on Sunday, I did a ton of meal prep. So I feel good about that. It was just more “cutting up veggies” and lunch/dinner-type prep. I like to have a sweet potato, eggs and some fruit for breakfast, which takes basically 3 minutes to make – so I didn’t really “prep” anything for breakfast. Silly me…

How’s by you – ??