What the hell happened to my stomach? That's what I asked after I TRIED to do a sit-up following the birth of my second child. Note the emphasized word TRIED cause it couldn't happen. Here I am a person who has a degree in Exercise Science, and a former personal trainer and aerobics coordinator and now I can't do a sit up. It made me cry and mad.
I had gained 50 pounds with my pregnancy (that seems to be the magical number for me when I'm pregnant) so that took me from 140 pounds to 190 and my stomach measured bigger than what matched up with the weeks pregnant. So bottom line is I was big and my stomach muscles were shot. Then to add insult to injury I had to have an emergency c-section. BYE-BYE abs!
I had heard horror stories from others about never being able to get your stomach back after a c-section but thought they just didn't try hard enough. Now I was actually thinking they were right and my desire for a flat 6-pack stomach was a thing of the past. BUT before I gave up I had to try. I had to find out for myself if this was a lost cause.
So I hit the Internet doing the research to find out what actually happened so I could come up with a plan to fix it. How do I rebuild? I decided to turn to an old favorite Turbo Jam to begin this transformation. The reason I chose Turbo Jam is because of all the torso rotations and pelvic tilts that the workouts include. Perfect exercises for getting the strength back. I had no desire to do crunches since I still had too much stomach fat to worry about seeing definition I was focusing on core strength. Even though things were getting better, when my daughter was 4 months old I still hadn't gotten where I wanted to be. I was now 154 pounds and wearing a size 12. I was describing my stomach as looking like Freddy Kruger got a hold of it. It was wrinkly and had so much loose skin. So I kicked it up and added in the strength training program Chalene Extreme AND followed the nutrition plan that came with it to a "T". Now things were changing fast.
Four months after starting that, I had lost all the baby weight and 8 inches from my body. Those changes made me want more. One year later I have lost 30 pounds (that's 15 less than pre-baby) and I have lost 10 inches off my waist! I still feel like there is work to be done but I have come to the realization that with hard work, determination and dedication I will go from c-section to 6-pack. Stayed tuned for pics :)
