i don’t have a six pack
Now a lady with a six pack, I am not. In fact, a six pack is impossible for my shape, I have a thin layer of fat on my stomach which isn’t fat so to speak but the anatomy of my body. I tell you this because a lot of women are convinced that this is fat, it’s just the shape of your body, so relax, okay? The last fitness post I shared here was the closest I’ve ever gotten to washboard abs, but I had lost a considerable amount of weight at that time and subsequently, a large proportion of my happiness disappeared too. If I really wanted a rippled stomach all the time; it would take a terrible amount of starvation, and that is simply just not how I want to live. Life is too short to be so fixated on the shape of a damn body part. So here’s my stomach, I quite like it. And that is an ENORMOUS affirmation, for most of my life I despised how it looked. I physically shivered in fear when men touched it and I always opted out of tighter dresses because I felt so self conscious and horrible about my midriff. However, with age and some of time on this bench right here, I arrived at a point where I’m not dreading the bikinis. I truly believe when you begin to visualize your body as a machine that needs to be strengthened rather than from an aesthetic point of view; your confidence expands ten fold. I am strong and I take pride in the strength that I have fostered through determination and sweat. I’m not a size 0, my thighs still touch but I am mostly made of muscle. And the beautiful thing about muscle? We can all obtain more of them. I love that a fit physique is achievable for all of us, regardless of the size of our hips or if one boob is bigger than the other, we can always be stronger. There is such mental freedom in prioritizing strength over skinny. YOU AS A WOMAN ARE A POWERFUL MACHINE NOT A SEXUAL OBJECT, we all need this tattooed into our brain tissue, seriously. On another note, I am simply not impressed by ‘skinny girls’ whose genes gave them legs as long as days and paper thin stomachs, I don’t look at their bodies in awe. It must be easier for them certainly, but easy isn’t something to admire. Give me a girl with some jiggle on her bones but packed with muscles that came from dragging herself to the gym everyday. That is the sort of body we should look at and say ‘WOAH, WOW’. Right? It’s not the size, it’s the strength I look up to. Hard work is what makes a heroine, I hope you honour that.
time is not what it takes, consistency is key
My father and brothers are avid weight lifters, my Dad had me lifting weights in his home gym when I was 16. An incline sit up was the first kind I ever did and that was over a decade ago. I don’t do any floor exercises, opting instead to do them all on this board. I strongly suggest buying one, mine cost 25 euros from Amazon. This isn’t a sponsored recommendation, but a personal encouragement after lying on one of these benches for years and years of my life. It’s not easy, it’s quite painful, I dread it but you can fold out the board and do reps between chores or before bed. It ensures I do my sit ups everyday and it takes no more than 20 minutes a day. Think of all the time we waste from morning to night. Skip an instagram stalking session and fold your legs over your new bench for a couple minutes. Do it everyday and I promise you will message me later ; ‘THANK YOU AUDREY, THANK YOU‘. I feel like there is this misconception with muscles in that it takes hours and hours of training. This is so far from true, I spend no more than 40 minutes weight training everyday – and only about 15 for my stomach. If I, self-proclaimed biggest procrastinator, can find the time, I know you can too. Consistency is most important, all it takes is 20 minutes continuously, week after week.
form is so important
I try to do sit-ups everyday, ofcourse I skip days because well, we all do. Usually I’ll have 3 intense sessions a week, where I do 150-200 in sets of 50 and then will do 50-100 every other day, depending how much time & energy I have. Form is very important on an incline, you must ensure that your muscles are never relaxed between reps. When you come back down from a crunch, your head and not neck should make contact with the board. That way your abdominals are always tense. Also, this isn’t a fast motion, it should be fluid and quite slow, speed actually makes it easier and thus less of a workout. Sometimes I’ll prop my laptop on a chair close by and watch Broad City while I crunch. Biba continues to be confused, watching in awe as I go up and down on the board. She must have seen me do it a hundred times and yet she still looks comically befuddled.
what to wear
Despite being at home, I still suggest sportwear including shoes. Either alongside my favourite tv show or the music loud and the windows wide open, is how I prefer to do my sit ups. And since I don’t have to deal with those creepy man gym stares, I prefer to wear next to nothing, I adore this sportswear underwear set from Primark, only 7 euros so, I bought three. The top offers just enough support for light exercise but is also fun to wear in the kitchen while I juice and dance around after. I’ve said it once and twice but I’ll make this the third time, my entire workout wardrobe is from Primark – I genuinely adore their stuff. It’s comfortable but not too tight and like always, super affordable – meaning more money for juicing ingredients and my expensive vitamin habits. Or spend the extra cash on my sit-up bench, available here via amazon.
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