Tracy Weight Loss

Get rid of words like “quick”, “easy” and “fast” from your weight loss vocabulary. Losing body fat is slow, hard and takes a lot of months.
Hopefully you’re not thinking that you can lose the most stubborn last 5 pounds tummy fat…over the week-end?
Some try for months and years until they finally give up (because they NEED their little tummy, they just don’t know that but their body does).

The way your body stores fat is genetic and also according to gender…age…stress level. Teenagers and menopause people get more belly fat because of hormonal issues (adipose tissue is an important endocrine system). Stressed people get more belly fat too (according to some studies). In general, when you’re thin, the body likes to start storing the fat reserves next to the digestive system, for practical reason, so you get belly fat first. People who are overweight or obese and then lose weight get frustrated when they cannot get rid of their belly fat (first one in, last one out system so they’d need to get really skinny to lose it). Men tend to get the unhealthy visceral fat (around internal organs that smother them) while women tend to get the subcutaneous fat (under the skin) not only in the belly, but the thighs, buttocks, breasts…Adipose tissue (body fat), not only provides hormones and is a fat reserve for energy need and to feed the brain, but also provides insulation for the body (against cold or hot temperatures) and cushioning for the digestive and reproductive system. You have your rib cage to protect your heart, lungs and liver but you have no ribs to protect your intestines and reproductive system…so you get cushioning from fat reserves and your body does not care if you live in a time and place where belly fat goes against beauty criteria. And of course, in a car accident, broken ribs can pierce the lungs and kill you, that is not much of a protection there, but the human body was never meant to drive a car and crash (use a seatbelt).

Make sure you follow proper form for your “bunch of crunches” so as not to get protruding muscles but flat ones.
Women do not get “big abs” when doing crunches, which are pretty small muscles. But you can get protruding ones with bad form (or just bad posture all day long).

The proper form when doing regular crunches (while using an ab exercise bar…see link) is doing those on the floor. You keep your knees comfortably bent and your feet on the floor. You gently press your lower back flat onto the floor the whole time…this is very important for good form, you have to tilt your pelvis up to achieve that (when your pelvis goes up, you lower back goes down). Then you have to keep your belly in, like pull your belly button towards your spine and contract your abdominal muscles. Then you have to curl up but not too high…the proper movement is to get high enough to lift the shoulder blades off the floor and then get back down until the shoulder blades barely touch the floor (do not completely lie down) and then you go back up again.

A good tempo for regular crunches is 3 seconds up, 3 seconds down (real seconds, not just counting).

Now…you also need reverse crunches for the lower part of the abs. Again, keep your lower back pressed flat onto the floor the whole time (and keep your belly in) but now your lower body is moving instead of your upper body. You keep your legs at a 90 degree angle (lower leg bent at a 90 degree angle with the thigh…right angle at the knee at all time) so your feet are not on the floor but up, with your thighs perpendicular to the floor. Then bring your knees to your chest and then back to the starting position (so the thighs are perpendicular to the floor again). The whole time, hold your head slightly with your hands (you don’t need the ab bar for that one as you’re not moving your upper body, just maintaining your head and shoulder blades off the floor.

A good tempo for regular crunches is 2 seconds up, 2 seconds down (real seconds, not just counting).

For your other question in your additional details about your trouble sleeping (trying to get two questions for the price of one? Haha), I’ll need to use my secondary account as I’m running out of space here (under 5,000 characters).

(End of my answer coming up next…)