A month ago, I wrote about my quest to vanquish my flabdominals. My daily exercise plan was not overly ambitious but potentially effective.  I’m sure that you are on pins and needles for a flabdominals follow-up. So, how did I do?

I have a six-pack of course!

Or not.  Sigh.

The blame doesn’t lie with the plan or the exercises.  It falls squarely on the execution.

What?  Am I telling you that I didn’t go from never doing ab work outside of exercise classes to doing it on my own, at home, on a daily basis?

Yes, that is exactly what I am telling you.  Sad, but true.

Things started off well.  The series that I had prescribed for myself was challenging but not overly strenuous.  It was quick but I felt like I had accomplished something when I was done.  All good things. 

One bonus benefit that I hadn’t expected was that it required more articulation in my spine than I was in the habit of doing.  Of course I had to engage my abs to do that.

The first five days were a piece of cake!  I was going to be un-flabdominal-ified in no time.  I was adding reps an feeling the exercises more deeply.  I felt like I was standing taller.  My shoulders were more relaxed because my core was more solid and they could relax on top of that.  This was going to be great!

And then…

I don’t know.

The bottom line is that I didn’t accomplish my goal.  All told, out of 28 days, I’m going to say that I did eleven days of abs.  Not even half. 

What now?  I could decide to tell myself that I’m a failure and give up on my quest to vanquish my flabdominals.  Why even bother?  I didn’t do it perfectly the first time.

Or, I could give myself credit for trying and acknowledge the difference that I noticed from just doing a little bit.  Something is not everything but it is more than nothing after all.  I didn’t do everything that I wanted to, but I did something and I noticed the difference.

This next month, I’m going to see if I can double that number.  I know that eleven days of ab exercises make a difference, let’s see what happens.

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I have lovingly referred to my tummy region as my flabdominals for several years now.  I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point, my daily abdominal exercise habit evaporated and the era of flabdominals began.  Up to that point, I had been used to having a toned middle; it was not one of my problem areas that I needed to dress around.  Quickly, I had to learn to dress around the fluff that had invaded my middle.

Currently, I am feeling that I may be at a point with my fitness that I can conquer the flabdominals and reclaim an at-least moderately toned middle region.

And so, I am going to issue a challenge to myself to do 10 minutes of abdominal exercises everyday (in addition to anything that happens in any workout class at the gym) for 30 days.  I don’t want to turn it into a big thing that is going to become another block of time to schedule; I think that I can fit 10 minutes in either in the morning when I get back from the gym or as part of my bedtime routine.  I know that I will see some difference, I’m interested to see how much.  Also, I’m curious to know if it will stick, if I can get my daily ab exercise habit back.

One of my barriers to re-forming a daily ab habit (cough *lame excuse* cough, cough) was deciding what exercises to do.  So, this time, I’m going to set a series that will be my daily go-to.  Afterall, I do like to eliminate that whole having to think business whenever possible.

I think I’m going to go back to good old-fashioned Pilates mat series.  These are the exercises that I kept up for years after college.  Yes, I took Pilates as a class in college, that’s what dance majors do.  It was two units, we had a text book and tests and everything (of course I got an “A”).  The full series takes more than 10 minutes, I’m going to start with just a few.

10 (ish) Minute Ab Series

• Heel lowers (10 reps)
• Pilates 100s
• Roll Up (3-5 reps)
• Roll Over (3-5 reps)
• The Vacation Special (10 of each):
  • Single Leg Stretch
  • Grand Battement
  • Double Leg Stretch
  • Cross Over (Bicycles)
  • Leg Lowers

Do you already have a daily ab habit?  What are some of your go-to ab exercises?  The one you love and/or the one you hate so much but you know it works.

If you don’t have a daily ab habit, do you want to play flabdominal boot camp with me this month?  We can do a check-in at the end of the month (no measurements!) just to see how we did with doing the work, if we noticed any difference, if we are going to keep doing/do more/do better/do less.

Let me know if you want to play along at home!

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