post script on belly issue

Post Script for previous post:

I forgot to mention an important tidbit about the stomach muscles involved in my post below.  Draw in your belly button toward your spine.  The muscles you needed to do that?  It is those that need strengthening, in order to flatten your belly and shape your waist. One article I found indicated that to make a difference, one has to do that sucking in motion in 5 sets of one hundred repetitions--per day!  Plus, we can't keep getting out of bed improperly!  Roll to the side, and then get up and out of bed--like you did during pregnancy.  Get in the same way.

I hope all this doesn't depress you!  It does depress me, but at least I know I can improve my situation over time.

My babies are well worth this problem, and worse things, of course. At least I can make it to the potty without leaking.  I count myself fortunate, when I read articles about that!

By the way, sucking in the belly button also works your pelvic-floor muscles, which help with urinary inconstancy.

Does your tummy look like mine?

This spring has me totally exasperated with my wardrobe!

Okay.......that's not quite right.

A more accurate way of putting it?  This spring I'm exasperated with my stomach!  Oh, the bother!  Even though my post-baby weight is down to 110 pounds, my stomach looks three to four months pregnant at the end of every day.  Why, 16 months post-natal, would I experience this?

After baby number two, my abdominal muscles separated--a condition called diastasis recti.  I first saw this term on a few blogs this year, but I didn't pay enough attention to it.  When it became obvious that clothes weren't going to hide my hard, round, bubble belly, I started researching.

If you've had more than two babies, or if your stomach muscles were weak before you got pregnant, you probably have this condition to some extent.  If you lie down flat and lift your head up, as if to do a crunch, can you feel a vertical muscle separation (greater than two finger widths)?  Or does a bit of your tummy pop up, in a vertical line? If so, you have this.  The good news?  Most cases can be corrected without surgery.

I'm actually less happy with my stomach now than I was a year ago.  I've made it worse, people!  Yes, each time I get out of bed using my stomach muscles in a way that causes them to push out, I make the abdominal muscle separation worse.  Over time, from getting in and out of bed improperly, and because I've ignorantly done some sessions of regular crunches, my stomach is less flat!

I knew something had to change when I noticed a couple people peeking down at my stomach recently.  Oh, the embarrassment!  My mind wandered to my sixties.  Would I have a significant bulge by then (like a five or six months-pregnant bubble), the way older women often do?  The answer is yes.....if I don't do something about this!  Unfortunately, in addition to embarrassment, back pain will eventually appear, as a result of the worsening separation.

I don't know about you, but I find it shocking that OB-GYN's seem to know nothing about this, or if they do know, they don't think it important enough to address.  They don't even bother giving a caveat about regular abdominal exercises!  Grrr!

Read a more technical explanation, and learn the proper exercises needed to correct it, here and here and here, or search using the term "diastasis recti".

writing helps

Here is an outstanding article on teaching writing, complete with lots of helpful links.  Very comprehensive and well-researched!

clap your hands

While reading this Psalm (47), I had to laugh.  It reads like a move-your-body, clap-your-hands kind of worship song.  To think that some churches allow only hymns!  My spirit lives for this!

Hymns? I love some of them (How Great Thou Art), but others put me to sleep.  See the U-tube below of "How Great Thou Art" with Max Lucado's words in the nature-inspired background, from his book "No Wonder They Call Him Savior".  It's six minutes long.  Six minutes well spent, I assure you!  Scroll down below this post.

As I type this, violent thunder and roaring rain liven up the night, as though obeying the "clap your hands" command in my Psalm.

Psalm 47

Clap your hands, all you
nations;
shout to God with cries of
joy
How awesome is the Lord
Most High,
the great King over all the
earth!
He subdued nations under
us,
peoples under our feet.
He chose our inheritance for
us,
the pride of Jacob, whom he
loved.


God has ascended amid shouts
of joy,
the Lord amid the sounding
of trumpets.
Sing praises to God, sing
praises;
sing praises to our King, sing
praises.

For God is the King of all the
earth;
sing to him a psalm of
praise.
God reigns over the nations;
God is seated on his holy
throne.
The nobles of the nations
assemble
as the people of the God of
Abraham,
for the kings of the earth
belong to God;
he is greatly exalted.



Good night, friends!  You know that laundry pile?  Still there, I'm afraid.  I'm off to make another dent in it.

I also want to leave you with this very thoughtful post by Kristin, from We Are That Family.  What a reminder of how we should love our husbands!

How Great Thou Art