All about that bass

So for the last two days I've been doing these ab exercises designed especially for post-pregnancy ladies whose tummies are now in such a state that they can accidentally hit the emergency stop button on the treadmill hands free (if they were actually on the treadmill in the first place; which is why this has only happened to me once).

Based upon my cursory Googling, I am supposed to be working the ab muscles deep deeeeep inside, as opposed to the ones on the outside that you work while you do crunches.  This explains why crunches haven't been working (or wouldn't be working even if I had been doing crunches instead of eating pumpkin bars which I have not).

The first one has you lie on your back, bend your knees into a "V", and fall asleep do mini pelvic tilts while holding "your belly button against your spine." I'm no anatomy expert, but I am almost certain that there are a number of important organs between my belly button and spine (except for my liver, which I left in Napa). Nevertheless, I attempted to pull my belly button back to my spine using my abdominal muscles and did ten mini pelvic tilts, as instructed by YouTube.

Fortunately Ryan was at men's choir because it really looked like I had been drinking and could not get off the floor.

And you guys. It looks like you are barely moving. But those "inner ab muscles"? Are VERY BADLY OUT OF SHAPE because I have been keenly aware of those very muscles ever since.

And if I get fatigued from "mini pelvic tilts" then I am beginning to understand why my stomach continues to look like a melted round of brie fourteen months after delivery.

The next exercise was slightly more vigorous. You still lie on your back but this time I had to "march my legs" one at a time, also while holding my belly button to my spine. I call this one Cockroach: Stranded Upsidedown.

For a slightly more vigorous version of this move, for those of us who want to feel the burn, and not the kind of burn you feel when you are getting a pan of pumpkin bars out of the oven and a three year old runs at full speed into your butt, you are supposed to put your arms over your head (recall that you are still lying on the ground) while you move your legs and holding your belly button against your spine. So now you no longer look like a cockroach, you look like a kidnapping victim in a horror movie.

I feel comfortable committing to this plan, which is basically to spend five minutes a day lying on the ground sucking it in like an undergrad "studying" on the quad. And I will let you know how it goes. I am not hoping for Maria Kang level abs. I am hoping for something more nebulous like normal Gap jeans will button without cutting me weird and making me look like a trucker. Simple.