Mean and Evil Cortisol!!! Why you gotta be that way?

Let's look at some sad but very serious facts:

Stress causes weight gain in your tummy area. Fact.

Weddings are stressful. Fact.

All brides are viewed as bridezillas at somepoint. Fact.

We should amputate the Zilla from our vocabularies! True that, Fact!

My cortisol levels have been very high lately, what with petty, snappy and selfish individuals and all that jazz that comes with planning a wedding. It's gotten so bad that I feel like I don't want any of my friends to plan a wedding, because I don't want them to have to go through this stress, and I don't ever want to relive it in any form ever again.

I feel this close to screaming bad advice, like : "...forget marriage, just have babies out of wedlock..." or "...go to Vegas, elope or go to city hall..." and worst case scenario "...hire a planner that will do everything for you and just be happy with everything! Don't have any expectations, don't count on people, don't plan parties or expect to do anything..."

Yup. That just about sums it all up. Pesky, backhanded and sneaky vendors, emotional, confusing families, snappy ignorant and petty people who call themselves your friends... weddings are hell. People just get offended and equally offensive out of nowhere and I just want everyone to take a chill pill--including myself, because it's hard not to get involved in all that drama when technically, you're at the center, and all you want is for everyone to be on board and happy and involved in a stress-free way.

So, since stress is bad for the belly, I was doing some research on how to get rid of the abdominal fat that causes most of those awful health issues (like heart disease and cancer).

Of course, working out in general is the only way to get rid of the fat, but I am of the opinion that it's nice to strengthen your abdomen as well to help shed the pounds since the more/stronger your muscles are, the more fat you burn.

According to the ACE, the best abdominal exercises for the rectus abdominus are :

1. Bicycle maneuver
2. Captain's chair
3. Crunches on exercise ball
4. Vertical leg crunch

The bicycle is easy, it's just the crisscross crunch with your legs up in the air on an angle.

One knee comes in, you cross the opposite elbow in a crunch toward that knee, and reverse (same for the other side; stretch out the leg and bring the other knee in, turn the opposite elbow to meet the knee and repeat).

I had to look up the captain's chair to remember what that was.

My mom's trainer has one in his basement gym, but I would likely have to go to a gym to do that one. I can't think of a way to recreate that equipment unless I had a stable shelf or high enough chair that's cemented to the floor to dangle off of and use to simply pull my knees up to my chest.

The closest thing I can think of that would supplement this activity would be the reverse crunch:



Crunches on an ab ball are pretty straight forward too.

I am lucky to have found this woman's version of these ab exercises on youtube, since she seems to do all of the positions correctly and with great form.



The vertical leg crunch sounded complex, until I realized that it's something I have been doing for ages.




It's popular in pilates and yogalates. It's just a crunch with your legs straight up in the air.


Also, according to the ACE's research, these are the top most effective exercises for your obliques

1. Captain's chair
2. Bicycle maneuver
3. Reverse crunch
4. Hover
5. Vertical leg crunch
6. Crunch on exercise ball

Of course, I believe you could also just take a yoga/yogalates class and get everything all in one great strengthening package, since most of these moves are incorporated into these classes. Too bad I'm not doing any of that stuff anymore.

I really miss my yogalates class--I had the best instructor, ever. My old gym had to cancel the class and I haven't found a decent yogalates instructional tape or Wii program to follow at home in lieu of attending her classes.

As soon as I can create some time, I will search for a replacement to my old awesome class taught by Jocelyn. That woman should partner with Nintendo Wii or with Beach Body to create a series of yogalates classes that people can follow at home.


So that's two things I need to find: Fun and effective Boxing/Boxercise and a decent Yogalates replacement for my personalized at-home fitness center.

Does a soup a Day keep the pounds away?

Wedding stress? Try some wedding soup!

I've been taking a page out of the Hungry Girl diet and souping it up. I've had some home-made soups that I make a cup at a time in the microwave. I haven't followed these particular recipes and I've used organic broth, but I am interested in trying out some of these.

Of course, I do not consider soups a "free" food, like the weight watchers plan would. I count the calories and I think it helps keep the overall diet on track. It helps maintain a healthy mindset and helps me not get too out of control emotions wise.

The Canada Day/long weekend I spent with the fiance set me back a bit. I gained about 3 LBs and we came home only to celebrate his mother's birthday at her house, full of foods with no calorie count.

I guessed and calculated everything on my plate to the best of my ability, but, of course, I can only assume that we went over that day. I ate almost four helpings of broccoli... I think I must have been craving the calcium and iron.

Prepared for the weight-gain outcome, I tried my best to not let it get to me, just accepted the fact that we expected this to happen, and moved on. It could have been way worse and I'm glad that it was only 3-4 pounds, or whatever it was. I have lost most of it since we've got home, so that helps things too.

I came home and jumped back into my workouts and diet routine starting on the Sunday. Just yesterday I did the whole 5 mile workout, which, if you follow the 1 mile walked =100 calories burned measurement, I burned off at least 500 calories :) in workouts in that day alone.

My joints have been killing me lately and I haven't been feeling too good health wise, so I've had to resort to sticking to low-impact workouts.

Sometimes, if I add a little bounce into my workouts, it feels like my knees are about to grind and pop out of their sockets and/or that my leg bone (situated halfway between my knee and my ankle) will snap in half.

When I keep the impact low, it doesn't hurt as much, so... since I'm trying not to be a crazy person anymore, I'm going to stick with what I think is healthier and say "safety first".

I don't know why I am feeling pain like this, but maybe I'm deficient in some minerals or calcium in my diet, especially since I've been losing lately. The soup I try to have regularly should at least help with the cushion around the bones. I haven't been having as much protein as I would like since our trip, but I will try to remedy that when I am well enough to go out grocery shopping.

So far, I've already lost 2 lbs, and I just need to get rid of one more pound to get back to where I was before the trip.

Today I'm not well enough to work out, so I'll take it easy and just try my best to stick to a reasonable program. Hopefully tomorrow or the day after I'll be well enough to do some walking or some sort of physical activity.