Hold:

I've had 3 kids; I empathize with your wife on the belly thing. I don't think my stomach will ever be what it was pre-pregnancy.

OTOH, my trainer is 50, also the mother of 3 kids and has a washboard stomach. I will never look like her, but I've had tremendous success with following her plan of 200 ab crunches a day. Yes, I said a day. She's got a variety of various torture...um I mean...exercise techniques that work every muscle there from upper abs to lower abs to obliques. I started with 50 a day and worked my way up to 200.

OH - I'd love to hear what exercises she's doing for her stomach when you have time.

Hold - Are you where it's cold right now? Just wondering because man - my lower back and a few fingers are really bothering me this year since just after Christmas, when the temperatures really dipped, and I'm wondering if this weather has anything to do with the joint pain. This is the first year (that I can remember) where I'm bothered by the freezing temperatures.

Hold...I also wanted to mention that there are some skin tightening lotions (Nivea?) that may help her if she's interested. The smell isn't wonderful, but it isn't horrible, and it may improve the elasticity.

Be very careful of your delivery, though!!!

To get washboard stomach is not about crunches or a certain exercise, it's fat loss. You can do crunches until the cows come home and not see a thing.

To rev the metabolism and burn tons of calories the best are multijoint movements, ie. the more muscle used over a period of time will burn more than say lifting 20lbs until you can't lift it anymore. That is why I like crossfit. I gives you the routine and challenges you by timing it, so you are taxing yourself when you do it. I literally have an exercise day where the workout lasts 6 minutes and I'm exhausted.

I agree Mud, but it's still different for women. It's not just fat loss. When you have your entire body stretched obscenely out of shape for nine months then rinse and repeat that several times...well muscle tone is just not there.

And it's not really just abs. It's all about having strong back muscles to support those abs, too.

Soolee, I can't explain the various ab crunches here. My trainer has a video on her website and if I can get permission from her (and the mods here) to post a link, I'll do it.

OMG - I just watched a crossfit workout on youtube, and I think I'd probably have a heart attack on the first try. LOL

My trainer takes a lot from crossfit. And body combat, though sometimes that can be a bit boring.

ETA: When I say "crunches", I'm not talking about just sit-ups or standard crunches, though some of those are cycled through there. It's an entire complex routine of small amounts of intense reps focused on a one group of muscles (not your entire abs) and then rotated around side to side, up, down, back, front, etc. That's where the number '200' comes in.

Soolee,

It is tough, but I started by using less weight, less repetitions, and less sets. If you watched the girl and guy doing the thrusters and pull ups, yeah I can do that now in 6:50, but the first time was 19 minutes with less weight. And I really thought I was in good shape before. It challenged/s me so much I now make it a 2-3x/wk thing. They suggest 3 days on 1 day off, but I tried that and it killed me with all the running I do, so I do less now.

OH,

I agree it's gotta be tough on women, no doubt after having kids. It really has to be a goal, but crossfit is so incredible in it's ability to give you a workout that you can do at home under 1 hour. Imagine the freed up time of not having to get ready, drive wait for a machine or whatever then drive home.

There's been days I get up take water and coffe down to my home gym, listen to news warm up, and be done in a total 25 minutes.

I've done triathlons, ultramarathons, adventure racing and I can tell you that NOTHING has given my metabolism a boost like those workouts. I've gone into races (usually place in atleast the top 20% if not 5%) thinking I was in shape and did well, but I am as fast at a 5k race now as I was in HS. That is all from the strength I gained from xfit. I was quite sure my speed days were behind me, but not anymore. Xfit has given me an edge by helping me crosstrain and drop body fat (extra weight in race) giving me the strength and confidence to push.

So, let's say all I have at home are 2.5 pound weights and 5 pounds weights. Maybe I could get one of those bars to do pull ups and put it in a doorway.

I could just keep repeating those two exercises and build on that, and it would speed up my metabolism and help me burn more fat? Would that be considered a very scaled down version of crossfit exercising? Just wondering.

I also have a treadmill.

I am very very opposed to artificial sweeteners. Yes, I consider the things I make with Real Sugar and Real Butter to be way healthier than less-sweetened, low-fat cookies, and the sugar-free yogurt the in-laws buy. It takes less to fill you up, too.

Fortunately H feels the same way I do about Real Sugar and Real Butter (and Extra Virgin Olive Oil! Can't forget the EVOO!) - except the amounts. He uses way less. but weighs more.

Diet and exercise talk always fascinates me because my dad is an exercise and wellness physiologist. He has seen lots of fads and fashions come and go for decades, but the same ideas always hold true:

Burn more calories than you eat; or eat less calories than you burn
Keep the metabolism going - diet without exercise is asking for more fat after the "diet" is over
Fat content matters
Cardio is king
Weights build strength and endurance - if you want bulk, go for less reps and more weight; if you want linear build - go for less weight and more reps
Never - never - cut out an entire food group
Ant diet that uses a drastic change in body chemistry to give you quick results is asking for trouble

One of the best nutritional diets is the one recommended for diabetics.

I followed the above several years ago, and I lost 35 pounds and kept it off for quite awhile - until I began evil bipolar meds and stopped walking (it was a trigger for H)

Yes it would be scaled down!!!!!!!! Very good!!!!!!

And it would work!!!!!!!!

If you get on their site and click on the message board then hit (I think exercises or WOD) highlighted on the top will say body weight WOD or work outs of the day. This is body weight exercises using pushups, pullups, dips (chair), body squats, lunges, burpees, jumps, jump rope, sit ups and back extensions.

The whole idea of the crossfit is to never do the same workout with in an 18 day period. It doesn't let your body adapt.

Ex: if you did 15 pushups today then tomorrow and on and on, you would find that eventually you could do 100 in a row with no problem, but your body would adapt and it would be "easy" for your body to do those 15 pushups say 1 year from now.

A typical body weight day:
5 rounds for time of:
25 squats
15 pushups
20 sit ups
20 back extentions

You do this without rest- just keep going as fast as poss from the squats all the way to back ext. then start another round. Doing this with rest would be easy, but for time it kills.

The next day will be:
3 rounds of:
20 pull ups
100 jump ropes
10 lunges each leg

Now if you can't do a pull up, you put a chair under it and jump so your chin goes over it, then lower slowly. After doing this for awhile you'll be able to do pull ups!

I have my sister doing these body weight wod (apparently she's gained a lot) and I'm training my nephew to run faster.

l2,

Your dad is exactly right!

My parents do these ridiculous 90 day plans and they work. My W and I live those 90 day plans yearly though.

It's not rocket science, it has to be turned into a life style.

I'll argue for and against cardio and weights though. I've learned in the last year by experience. Also I eat more fat than I use to and I keep getting leaner.

For those engineers and other techies/science-minded folks, I highly recommend reading The Hacker's Diet.

It's almost as simple as "Burn more calories than you consume." The monkey wrench is that your metabolism can change. The Hacker's Diet discusses the ever-dreaded "plateau" in terms of needing to reset the "set point", the weight which your body tries to maintain through metabolism rates, cravings, etc.

I'm using agave nectar, and vegan 'butter'. Both natural plant-based foods. Interesting side convo re the Bible: this is my third week of vegan eating, and our pastor read something from Genesis where God said that he gave Adam and Eve all of the plants that bear seed and all of the fruits that bear seed for them to eat. I commented that God meant for us to be vegan. H said that he gave us animals to eat, too, so we looked it up and God (finally) gave us animals as food at the time of the flood. I just thought that was interesting.

My biological parents are both Seventh Day adventists. They have both stated that if we held to all the Old Testament rules of eating, we would be healthier. I am not one who does that, but I can see how it could be true. (I confess I can't imagine life without bacon or shrimp!)

All I can say about eating vegan is that I feel AMAZING. Alert, energetic, just great all over. But I had the flu for two weeks prior, so my perspective might be skewed.

Another way to do pullups:

Take two folding chairs. Position them about 18" apart. Put a dowel over the chair part. (you need someone to hold the dowel now). Having someone hold the ends of dowel secure, lay on your back, grip the bar in pull-up postion and lift your shoulders and upper back off the floor and your chin over the bar.

It sounds easy but it's very difficult.

Themud: Sometimes I wonder about just ditching the gym. I don't have a home gym but see example above..between all the home-made examples (hurdles, ladders, chairs, dowels, etc.,), I can fashion a pretty good "bowflex"! But I love to spin...I ride my bike outside in the good weather but I love not wearing a helmet and having my bike workout set to music occasionally too...why I love to spin. I enjoy the pool (don't have one of those at home..). And I really like Pilates classes. The 'mat' style Pilates...I know enough to do at home. But my gym has all the big equipment too.

So if I gave up the gym, I'd have to find another place to do those things when the urge hit.