This Means War

For years I've been what you could call "physically fit". I'm always within my "desired" weight range (I really have no idea, I'm going off charts from various doctor's offices throughout my young adult life) and for the most part I've got some nice arm and leg muscles. I like my arm and leg muscles, pretty much I like everything on my body. Except for one thing.

My stomach.

Now, I know there are thousands of women out there who hate their flabby bellies, whether their bellies deserve the hatred or not. My belly is probably one of those innocents who, if it were actually alive and animated, would look up at me and go "Wha'd I do?"

Well, I would retort, you're not as muscular as I'd like you to be. The arms have fallen in line. My legs have fallen in line, hell, by now I've got muscles at the bottom of my legs I didn't even know existed. Everything has definition except for my abs. Well, I'm sure my abs have definition, it's just that there's a layer of fat that covers it.

A layer of fat that vexes me. It vexes me even more to know that I could do stomach crunches from here until eternity and it wouldn't make a difference. My fat doesn't come from an unhealthy diet, it comes from something far, far worse: genetics.

Not that I hate my genetics. By god my parents made some beautiful kids. It's just that my dad passed on his belly to me. I know I get it from my dad because I've seen my mom's belly and after a certain number of still youthful looking years and three kids it's flatter than a pancake. However, I seem to be in the constant state of a second month of pregnancy, three months when I eat something.

Despite the fact that I know it's genetics and there's really nothing I can do I still try. Try anything that will burn the fat off. At one point earlier this summer I was doing an hour and a half of cardio and my weight only went down two pounds and my stomach didn't get any flatter. I could use it as an excuse to not work myself so hard but I just can't seem to get it out of my head that my stomach has beat me. So, every few weeks I will declare war on my jelly belly, do some crunches, do some hard cardio, and after a few weeks of that I'll drop the crunches altogether and just stick with the cardio and free weights. I guess when it comes to my belly I'm George W. Bush. It will yield to me, I swear it will!