Hey everyone! I want to say thanks for all the welcome back messages. I’m really glad to be back in the blogging world. It really is such a great community. I also want to give one last thanks to all who did a guest post for me. I appreciated it immensely.

So, how is everyone surviving their Tuesdays? I am making it through mine the best I can. For some reason I am exhausted today and it doesn’t help that I have to be cooped up all day. I have no car to drive thanks to Peter’s car going bust and having to give mine up to the hubs. I hate not being able to get out of the house! Don’t worry though. I will be at the gym for a weights + light cardio session venting some of that frustration as you all are reading this. 😉

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Today I wanted to discuss something that I thought about a lot during my vacation. Vacations should be a time to relax and enjoy yourself, but sometimes they can cause anxiety. I’ve been there in years past. I would be nervous about the time I would be taking off from workouts, fearful of gaining weight from eating different foods, and anxious over how I looked in my bathing suit. I would let such things affect my trip and limit the fun of the vacation. Luckily in the past year or two I have let such things slide and changed my vacationing ways from stressful to peaceful. How did these changes happen? Through a few changes in how I approached vacation. A different mindset really can change everything...

1. Recognize that the informal activity that happens during vacation is worthy. I may not have visited a gym on my vacations, but I do not doubt that playing with a toddler, going on walks, and climbing 20 flights of stairs at the lighthouse we visited kept me moving.

If you think about your daily activity on vacation, I expect you would find many ways you are being active. At the beach you may take strolls in the sand; touring a town you will be walking the streets to visit new sights; and even on a family trip you can find yourself playing with kiddo relatives, which is nonstop activity. Even if you aren’t doing your typical 5 mile run or hour Bodypump class, you are still doing something. And it counts! Don’t forget that. Decide to enjoy the new ways you will be moving your body. And if your traditional workouts fit into your trip, that is great. Just be sure not to fret over getting them done.

2. Find balance with food. Just because you are on vacation doesn’t mean you need to overeat every meal and eat copious amounts of sweets, fried food, and heavy meals. If you’re anything like me, that will just leave you feeling ill. Try to find a balance by choosing foods you really desire and enjoy, then filling in the rest with more nutritious items. For example, on my vacations I generally tend to indulge a bit at dinners with richer items like clam chowders or fried shrimp that I really enjoy. However, at lunches I will opt for fresh fruit + veggies; I will skip any sort of dessert most days; or I will be sure to choose healthier sides like salads, plain potatoes, or veggies. That leaves me feeling good, but also satisfied.

3. Take care of your health. Yes, we all want to look cute in our sundresses and rock our swimsuits, but health should always be #1. Even on vacation. Don’t try to cram in a long run in sweltering temperatures for the sake of it “helping you look hotter on the beach the next day”. Focus more on taking care of yourself. Be sure to drink plenty of water to hydrate you for your daily activity. Get enough sleep to keep your body functioning optimally.

Keep your skin protected from the sun so you aren’t in agony from sunburn the rest of your trip. Have fun and laugh for mental health.

4. Enjoy the rest and the break from the norm. R&R will likely do your body GOOD. Our bodies need regular breaks from exercise and the routines we put it through. It will give us a chance to recuperate energy stores and leave us more rejuvenated for after the vacation. From personal experience, no vacation has ever left me with loads of weight gain or a loss of fitness. After a week or two back to my normal routine, things had regulated themselves and I was usually better off from the break thanks to extra energy and motivation for my healthy living. Rest may be a four letter word, but not in the negative sense. Live it up! Or I guess I should say, don’t live it up. Chill.

[Source]

5. Focus on your surroundings. When you pay attention to the beauty around you, whether in the form of a gorgeous view or the people you are with, it truly shows you how insignificant your worries on the calorie count of the dinner rolls are. There is too much beauty in this world that we allow to pass by us without even noticing because we are too caught up in our own insecurities, troubles, thoughts, lives. Vacation is a time to put those things aside. Take a real look at that sunset or the smile on your friend’s face as she laughs with you over lunch. It is way more rewarding.

(View from Beach)                                                                 (Shot from Lunch with Julie)

• Does vacation ever stress you out? Why?
• How do you try to approach vacation with balance and to enjoy it fully?

Six-pack abs. They are kind of like the lost city of Atlantis, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or a winning lottery ticket. Awesome to find, but not exactly the most realistic thing to pursue. Talk of having beautiful abs is all over the place. There are books devoted to the midsection, magazine articles to help you get abs by Friday, infomercials for ways to achieve the perfect stomach, talk in the locker room about the wish for abs, and even a prevalence of posts in our beloved Bloggerville about getting great abs.

[Source 1, Source 2, Source 3]

Before I go further, I want to clarify one thing. When I say “abs”, I am discussing very defined abs. Like no pooches visible, very lean with obvious musculature, the six-pack (or even four-pack) look, if you will. Something along the lines of the picture on the left. A flat stomach with some definition (similar to the photo on the right), in my opinion, is very different and does not fully apply to the things I will be discussing.

[Source 1, Source 2]

I will admit the abs on the left are nice. Maggie Diubaldo has a fantastic set of abs and I wouldn’t mind having them. But when I consider the reality of abs like those, the questions start to rise. Is it even worth it and how realistic is it? There are quite a few points to consider.

1. It is very difficult to maintain. A lot of things have to happen in order to achieve abs like the ones above. There is no doubt an extreme amount of dedication goes into it. It is likely that some years of tough workouts and a very “clean” diet would be involved. It would have to be your lifestyle. It couldn’t be something where you eat a very healthy diet during the week and then are able to have some treats on the weekend. You would be eating those lean proteins, fruits, veggies, and whole grains day in and day out with extremely limited or no treats for a long time with a fair amount of time spent in consistent workouts as well. For some, a lifestyle like that works. But for many, we have other facets of our lives and have certain foods we enjoy and don’t want to give up for life. I had abs for awhile last year during my competition prep.

Even at 14% body fat, they didn’t look like what you see on a fitness model and I knew the way I was living during prep wasn’t something I could (or would even want) to maintain. Some things aren’t worth it and I realized it doesn’t make me any less worthy to not have that stomach.

2. Unhealthy low body fat levels. In order for abs to be visible on a woman she would have to reach a body fat level of around 12%. Athletes have an average body fat percentage of 14-20% and the average woman has a percentage of 22-26%, which is NOT bad. In fact, low levels, such as the approximate 12% for six-pack abs, can be detrimental to your health. Issues ranging from fatigue to menstrual issues to low bone density are common when living at such a low body fat level. Personally, I would rather be healthy on the inside with energy, the option to bear children, and the ability to walk when I’m 50. Not worth sacrificing those things to have abs.

3. Genetics. You could work you butt off in the gym, diet like crazy, achieve the required level of leanness and STILL not have abs like you see in fitness magazines. Some women have more predominant abdominal muscles that will stick out and show up more readily when they lean out. Others will end up with a flatter stomach and may not have the clear sections of the abdominal wall show through.

4. Even models don’t keep their abs year round. I’ve already talked about airbrushing before on the blog and you have to be wary that what you see in magazines could be “refinished” to help the look along. Also, when women work towards a photo shoot or fitness competition they have a specific date set and work hard for it. They lean down for the event and then go back to more real life living. That doesn’t mean they don’t look amazing other times of the year, but it is likely their midsections aren’t quite as defined 24/7/365 like you think they are. Think about it. How often do you see women at the pool, beach, gym locker room, etc with perfect abs? Pretty rarely. And the ones you do see, I would bet 90% of them have one of the first three things affecting them.

So where does that leave us now? That doesn’t mean you need to forget about working hard in the gym, eating a healthy diet, and training your abdominals. It does mean trying to achieve abs as a goal may not be the best thing to pursue. It means do workouts you enjoy, eat a balanced diet, and live well for your health and not your appearance. Go ahead and incorporate any plethora of tips out there on abs – such as a balanced eating style, adding planks to your ab moves, engaging your abs in all your movements, doing cardio, etc. because those things will help you achieve a flatter, more defined, fit and healthy looking  stomach. Just don’t expect them to be a magic prescription to give you the perfect six pack for the rest of your life.