Apr 19 2012
Ab Workout – What Makes You Beautiful?
What makes you beautiful? Your eyes? Your legs? Your abs? Or is it something deeper?
For me, what makes me beautiful is that I am a mother of a teenager, but I have found my way to abs through discipline, hard work and consistency.
It’s not the abs that make me beautiful, it’s the hard work and discipline that I know it took to get them. It’s the feeling of accomplishment, success and being proud of myself. That’s what makes me beautiful and I want to inspire you to feel the same way about yourself.
You don’t need any equipment for this workout. It’s just you and the floor. You have what you need. Now create the will within yourself to do it. I can show you how, I can motivate you and I can show you it’s possible through my own example. You are the one who actually has to do it for yourself.
Remember that no matter how hard you work out, you cannot undue your nutritional choices through exercise. It is not calories in and calories out.
When you choose foods that aren’t optimal, you cannot undue the chemical changes that happen within your body with exercise. Remember chemistry from school? Remember watching chemical changes take place in lab class? There are chemical changes that happen in your body when you eat and drink.
Exercise doesn’t undue those chemical changes. If you want abs you need to fuel your body properly with exercise and diet. Hydration, adequate rest, and a positive outlook all help too. It’s a complete lifestyle.
xoxo ~ Cori
Ab Workout – What Makes You Beautiful?
Ab Workout – What Makes You Beautiful?
SONG: One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful
SONG: One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful
Workout Breakdown
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Time: Personal Best! As long as it takes. |
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Workout Type: Rep challenge. |
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Workout Exercises: 4. |
Get your gear:
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No gear needed. Just your own body and a decision to get it done. |
Buy the same nutrition products as me:
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PROTEIN Get your protein here |
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SUPER GREENS Get your super greens here |
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Peanut Butter Get your PB2 here |
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EGG WHITES Get your egg whites here |
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Tea Get your tea here |
Ab Workout – What Makes You Beautiful?
4 exercises. 20 reps of each. Beginners can go through just once. If you’re more advanced I want you to repeat each set before you move on. I go through a total of 4 rounds and my abs felt awesome. It took me just about 20 minutes to get through it 4 times.
Remember to post your scores! I want to know how you did! Keep track of your workouts so you know when you’re making progress!
Warm Up:
Always warm up with a dynamic warm up before any workout!
Reverse Crunches with Legs Straight:
20 – 20 – 20 – 20
Lay on the ground. Keep your legs straight, lower them until they hover over the ground, then lift them toward the ceiling. Lift your bum off the ground as high as you can, even if that’s only a quarter of an inch, and squeeze your abs tight.
Reverse Crunches with Knees Bent:
20 – 20 – 20 – 20
Lay on the ground. Keeping your knees bent, lower your legs until your toes hover above the ground, then lift your knees toward the ceiling. Lift your bum off the ground as high as you can, again, even if that’s only a quarter of an inch, and squeeze your abs tight.
V-Sit (Modified with Knees Bent):
20 – 20 – 20 – 20
Keep your abs tight and squeeze it all in. Keep your chest up as you bring your knees in. Keep your back long and tall. Just starting out? Place your hands on the ground back behind your bum. Ready to go more advanced? Try moving your hands forward, reaching out on the ground past your bum. Want to go even more advanced? Lift your hands up and reach out in front of you the entire time.
Single Leg Climbs or Single Toe Touch V-Sit:
20 – 20 – 20 – 20 right
20 – 20 – 20 – 20 left
Just starting out? Try the leg climb. Are you advanced? Try the Single Toe Touch V-Sit. They are the same movement, just different variations designed for different ability levels. Both are single leg, so you have one leg bent and firmly planted into the ground the whole time. With leg climbs, you simply climb your leg and try to tap your toe and the top. You allow your leg to assist you up. With the toe touch v-sit, you do the same movement without climbing your leg. Try to touch your toe at the top and really squeeze your abs tight, drawing them in.
You don’t need any equipment. You just need your own body and the ground. Make a decision to do it. Abs don’t come easy. It’s the hard work and the feeling of accomplishment that makes you feel proud of yourself and beautiful once you have reached your goal. I have to put in the work to make it happen. My work here is done, now it’s your turn.
Post your time! Post how many sets you got through! Try to come up with a way to make the exercises even more challenging! Try to have better form than me!
Follow Through
I like to post something about cardio and nutrition at the end of every post because it is important.
Cardio and nutrition are going to be two of the most important parts of achieving your results, no matter what what your goal is. You can not work off your nutritional decisions with exercise. What? You can’t eat a donut, then just do 2 hours of cardio and *poof* it will be like it never happened? That’s what I’m saying. Come on. No. You can’t.
Your body doesn’t work like a simple addition or subtraction problem. It is not calories in vs. calories out. What you eat has a chemical effect on your body. Even if you do cardio to ‘burn it off’ the chemical effect is still present. Different sugars have an affect. Different proteins have an effect. Different fats have an effect. When you take a vitamin, you understand that it has an effect in your body that cardio will not ‘work off,’ right? Food works the same way. Different foods have positive and negative chemical effects within our body. You can’t just work them off.
You have to unlock and unleash the body fat by working with your body in every aspect. Your body works in harmony like a symphony. When one instrument is off, the entire song doesn’t sound right. A good steady drumbeat can’t make up for a guitar that’s out of tune. 2 hours of cardio cannot make up for a donut. Or pizza. Or macaroni and cheese. Or wine and a baguette. Got it?
Cardio
I do a minimum of 45 minutes of stairs with intervals as cardio each and every day. When I’m trying to lose fat I usually do two separate 45 minute cardio sessions a day. Even while I have been recuperating from the car crash, I have still been able to do at least one session of my daily cardio. I love my cardio and I like to stay conditioned. I personally prefer to do a little more cardio than the average figure competitor, then also eat a little more. It takes more time and effort, but I feel the pay off is well worth it. The pay off is that I feel awesome. I feel energized by cardio. I love it.
Post Workout Nutrition
When I was trying to gain muscle I finished every workout with a protein shake, animal protein, and some complex and simple carbs. These are healthy choices for gaining or for performance. These are not the right choices for me for trying to lose fat, define and sculpt muscle. Trying to define and sculpt muscle is different from gaining muscle. This means I need to eat something different.
When I am trying to lose fat and sculpt muscle, I am much more strict with my diet. Only true food sources. No protein powder.
I finish up every workout with lean protein from true food sources (a little red meat, white chicken, white fish and egg whites are best) and some dark green veggies or Super Greens mixed with water only. Again, no protein powder. If you are a vegetarian you would most likely need to supplement with protein powder. If you are not, let me say again that true food sources work best for losing body fat.
Even when I am trying to lose fat, I still FEED my body.
Want more information about nutrition? Check out BPM.tv Nutrition 101.
You can also look at my current personal fat loss diet in order to get ideas on how to develop your own nutrition plan.
Cori Ann’s Prepping Fat Loss Diet:
You can click on the link to my fat loss diet to get details about what works for me, but here is the basic breakdown.
This is my meal plan while I am trying to lose fat and define muscle. My carbohydrates come from complex sources only and are kept to about 100 grams per day.
My sugar is kept at about 18 grams per day. That’s it. That is less than what is in one banana. That means fruit is not in my fat loss nutrition plan. My sugars come from minimal amounts that naturally occur in veggies and in the complex carbs I eat each day. No matter what your goal, I highly recommend you watch your sugar intake, even ‘healthy’ sugar like fruit, and moderate it to a minimum based on your own personal goals.
My protein is kept at about 250 grams per day and comes from high quality, organic, free range (or wild) lean animal sources. My fats are kept at about 40 grams per day and come from my protein and complex carbohydrate choices (not additional plant sources like olive oil, coconut, nuts, or avocado).
That equals about 1800 calories per day. I don’t drop it much lower than that.
I eat natural, organic, whole foods that I cook myself, or if possible I eat them raw. I drink 1 to 2 gallons of water and a couple cups of either coffee or tea. There is no mysterious, magical diet. If you want to lose bodyfat you need to eat a fair amount of lean protein and A LOT of green veggies at every meal. Period.
Did you like this post? Tell me in the comments!
Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments. Don’t be shy! Your comments may help to inspire another. Your questions may help someone else who has the exact same question, but is too shy to ask. I love hearing from you!
Try to come up with a way to make the exercises even more challenging! Try to have better form than me! Let’s inspire each other.
May 07, 2012 @ 22:05:39
Hi Cori!! Yesterday I found one of your videos online, I didn’t write down your website as I was trying to get my one year old to fall asleep. Today when I woke up I made it a mission to find your website, all I remember from the exercise video was two frisbees. I typed in, intense leg workout with frisbees. And voila there you where!!
It only took me an hour to locate your website by you should of seen the joy in my face! I had a baby a year ago, before that I was a total gym rat! Worked out six days a week, I love interval training. In my early teens I was extremely overweight, about 220. One day I woke up and said I don’t want to be fat anymore! Ate extremely clean and walked everyday for 5 miles….the weight melted off!!
Fast forward a couple years I became a lean machine, 5’9 and 140lbs! I loved working out and feeling strong. Before I had my baby I said to myself, as soon as his baby is born I’m getting back into the gym! Well as you may know, it’s really hard having any energy to do anything, all is wanted to do while the baby slept is sleep!
He recently turned one, here Iam 195lbs later….feeling hopeless and like I never have time to workout. I know I need to make time for myself. I started eating clean Bout 2 months ago, started running and strength training 5 days a week. I lost about 10lbs!!!
However my kid was sick for the past three weeks and I didn’t work out one bit, and have to admit I wasn’t making good eating choices. Yesterday I got on the scale and was scared to death to look, lost two pounds. But I know all of that was muscle that I gained. My bum is now saggy and I feel giggly all over. All that hard work and dedication for nothing.
It’s difficult for me to get motivated and for the life of me I don’t know why. My iPod is full with all my “workout” music, have weights, medicine ball, resistance ropes, mat, medicine ball, and an awesome true treadmill my hubby recently bought me. I still have ALL my pre pregnancy clothes hoping to one day fit into my favorite skinny jeans.
Your website and you have inspired me a great deal. My birthday is next month on the 6th and I want to make it a goal to eat healthy and work out six days a week. I don’t have a number of pounds in my head that I want to lose, one is better than none.
Before my kid for sick I would eat five mels a day. Breakfast: Either cottage cheese or two hard boiled eggs, fruit, one slice of toast. Snack: string cheese and one apple. Lunch: lean protein, greens, and some starchy carbs. Snack: Greek yogurt with berries, string cheese. Dinner: lean protein, starchy carbs and greens.
I would workout around eight at night, after that I’d have a cup of cottage cheese with a little bit of honey. Throughout the day I would drink 8 16oz bottles of water. Do you have any advice for me? This is an awesome thing you are doing, you are changing lives. At this very moment you changed mine.
May 18, 2012 @ 11:09:03
Hi Dalia. OK so here goes. A bit of tough love and a bit of soft and easy love.
Tough love first: Take a MUCH harder look at your diet and at your perspective. You said, “All that hard work for nothing.” Is that really accurate? All that hard work helped you to get that much further ahead, so you would be able to have some leeway when your child became ill. The hard work is NEVER for nothing. You will have ups and downs, but the hard work will always put you further ahead.
The diet. I would highly recommend you check out some of my food and diet posts. Your sugar sounds like it’s actually pretty high for a goal of body fat loss. Yes, it’s all “healthy” sugar from fruit, dairy (lactose is sugar), starchy carbs, bread and so on. No, it’s not refined sugar in soda and candies. But it is STILL sugar and that may be one of the things hindering your progress. From what you say above, you’re including one or two fast acting carbs and starchy carbs in each meal. That MAY work for you, but I am just recommending you really take a hard look at it and really listen to what your body is telling you.
I personally can’t do that and get results. I have to do almost all slow acting carbs or veggie carbs. I would never do honey if I was trying to drop body fat. I personally can’t even include fruit or dairy when I’m trying to drop body fat and see results, but that is just ME. What works for me might not work for you, but it is important to be real about your diet. Check out my own personal fat cutting diet (http://bpm.tv/diet/cori-anns-prepping-fat-loss-diet) and let it give you some ideas on how to develop a diet personalized for YOU.
OK now for the soft and easy love. Cut yourself some slack! I know it is way easier said than done, but give yourself some patience. Just like when your child first learned to walk… There were some bumps, bruises, sometimes I’m sure your baby would just get down on the floor and revert back to crawling because it was easier and faster.
That’s how we learn. We try something new. We fall. We revert back. We try again. We fall again. We revert back again, but we most likely got one step closer. It’s not going to be a straight path of success. Allow yourself to be comfortable in your own skin right now, even though you’re not where you want to be. Allow yourself to be OK with being 195 lbs even though it’s really hard to admit that’s where you are. I know. I was 197 at one point.
Take before pictures. You can hide them and be the only one who sees them, but chart your progress. You may feel like you’re taking 1 step forward and 2 steps back, but when you look at your progress over time it will be hard to dispute. You WILL see your progress and it will motivate you to keep going even after those tough times when your baby gets sick again, or you have to take care of an aging parent, or you have to work more, or whatever struggles come into play.
It’s going to be hard. It’s probably going to take about a year. Be in it for longevity. Be in it for the journey. Be in it for the ups and the downs. That’s how you get there.
Good luck! Keep me updated!
Jun 26, 2012 @ 04:47:53
Hi Cori Ann,
I am in my early forties and have always been sporting (I bike everyday to go to work, swim three times a week, walk regularly). I also eat healthy. I can say I have always been in good shape, except for my abs that weren’t as tight as the rest of my body. So I decided to browse the web, looking for the appropriate workout. I watched tons of videos never succeeding to stick to one of them, until I saw your “Ab workout – What makes you beautiful?” video. Why this video? I’d say: for the exercises, for your personality, for your beautiful fit AND NATURAL body… Anyway, I started on May 1st and perfectly remember my first reverse crunches with legs straight: I almost died! Now I do the whole workout every morning and my belly has become as flat and tight as yours… Well, not exactly, but I am clearly in better shape. Thank you Cori! Keep your beautiful body and personality, you’re so sweet! Xoxo,
Gilles
Jun 27, 2012 @ 06:51:10
Gilles this makes me so happy! I am so proud of you! It is empowering to see your body change isn’t it? Keep it up!
Sep 01, 2012 @ 05:01:55
Hi Cori Ann,
Exactly four months ago, I started working out my abs every morning, regularly increasing the number of various crunches. Today I am amazed by how fast my abs became strong and defined. The fact that I was already sporting and lean certainly helped. I look great and most of all, I feel great.
Now let me tell you about my summer vacations. Year after year during the three weeks of August I spend on the French Riviera, I notice a growing gap between fit and unfit people, especially among women, and specifically a growing gap between fit women over thirty and unfit young girls. The good point is, as Dara Torres says, that “age is just a number”, the bad point is that these fat young girls represent the world of tomorrow. What strikes me particularly is that the difference between fit and unfit is not only physical, it’s spiritual too. The fit women clearly feel good, which is obviously not the case of the fat and awkward ones. And these fit women feel good in everyday life, not only on the beach in summer. They look great and most of all, they feel great. Just like me… or you!
Let’s keep it up!
Gilles
Sep 03, 2012 @ 19:23:45
Great attitude Gilles. Let’s definitely keep it up.
Sep 18, 2012 @ 11:08:15
This is my workout for my 17th day program. I’ve made 4 sets of 20 reps of each exercise in 27’58. Not so bad I think but I take several time rest.
May 01, 2013 @ 02:40:35
Exactly one year ago (see above) I started working out my abs every morning, much inspired by this video. You’re THE one that made me finally stick to a daily routine. Now I still exercise every morning but I have extended my abs workout to a whole upper-body workout of 15-20 minutes. This session is completed by a legs workout and cardio thanks to my daily round trip of one hour in bicycle. I still swim at least once a week and eat clean. Consequence: I have never been in such a great shape! So thank you SO much Cori!