Saturday, August 11, 2012

the 2 pack

As a result of a year of keeping to a rigid, strenuous exercise regimen, there have been a lot of changes to my body.  The one zone of my body which sums everything up nicely is my abdomen.

Up at the top of my abdomen, I have developed some very noticeable muscular definition.  I have the outline of the top of a lovely six pack.  But down a bit lower the entire situation dissolves into chaos, a flabby, stretchmarked mess with baggy skin, attesting to my having carried two massive, nine pound babies (one three weeks overdue, so a very long pregnancy with a very large baby, indeed).  Some damage was also done by my having carried around my "third baby" for so long (a massive benign tumor which, by the time I had it removed, was giving me many of the physical symptoms of being in the third trimester).  And of course it would be only honest to admit that I put on a lot of weight, first after I had Lola, when I was depressed and went on medication with the side effect of "unexplained weight gain" which was explained to me only after I'd put on twenty-five pounds, later when I was in chronic pain from my tumor and also from an ankle injury.  Losing most of that weight has been good for me and my body overall, but the lower abdomen is where the story of my excesses and sufferings has been written.

If you poke the top of my abdomen, around the two pack, it's like poking something inanimate.  The muscles are so strong and hard.  I welcome that sort of prodding; sometimes I bully the poor Sober Husband into admiring that little zone.  Just don't go prying around below it, where you'd expect to find the rest of a six-pack.  You're just going to depress us all.

No comments: