Big Bellies aren’t appreciated on anyone. Except Buddha, a pregnant woman, or a newborn baby.
If anything, the standards for women’s bodies have grown more exacting. It’s no longer enough to be so slim that you can slip through your vertical blinds; now, your stomach has to be sculpted. So hard that your kids could do jumping jacks on it and you wouldn’t feel a thing.
The struggle for a flat abdomen has plagued the human race since around 200 B.C., when the Roman statesman Cato the Elder is said to have declared, “It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears.”
You can live on steamed vegetables and spring water, and burn up the stepper until it smokes, yet the pot hangs tough. How come? For starters, the belly is the Mecca of female fat. When a woman puts on a few pounds, this is a prime pilgrimage site. Men tend to gain weight in their upper abdomen, women in their lower abdomen, hips, thighs, and buttocks.
Your abdominal muscles begin life taut. You take them for granted for years. But there comes a time in most women’s lives when they look in the mirror sideways and cringe. The change may come gradually. But for most women, it has a defining moment: pregnancy.
Another side effect of pregnancy is that you get used to being weighed down. It’s hard to stand up straight when you’ve been carrying around a watermelon for months. And after your kids are born, you lift them, give piggybacks, lug Big Wheels, and before you know it, you’re permanently slumped.
Understand these changes that your body might encounter, and learn how to deal with them.