belly

i absolutely hate the word "belly". hate it hate it hate it. it's gross and it introduces disgusting images into my brain and the sound of it makes my tongue swell. i hate it the most when people use the word in reference to my own body. i don't have a belly, thank you, i have an abdomen which contains a stomach and some intestines and other such necessities. and, yes, it happens to be protected from the elements by a visible layer of adipose tissue, but it is NOT a belly. gross.

my distaste for this word and my refusal to acknowledge that i have one is likely why i dissociated myself from the many supplement-peddling commercials that interrupt SVU when i forget to fastforward the commercials. "over 30? over-stressed? and tired of unsightly stubborn belly fat?" gross. i can't watch this crap. created by PhD's and designed to reduce the levels of cortisol (a nasty little hormone) in your body, blah blah blah. you're fat, but it's not your fault. again. blah blah blah. ignore ignore ignore. more BS to shame the average person into self-loathing by assuming that any self-respecting person with fat on her body would naturally be wandering around in a stupor trying to determine how it got there and who is responsible for this mess.

the other day i was talking to a friend and i found myself perplexed (actually) about the refusal of my body to shed its "food-baby". that's what i call it when i eat a large meal and my tummy extends so i look preggers. anyway. i was lamenting about how i have been working out fairly consistently for a year and every part of my body has cooperated and made some desirable changes except this one part. it just flops around taunting me, laughing at me. "is this because i turned 30? is this what happens?" i heard myself say. and in that moment, the tape started to roll... over 30? (barely, but yeah.) over stressed? (i don't call it that, but it's possible.) tired of stubborn belly fat? (oh my god! that is what they are talking about. YES YES, i have that!)

i had never bothered to pay attention, but now it was all beginning to come together in that way that a nancy drew mystery probably does but i have never read one, so i don't know. i am 30. my life is a little weighty (no pun intended). and i have a food baby that won't go away. obviously, cortisol is my problem!

i have not been the kind of person to fall for shit like this in at least 12 years. i did go through a bit of a diet pill phase a long time ago, but i had to stop when i consistently ran my car into things. not other cars or people, but things like curbs and garbage cans. no major harm done, but i had to consider the possibility that i wasn't exactly operating with a clear head. so i quit that. and now here i am pretending to be fully convinced that a cortisol blocker will make all of my hours in the gym just that much more fruitful. it's counterintuitive and it violates everything i hold to be true and valuable. but what if it works?

that's a powerful marketing strategy. i strongly suspect that "stubborn belly fat" is the going term for the layer of fat that is a natural and necessary part of the female abdomen. and i am willing to consider that my own personal stubborn belly fat is a less significant part of my physique than it seems to be to me... but what if i could make it go away. imagine all of the jobs i could pretend to dream about... rather than being the floppy girl on the couch contemplating the existence of cortisol, i could BE the girl on the 22-minute bowflex commercial that usually immediately follows the stubborn belly fat commercial. "develop a firm, sexy core"...

i want a firm sexy core.