I remember the first time I got the idea in my head that if I wanted to have “six pack abs”, all I needed to do was to do sit-ups.

I was in Junior High.  8th grade.  It was 1984.  George Orwell’s book was a big deal that year.  I didn’t care about that though.  All I cared about was “how can I get abs?”.  Having “abs” would be the coolest thing EVER.  I came home one day after school and decided to get started.  We had done sit-ups in gym class.  The kind where you pick a partner to hold your feet down, do your repetitions, and then switch positions, holding your partner’s feet down while he did his sit-ups.  Repeat.  Except, at home alone after school, I did not have the convenience of a partner.  I did the next best thing.  I wedged my feet under the living room couch and did sit-ups.  I started with one set of 20 repetitions.  GEEZ.  This was harder than I remembered for some reason.  I clasped my hands behind my head and touched my elbows to my knees for another set of 20.  This time it took longer to get to 20 reps, struggling a little on the last rep.  I decided 100 reps was a reasonable goal for that first day.  By my 4th set of 20, I was truly SUFFERING.  It was hot in the living room and I was still wearing my “school clothes” – corduroys and a dress shirt.  I was sweating, and panting… periodically resting on the floor between reps, determined to do 20 reps each set.  I completed the 5th and final set of 20.  It was pretty ugly.  “I should have changed out of my school clothes before I began this”, I thought to myself.  I was a sweaty mess.  My corduroys were SOAKED.  Finally finished, I went to look at myself in the mirror.  I lifted up my shirt to look at my waistline.  I was horrified.  I had a MUFFIN TOP.  I thought if I just did some sit-ups that this embarrassing  physical condition would just go away.  I guess I didn’t do enough of them.  Tomorrow I will do twice as many, I thought confidently.

The next morning I woke up and I thought maybe someone had tried stealing one of my internal organs while I was sleeping – my entire mid section hurt.  BAD.

I seriously considered, “maybe I somehow injured myself in my sleep?”.  “Did I fall out of bed last night?”.  Then I remembered  the sit-ups.  “Oh cool, it’s muscular soreness from the sit-ups”.  “That’s good, I guess”.

I took a shower, had my normal breakfast consisting of Pop-Tarts and skim milk, and went out to wait for the school bus.  “I am going to do twice as many sit-ups after school today”, I repeated in my head, all day at school.  And I did.  And I continued to do sit-ups every day after school, taking the weekends off.  I started getting better and better at sit-ups.  I remember the first time I did 10 sets of 100 sit-ups.  That was 1000 sit-ups total!  It took me about 30 minutes.  “That was pretty good”, I thought to myself.  But, I looked in the mirror after I was done… “No, no, NO!”, I shouted angrily.  I STILL had a muffin top!

I redoubled my efforts.  I had a new theory that it wasn’t enough to just do as many reps as I could, but I should be able to do them quickly too.   About a month later, I could do 76 sit-ups in 60 seconds.  I was pretty proud of that.  A couple weeks after that, I was able to complete 75 sets of 50 reps.  That took almost 2 hours.  It was another milestone for me.   3750 reps.  I could FEEL my abs.  They were as hard as rocks.  But they were rocks BURIED underneath 2 inches thick of blubber.

I still had the same problem.  It didn’t matter how many sit-ups I did or how good I got at them.  I still had a muffin top.

In fact, I noticed when I put on  my belt getting ready for school that my waist had actually become thicker.  I was still angry, but I finally UNDERSTOOD.  You can develop any muscle in the body, but you CANNOT burn fat off your waist by just doing sit-ups.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SPOT REDUCTION.

Thank you for reading.