OH! Magazine - Australian Version June 2014 (Australian Version) | Page 8

MICHELLE
BRIDGES

MICHELLE’S
FLAT STOMACH
FORMULA

www.michellebridges.com.au

( Fitness )

Super trainer Michelle Bridges shares her secrets to
that elusive flat pack!
t would probably be fair to say
that if there was one body part
that men and women lusted over equally
it would have to be abdominals,
preferably abdominals unconcealed by a
layer of subcutaneous fat.
I’m not talking about lusting over
other people’s abdominals (although
judging by the chorus of ‘phwoaaaar!’
that us girls usually emit when we’re
dribbling over a photo of Ryan Gosling
with his shirt off, it could be.)
What I’m talking about here is our own
mid section, core, abs, whatever we
choose to call that (hopefully) sinewy
conduit from pelvis to ribs.
A quick assessment of fitness
magazine covers in the newsagent leaves
me in no doubt that far from being
interested in chiseling a twelve pack into
ourselves, we’re downright obsessed.
Every cover features a model sporting a
pool table stomach and offers the
ultimate promise – Killer Six Pack in Five
Minutes a Day! Bitchin’ Abs – Here’s
How!
And now the bad news. If you’re in the
market for a flat stomach, no amount of
sit ups, assisted by any number of ab
machines, will get it for you. Yes, they

I

Michelle’s Tip
The dreaded bloat is the flat tum aspirant’s nemesis. Avoid eating large meals, and
avoid fried foods, creamy dishes, soft drinks, white breads, salty foods, processed
meats and smallgoods. Foods containing the artificial sweeteners sorbitol and mannitol
can cause bloating, so always read food labels.

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JUNE 2014 ( OH! MAGAZINE )

will work and improve your abdominals,
but there are wider issues to take into
consideration.
The best advice I can give if you’re in
the market for a flat stomach is, in
conjunction with a sensible diet and
regular exercise (of course), to get a good
night’s sleep. And then to consciously destress your home and work environment,
and add stress-relieving activities into
your lifestyle.
When we get stressed our adrenal
gland, located on top of our kidneys,
pumps out a goodly measure of hormones
to cope with the situation, the principle
one of which is cortisol. Cortisol ramps up
your brain’s use of glucose whilst squirting
a bit extra into your blood stream for good
measure. It temporarily suppresses the
non-essential bodily functions like the
immune, digestive and reproductive
systems so we are primed to deal with the
crisis at hand.
It’s self-regulating, so when the crisis
is over, the body returns to normal. Trouble
is, in today’s world – alarm doesn’t go off,
toast catches fire, you’re late for day care,
you miss your taxi so you miss the sales
meeting, and wait a minute - where did I
leave my phone? The stresses are constant.
The prolonged increase in cortisol
levels in your bloodstream results in
increased fat deposits around your middle,
concealing the transverse abdominus that
you’ve carefully honing on the Acme AbOrama for the past six weeks. Can you see
where this is heading?
My flat stomach formula? De-stress,
eat well, exercise regularly.