What an amazing month I had for my weight loss! I've lost a total of 10 lbs. I'm not even sure how. It started out very slow in the beginning of the month. Which I found interesting because I had more time to exercise. The last couple of the weeks were very stressful, I had no time to exercise except for my two physical jobs. I have decided that the reason was, I was gaining muscle during those weeks I was exercising and lifting weights. Because of that muscle I was able to burn through more calories towards the end of the month. I could be wrong but that was reasoning. I do love to do strength training. I know many women are afraid of lifting weights because they do not want to bulk up. However, strength training will help you burn fat faster. Alwyn Cosgrove, a fitness expert , wrote a great article discussing the Hierarchy of Weight Loss. There were many studies highlighting the benefits of weight training in comparison to cardio.

Overweight subjects were assigned to three groups: diet-only, diet plus aerobics, diet plus aerobics plus weights. The diet group lost 14.6 pounds of fat in 12 weeks. The aerobic group lost only one more pound (15.6 pounds) than the diet group (training was three times a week starting at 30 minutes and progressing to 50 minutes over the 12 weeks).

The weight training group lost 21.1 pounds of fat (44% and 35% more than diet and aerobic only groups respectively). Basically, the addition of aerobic training didn’t result in any real world significant fat loss over dieting alone.

Thirty-six sessions of up to 50 minutes is a lot of work for one additional pound of fat loss. However, the addition of resistance training greatly accelerated fat loss results.

Even though strength training is a great way to lose fat don't forget to adjust your diet if you are wanting to lose weight. Your diet is responsible for 80-90% of your successes or failures.

I wanted to share one more thing this month. If you have known me since I started teaching water aerobics at KOPFC you may remember the many times I have injured myself. My hip flexors and my back have been the biggest culprits. I have been asking doctors why I have been so prone to injury in just the last few years. I'm always stretching and warming up before exercise, even when I teach water aerobics. The doctors and even some of my friends have told me I must be over doing things. Most recently when my back went out , the doctor told me it was probably because of the epidural I received during delivery of my baby. None of it made sense to me. So I went on my own mission to search out what else could be the reason. I have found it. Diastasis Recti.

Diastasis Recti as defined by Wikipeida: Diastasis recti (also known as abdominal separation) is a disorder defined as a separation of the rectus abdominis muscle into right and left halves. Normally, the two sides of the muscle are joined at the linea alba at the body midline. Diastasis of this muscle occurs principally in two populations newborns and pregnant or postpartum women.

The separation of these muscles creates that mommy pooch that many of us get after having children. The constant separation from each pregnancy makes it worse and worse.

The fact that I found amazing is that 1 in 3 women of some degree of diastasis. Why have I never heard of this? Why have none of my doctors given this as a possible reason for all my injuries? The gap in the my muscles makes my core weak.  And a weak core leads to injuries. The second fact I came across that shocked me even more is that crunches and many other types of ab work just make it worse. I've been doing many types of ab work since I had my first child 12 years ago. Trying to get that baby pooch to go down. Instead of helping, I was hurting myself. Don't worry there are answers to help you strengthen and bring those muscles back to where they are supposed to be. Go ahead and Google Diastasis Recti and you will find a whole slew of books, blogs and websites to help. I'm currently trying to research a way to bring these exercises to the water.

Do you have a diastasis? This quickie test will tell: Lie on your back with knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Place a hand behind your head for support. Next, place the index and middle fingers of your other hand just above your belly button, pointing them downward. Raise your head and neck off the floor and press your fingers into the separation between your muscles. If you can fit more than two fingers into the opening, you likely have a diastasis.