When you think of your obliques, think of the love handle area. Give it a little TLC, and I’m sure you’d be surprised by what comes up!

Cardio AND ab work at the same time? Total win!

Hey, we’re all about booty exercises, right?

Lift the hips, tone the abs! What more can I say about this one? A light lift goes a long way!

Never mind the adorable girl showing off the exercise, but pay close attention to the instructions, here. I find that it took me a while to focus doing this exercise. You have to be careful that you’re not just swinging your legs back and forth, that you’re really working muscle groups with this one!

I started this one doing 10 of them back to back in three different sets. Give it a shot! Great for the booty, too!

Another big thing for my figure is working on these thighs! One of the slight downfalls – among all the blessings – with a major weight loss is the need to tone to make sure that the skin comes back into place… and has a nice place to come home to, if you know what I mean!

So, for the legs and abs, I present the double leg lifts! I’m not very familiar with Pilates (although I do practice Yoga), but the moves are challenging and leave you feeling like you really accomplished something!

I’m always asked to spill my ab exercises – by one persistent visitor in particular *waving to Tracy* – so I figured, why not? This section of the site serves as a directory for me as much as it does for you. I’d like to go exercise shopping, too! LOL

Here are the straight leg crunches I do. I started off doing ten crunches… then 3 sets of ten… then I went up from there. Give ‘em a shot!

I’m a nut about my abs. I won’t even lie! I love the feeling I have after a nice ab workout – I sit a little higher in my seat, I feel a little more secure in my movements, and I go a little harder in my other exercises, because I know that my midsection is stronger.

Having said that, this exercise here kicks my butt.

How many should you do? Honestly, I can’t say. I started out with 3 sets of ten. I’d do ten (5 on each side,) then breathe for ten seconds… ten more, take a breather… then ten more.

Give it a shot, and let me know how it works out for you!

If you’re looking to tone those sides up, give the side bend a shot:

I do 4 sets of 30 about 3 times a week. They help me keep my curves in check even though I’m losing weight at the same time.

Be happy, be healthy!

When I first started working out, I joined a gym. It was awesome – open 24hrs with security, awesome facilities, and two personal trainers (a married couple, in their late 50s – I know, I was mad too) who owned and operated it. The gentleman was the one who showed me around his facility. First to the cardio center, then to the “core” area.

I didn’t even know what a “core” was, and I told him such. I had this awkward look on my face like, “This might be a stupid question, but.. what is a core?” He grabbed my hand and said, “There are no stupid questions in my house!” As he went on to say that the core is the entire batch of muscles that controls our midsections, I promptly told him, “Oh, I don’t have any abs. I mean, come on – I have to grab the top of the car in order to lift myself out of it.”

He laughed so hard at me, I felt like getting mad, LOL.

“We all have abs, Erika. Sure, we might have different levels of strength, but we all have them.”

I felt like telling him a giant “Whatever,” but I didn’t. Instead, I just listened as he offered up tons of exercises and tips for me to try to help “get some abs.” Here is one of those exercises. Hopefully, they’ll help you as much as they’ve helped me.

There you have it – a nice, challenging, simple method for working out your core. You don’t have to do a thousand of ‘em, you don’t have to do a hundred, either. Going from zero to 20 is challenging enough. Try whatever you can, and when they start feeling too easy, let natural progression tell you to try doing more. Be happy, be healthy, be good!

What I’m seeking to do is present you with a ton of different exercises that you can try in the comfort of your own home, maybe even your own bed!

I know that my biggest thing was getting over how silly I felt I might look trying to workout at home. As a friend said, “Some people need to go to a gym to feel as though they’ve accomplished anything.” I can’t necessarily say that this was how I felt, but I know that whatever it was was costing me my health in the process, and I needed to get it together!

The first of our exercises is something that will help with stretches as much as they will help with the booty area (yes, we will be giving the booty extra special attention!) as well as the upper thighs. Check out this hip extensions clip brought to us by the folks at expertvillage.com!