The Douchebag In Yoga Class... OM

I finally made it to yoga class today after several weeks of no babysitter.  I was happy. Boy, was I happy!  A guy came in and put his mat way closer to mine than was necessary.  Fine.  All good!  He was a very yogi-looking guy, extremely lean, hipster, and overly serious. Whatever.  I offered to move over to give him more space which put me right up against the wall.  No worries.  I'm happy!  We started class and were instructed to straighten our legs out to the side at 90 degrees about 6 inches off the ground, so he proceeded to place his two bare feet an inch above my nose.  Perhaps it's me, but isn't it common courtesy to be aware of your neighbors in yoga class and make whatever adjustments are necessary to get your "om" on while giving everyone else the inalienable right to breath without your feet in their face?

I gave him the benefit of the doubt - assumed he probably had his eyes closed and wasn't aware - and moved my mat for a second time, this time forward so I was up against both the side wall and the front mirror.  We came out of our first downward facing dog into plank, and I realized that the aforementioned gentleman had placed his PHONE at the front of his mat so that every time he came back into plank, he could CHECK HIS TEXT MESSAGES.  He was lithe enough to suspend himself easily with one arm while reading, typing, and then returning himself to down dog.

I wanted nothing more than to throw his phone and his bony ass out the window, but decided that it was my task to remain focused on my own practice and to let him have his.  I tried to tell myself that he must have a medical condition and an app that he had to update to keep his blood sugar at the correct level, or a family member in the hospital in dire condition and in need of constant monitoring... from yoga class.  But, probably, he was just so super important, so vitally necessary for the world to keep spinning that he had to stay connected.  I established that the latter was likely true when he started cracking his knuckles violently in the middle of savasana (the resting pose at the end of class).

When it was over, he bowed, said "namaste" loudest of all, and stayed meditative and holier-than-thou long past when the rest of us packed up our mats and blocks and got on with our days.  I actually managed to enjoy the class (love that teacher) and got a good workout.  I even learned a little something about how to stay calm and productive with a self-involved douchebag in my face.  His trip, not mine.  But seriously, dude. Seriously?

Real Change Requires Real Food, But I Don't Wanna!

I've come a long way from disaster to pretty-damn-good, a long way from sugar addict to mostly-healthy.  I'm hovering here in pretty good shape, but I wouldn't say I'm glowing with wellness or anything.  I won't be running a marathon any time soon, and my attempt at turning weekly CSA produce deliveries into healthy meals last summer resulted in a lot of rotting root vegetables.

I wish I could be like those snazzy whole food bloggers who make it look so easy:
20 Quick and Easy On-the-go Lunches!  Not so much.  I eat relatively healthy, but a whole hell of a lot of my lunches still come out of a box... an Amy's organic box, but a box nonetheless.

I keep squawking to my Body Baggage group about how I'd feel slammin' if I lost another 5 lbs or so, but with my current regimen, it's not happening. My body is not going to change if my diet remains the same.  I get plenty of exercise.  Those last 5 lbs are all about the food. I need to get real and decide if I'm happy here in mostly-healthy-land or if I want to take a leap into genuinely, deep-down-healthy-land.  If I'm not ready to do it, I should drop the act altogether. There's no point in feeling guilty about it.

If I do want to take that next step, I'm going to have to get better acquainted with my kitchen.  I'm going to have to get good with devoting time and energy to shopping more frequently and cooking every day.  The thought makes me twitch.  It's a lazy luxury to eat organic food that has been prepared, preserved and frozen for me, but I have zero doubt that I would feel a difference if I was eating real, fresh, whole food prepared by yours truly.

I'm not a cook by nature.  I don't have the skills to taste something and say, "Hey, that needs more oregano!"  Even if I had the time, I don't have the attention span to chop and stir for hours each day.  I just don't care that much.  I don't have the nurturing mama/cook-thing in me.  My family gets by with a whole lot of Trader Joe's basics, supplemented with fresh cooked vegetables or salads on the side.  We eat dark chocolate and drink red wine every night.  We have chips and crackers, boxed risottos, jars of sauces, and cans of beans crowded into our pantry.  Our freezer overfloweth with "healthy" pre-prepared foods.

I am finally coming to the conclusion to that I can only go so far putting these canned, jarred, boxed, bagged, and frozen foods into my body.  There is a giant row of cookbooks on my kitchen counter.  Staring at me.  Perhaps I should consider opening one.

For now, it's February.  It's too cold to get out from under my blankets, and I could swear it gets dark at noon... and yes, that is a big, fat excuse. I'm going to give myself a pass during these dark winter days. The produce section pretty much sucks right now anyway. Or that's what I'm telling myself.  The cookbooks will stay where they are for a few more months, but I'm declaring out loud in preparation for the summer...

I need to make a decision.  Am I happy with eating healthy kinda sorta?  Or do I want to actually do it right?  Not sure yet.  Will report back when the sun comes out.

P.S. To the "friend" who introduced me to the vegan, gluten-free dessert bar at The Wild Cow... PTHHHH.

Nasty, Banned Foods Still Allowed in the US

Well, here's a real mood booster for you...

13 Banned Foods Still Allowed in the US

Sorry.  Don't mean to be a downer, but this freaked me out.
Thanks to Shape Magazine for printing it. "Azodicarbonamide"? Say what? 

January One, Me Zero

After three days of freezing rain, I have decided that January is the worst possible time of year to lose weight or otherwise try to improve yourself.  At least it is for my self.  I hate this.  The chill drills into my bones.  It sends me into lock down under a mountain of blankets, drifting somewhere between sleeping and whining.  

There was enough of a break in the clouds today for me to write this post, but supposedly the frigid weather is set to come roaring back after tomorrow.  I'm fighting the good fight, taking walks wrapped in parkas and scarves, looking skyward in search of vitamin D.  Last year, I was hopped up on new mommy hormones, mad with the desire to reclaim my former self, but this year I'm just a plain old person, trying to make it through the winter.

I just want to say, if you are out there trying to fulfill a new year's resolution and struggling - perhaps even failing miserably, you are not alone.  Maybe just try to keep it together until the sun comes out.  Then you can try again.  Keep trudging, fellow soldier.  You are not alone.

Make This Year's New Year's Resolution Last

It's been six months since Body Baggage for Misfits started meeting in East Nashville.  Six months gone.  Six months we can't live over again.  So my question to the group at our last meeting of the year was, "Are you happy with how you felt during these last six months? Are you happy with your body and your state of mind?"

If so, don't change a thing.  If not, please consider that there is a very real possibility that you will feel the very same way six months or even six years from now - or worse because you never did anything to change it.

Each day you don't feel good or strong or healthy is another day gone.  If nothing changes, the days and years keep passing by and eventually you've lost a decade or more feeling shitty about your body, addicted to sugar, mildly depressed, 10 or 100 lbs overweight, tired or sluggish or whatever it is that's bringing you down.

Even if your job sucks or you are lonely or in a bad relationship, you can do something to feel better each day, something as small as taking a walk around the block before work or stopping for 5 minutes to breathe and stretch before bed.  You have the power to make good with your body and to feel at peace in your skin.  At the very least, you have the power to feel a little bit better than you do today.  It's not even about losing weight.  It's about taking care.

New Years is an arbitrary thing.  It's another night and another day.  In fact, every day is an opportunity for a fresh start, but there is something magical about a new year.  Psychologically, the new year seems to allow space for change, but so often we shoot too high, too big.  What if your New Year's resolution is simply to take better care this year, body and soul?  Set a goal for the month of January that is easily attainable... an apple a day, a phone call to Grandma once a week, 20 sit ups before bed.  And then add another one for February.

These six months are gone.  Twelve months of 2012 have passed.  So where are you?  Are you good?  If not, do something.  Anything.  Just make it small.  And when that new thing becomes second nature, do something else.  Do better.  Take better care.  Opportunities abound.

This is a picture of last night's sunset in Los Angeles.  Maybe my New Year's resolution should be to breathe like I do when I'm back in California, to keep looking up and out every day.

Give It A Break and Happy New Year

I started writing several useful blog posts recently, but I don't feel like finishing them.  They are full of ideas about how to get healthy, but I don't feel like being full of ideas right now.  I feel like being silent as the end of the year approaches.  Breathing and waiting, listening and watching.  Sometimes, it would seem, there is more to be accomplished by not trying so hard to get a handle on everything.  Sometimes it's best to sit back and let the world spin around without attempting interference.

It's the holidays.  It's time to be with people, time to rest and to be amazed by another year gone by and the unknown of the coming year.  There will be time in January for reframing, for how-to-ing and steady stepping in the right direction.

For now - for this year - I am thankful for new friends, new music, new words, and a new puppy, for a healthy son, for managing to get my body back post-pregnancy, for babysitters who keep me sane, and for a perpetually young husband whose inspiration is music, me, and the little man... and a new pair of bright red Vans.

I'm going to stop accomplishing things now.  I'm going to bask in the madness and glow of yesteryear.  I'm going to California to look at the city lights.

Signing off.

Happy New Year!!

Avoiding A Big Fat Thanksgiving Day Binge

Here we go.  Here come the holidays.  Winter is oozing up under my skin and into my psyche.  I'm suddenly hungry and grumpy for no reason, and my clients are too.  Thanksgiving is next week.  It's a beautiful thing to be with friends and family and give thanks, blah-di-blah.  Yes, it's a good thing, but it's also stressful and a big, fat excuse to binge on Thursday, Friday, and however many more days it takes to plow through the left overs.  Then come Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's, and football season.  Cookies, cocktails, and cheese wheels appear out of nowhere, but it's okay to indulge, right?!  It's the holidays!!!  Wheeeeeee!

No.  Not okay.  Mostly because you'll feel like ass the next day or the next week, and you'll definitely feel like ass when the sun comes up on New Year's day and you weigh seven pounds more than you did the day before Thanksgiving.

Why do we take beautiful, celebratory moments and turn them into excuses to abuse our bodies? Why would we want to make a warm occasion sad and uncomfortable by stuffing ourselves until our insides ache?

This year, I am going to be thankful for a body that treats me pretty well most of the time, and I'm going to do my best to treat it well right back.  I'll savor the dishes that bring me back to my childhood, but I won't eat so much that it makes me feel old.  That's my big plan... eat it all but not too much, take a walk, and take a minute to look around at the people I came to see.  It's about us, not about the food.

Now I just have to remember that - when a second, giant serving of buttery mashed potatoes is calling my name.  Mmmmm.

It Matters

The east coast just got clobbered by a massive storm.
My Grandma's beloved kitty, Lydia, died today.
We have a painfully important election next week.

It matters.

I'm feeling philosophical as a year has passed since Elvin disappeared, my baby boy is turning one, the city I lived in and still have many friends living in is under water, a president I adore is fighting for his political life and my family's right to see a doctor, and winter is closing in.  I have to ask myself what matters, and I have to ask my clients what matters to them.

Does weight loss matter?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  If it's a quality of life issue, do something about it.  Fight like hell to make a change because it matters to you.  Don't wait until New Year's Eve, and don't set goals that are so big they are destined to fail.  Do something small.

Take a walk.
Take care of your friends and neighbors.
Love your pets.
Vote.

It matters.

"Be Healthy" - From Your Friends at Groupon

I just got an email from Groupon entitled "Be Healthy".  The deals listed are as follows:

Botox

Laser Photofacials

Lipotropic Weight-loss Injections

Body Contouring Treatments

Microdermabrasion

Facials

Not an exercise or nutrition deal among them.  And WTF are "lipotropic weight-loss injections"?!  If this is what people think constitutes healthy living, we have bigger problems than I thought.  Happy Friday from Groupon!  Now go get your face scraped off.

A Birthday Without Cupcakes?!

Today is my birthday, and for the first time I can remember, the festivities aren't all wrapped up in food.  It's a strange feeling, almost annoying.

In birthdays past, I would have used the entire day as a giant excuse to gorge myself.  I have had a long-standing tradition of eating Long John Silvers for lunch on my birthday.  It was reminiscent of childhood memories of driving to Grandma's house in Virginia and stopping at LJS as a special treat.  I always ordered the two-piece fish and chips with a double order of hush puppies and drenched the whole thing in ketchup.  Then, of course, Ken would get me some cupcakes from Cupcake Collection to munch on for a couple of days, and we would go out for a fancy dinner with wine and some kind of decadent, molten chocolate dessert.  I could easily have eaten 6000 calories in one day, all in the name of "celebration".

I've been off of wheat now for ten months, and the few times I have indulged have led to nausea, bloating, and mild depression.  Of course, not eating wheat rules out fried fish, hushpuppies, and cupcakes, but the strange thing is that I woke up this morning and didn't want any of those things.  It kind of pissed me off because I would have happily broken my own rule for my birthday.  But I want to feel good today.  I don't want to feel sick and bloated.  It's a shift, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

I guess I'll just spend the day celebrating the 36 years I've been on the planet, the friends and family who make life entertaining and worth while, my amazing husband and baby boy, and the mini pit bull who likes to sleep on my feet.

I'd rather feel good than eat cupcakes, and that's some kind of sick, twisted logic.  I'll let you know when the aliens return me to my right mind.