Yoga Dreams

As I restart my fitness journey I have rekindled my love for yoga. This has caused me to aspire to be bad ass in yoga. Nothing like a vague fitness goal to keep me practicing. I know that I need more than yoga to get into shape. I also utilize my eliptical for cardio and do Yoga Meltdown,  that is instructed by the charmingly sadistic Jillian Michaels. As I attempt to contort my body into various different positions, engaging my core, melting my heart to the sky or earth and practicing my breath; I find complete peace. After my first yoga workout I promptly fell into a deep and heavy sleep and woke up with a sore core and shoulders.

So, what does it mean to become bad ass in yoga...does it mean doing the flying pigeon or perfecting various feats of strength?  In truth I do want to become a full yogini and I don't know how realistic that is. For now I will settle into the routine of daily yoga and know that every day I practice, I improve.

My Inner Thighs are Besties

So basically my long hiatus from blogging has not been figure friendly. Have I gained all my weight back... well no; but I have put more back on than I care to admit. So many things have happened since I last blogged, so many potential excuses available;  but the only thing that really happened is that I became lazy, complacent and discouraged.

I lost the healthy challenge at work, even though I had a solid second place finish, there was a mix up at the YMCA that resulted in my disqualification.  I was so upset. I had dedicated so many hours, made so many sacrifices that it was unbelievable that bad record keeping cost me a prize. Even with that disappointment,  I continued to push forward with my exercise regiment although admittedly at a much slower pace. This lasted until about February when it fizzled out completely.  I also got promoted at work, extra responsibilities, extra stress and a whole lot more hours. This took almost all the exercise time out of my schedule.  While working part time I was able to dedicate more time to exercise and meal planning.

I reached my plateau, I got down to 148lbs, and was unable to lose another ounce. I became so frustrated!  I know now that it was time to push myself harder in my exercise routine, but I was too distracted to notice that was my problem.

I have developed plantar fasciitis in both my feet, I noticed it when taking Zumba classes last year. I thought for sure that it would go away,  but it has gotten worse. With some stretching in the morning before getting out of bed the pain is more tolerable, and then continuing to stretch throughout the day.

My eating habits were a little slower to change,  I remember a couple of days that I indulged.  Of course my beloved Carne Asada Fries were among the deviations, I also discovered Garlic Crab Fries and Pulled Pork Fries. Yeah I was bad, really really bad and it all tasted so good!

In September our family participated in Color Me Rad, which was an amazing experience for all of us. I want to be able to run the whole thing next time! I was physically ill the day of the race and untrained to boot, I was very disappointed in my performance. I knew that if I had just stayed the course I would have done so much better and felt proud of myself.  I'm still proud that we all got out there and ran, for fun!

At the end of the day I am really ashamed of my behavior.  I don't even like to look at myself in the mirror anymore. I'm not proud of how I look. So I come back humbly to my blog, at the one year anniversary of its inception, to hit the proverbial reset button. This week I have exercised more days than not, I have eaten less and drank more water. I have not yet stepped on the scale yet, because honestly I'm not ready to cry over my relationship with gravity quiet yet.

Bare with me, I'm starting all over again.

Side Effects

As I continue to lose weight there have been some less pleasant side effects that I had not been completely prepared for. I have always had a rather generous bottom and although that has not changed much, it has indeed changed. Several years ago I was walking down icy stairs at my house, I slipped and landed several steps below where I had started and landed on concrete. This accident resulted in a fractured coccyx, which essentially means that I broke my butt. Breaking your butt hurts!!! You may think it is soft and padded and of no consequence, but believe me if you break it you will know it and you will know it for months, years or possibly the rest of your life. I knew that I was still suffering some of the consequences of this injury. When I was in labor with my last two children I felt the contractions primarily in my bottom. What I didn't realize would happen was that as I have lost weight and have less padding, I now have a difficult time sitting down for more than thirty minutes without some pain and discomfort. As a rule I tend to relax on the couch on my hip with my legs to the side, but when at work I don't have that luxury and standing up from a seated position becomes very uncomfortable. If I am not being mindful when I am sitting in the car I will run into the same predicament as well.

Something else has happened that I can not in memory ever remember, while sleeping on my stomach sometimes my rib cage begins to bother me as it settles uncomfortably into the mattress. I'll have to squirm and wiggle in to just the right position to stay on my stomach for an extended period of time. Protruding bones have never been a problem of mine, in fact I have still yet to see my collar bones.

I've developed a strange click that appears to be coming from my sternum, when I take deep breaths I feel an uncomfortable pop and hear a sound. I'm not sure what it is, besides weird.

I have a different kind of love/hate relationship with shopping now. I used to hate to go shopping and try on clothes. Now I love to shop and I want to try on clothes, but there are new frustrations that come along with it. Who knew that every woman on the Central Coast was a 10P? It feels nearly impossible to find my new size. Forget about being able to buy clearance, it's hard to find my size on the regular racks. Now, I'm not done losing weight and my ideal size is probably a 6P, but I don't see a lot of that size hanging around on the racks either. When I was bigger it was much easier to find my size.

I wouldn't trade any of these slight unpleasanteries for having my weight back. I just didn't expect to have negative side effects to my weight loss.