Yoga and Mirrors

I've mentioned before my need to lose weight.  Although I am quite aware of this, it still was somewhat discouraging to see myself at my yoga class today. 

The renovation of our yoga room included the addition of mirrors. 

Mirrors!  Yikes!

I look pregnant.  No joking. 

It didn't help that today I wore my biggest oldest sloppy t-shirt which ended up being too loose to be comfortable for yoga.  I kept needing to pull it down.  Annoying. 

Yes, there is a benefit to the mirrors.  I can see my form better.  And (although I look crappy in weight, my form is not bad) yes, that is good in the long run. 

However, right here and now in the short run, I am seeing my fat body in the mirrors and I do not like what I see.    It's not that I never look in mirrors at home.  However, at home, I am not standing in warrior one pose looking at my big ol' pudgy belly. 

I hope to start a weight loss plan after the holidays.   In the meanwhile, I'll continue to exercise. 

And I'll do my best to keep my eyes off the mirrors. 

Can You Do a Headstand?

I've been doing yoga for around 3.5 months now.  Previously I have written about the progress I have made since my beginning.  

Today we did headstands. 

In the beginning, I wouldn't even attempt a headstand.

The funny thing is that I was quite athletic in my youth doing things like cartwheels, front flips, back bends, backward walkovers, and the like.  Now when I see that stuff, i wonder how I never did such things!

However, I must say that I am getting more brave.  I will now do a tripod which is a beginner version of a headstand.  And I will do a head/hand stand against the wall. 

I am getting there. 

Considering that I used to do stuff like this all the time, I'm confident that I will eventually be able to do a handstand completely unassisted. 

The question is when?

I'm Having a Love Affair with Yoga

Don't tell my husband, but I am having a love affair with YOGA.  Yes, it's reached that point.

 I find myself preferring yoga to all other activities. 

When I realized my moms' night out this week will conflict with my Friday night yoga class, I was beyond despair! 

When I realized that the children's Christmas program would conflict with the following Friday night yoga class, I wanted to scream and shout at the top of my lungs.

 When another dear friend sent a message about getting together with multiple friends the first Friday in January, again, my thoughts turned to YOGA.

Is it wrong to be obsessed with my dear flexible, zen-creating friend?Will all my friends start avoiding me because they know that I am being a harlot with yoga?

 

Will my children find out?

 

What will they say?

 

 

Progress

As I wrote last night, I am having a love affair with yoga.  Perhaps I am merely in the honeymoon phase.  Perhaps the passion cannot last.  Perhaps. 

Or perhaps I have found something with which I will have a lifelong relationship.

I hope that is the case. 

As I make progress, I do find myself loving it more. 

For example, last night's class was an excellent, challenging class from one of my favorite instructors.  One of the final poses of the evening was crow pose.  Although crow isn't terribly difficult, initially, I found it tough.  Maybe my arms weren't strong enough to hold my chubby body.  Now I can do it.   I also can shift my body to where I am on my head.  When I first began yoga, the feeling of any pressure on my head was disturbing and uncomfortable. 

My flexibility is slowly improving, though I still have a long way to go.  I cannot get over how difficult it is for me to reach with my arms behind my back.  I often wonder if it is truly lack of flexibility or if it is that my arms are short. 

I'm happy with my progress. 

photo credit:  pixabay

That's How I Know I Love Yoga...

Fridays tend to be long, long days.  They can seem even longer if I have a bad sleep the night before like I did last night. 

I awoke around 4am because the cat pushed open my door.  (I love that cat, but grrrrr)

Then I never returned to sleep.

Needless to say, I have been so sleepy all day. 

Additionally, I have been extra sad today. 

The easiest thing in the world would be to come home and sit on my bottom while drinking wine and watching movies.  Oh how tempting that was today when I was tired and it was rainy, cold, and dreary!

Yet I craved my Friday night yoga class.   I pushed myself through my tiredness and went.  And yes, not only did I do it, I loved doing it! 

If I were simply planning to go to the gym and workout on the elliptical and the weights, I would have been too tired to go. 

Yoga is different.

When I think of how much I love doing it compared to other workouts, I am amazed at the difference.

My Favorite Yoga Instructor

Her name is Amy B. and she teaches at the YMCA.  She only teaches one yoga class at that location.

 OH HOW I WISH SHE TAUGHT MORE!  I LOVE HER!  (ok, so I don't "love her" love her, I just think she is a fabulous instructor.)  My first ever yoga class was with her and I am so glad for that. 

 Her classes always offer something different.  She works different areas each week and no matter what, I feel like I have experienced a workout. 

She also offers something in the spirituality of it, the mental benefits.  She offers words of inspiration.   Something about her almost always brings me to tears by the end of the class.  That may not sound like a good thing, but it is!  They are tears of release!

 

Today's class focused on the hips.  It felt good;  it felt tough at times;  it felt relaxing as well. 

 

Yesterday I was suffering from intense anxiety.  My start with her today was a much needed thing.

 

If only I could attend her classes every single day!

I Could Use a Little Zen Today

One of these days soon, I plan to photograph my daughter in some yoga poses to use with my posts.  I keep planning to do so, but not following through.  Life is busy.  In the meanwhile, my personal photos of trees and lovely beach scenes work fine.

Today has been such a rotten day.  I have felt such anxiety due to all sorts of things.  I need some zen.  I need some yoga. 

The busy, busy schedule of Wednesday never allows for Yoga.  Today is even more busy than usual as I have to take my daughter to dance class. 

The good thing is that tomorrow I get to go to my favorite yoga class.  I love this instructor and I want to suggest to her that she make some instructional videos and put them on youtube.  I'd love to be able to benefit from her teachings on the days I cannot make it to her class.  Due to vehicle issues, I haven't been to her class for 4 weeks!  That's terrible!  I miss it!

I three instructors that I see regularly, but she is my favorite.

Do you have a favorite instructor?

A New Option for Yoga

As I have mentioned, I have been without a vehicle for nearly a month now thanks to a paperwork nightmare that we are trying to straighten out.  The biggest issue has been me getting to the gym for my Yoga classes.  (thankfully, the children are in low activity mode right now)

My husband's work schedule has made it so I can get there occasionally, but not regularly like I need. 

I know so many folks who do their yoga at home always. 

I am just not good at exercising at home. 

I'm just not.

A month or so ago, I downloaded a yoga app, but I found it boring. 

Yesterday I decided to check out youtube.  I found many yoga videos on there.  I started one by that Jillian chick from the Greatest Loser show, but the video wasn't working.  The next in line was one by Denise Austen.  Although I am not a big fan of her, I decided to try it. 

It was a 30 minute class that was fairly basic.  It went much more quickly than if I were trying to do it at home without a class.  It wasn't great, but it was something which was more than I was getting. 

So that is my plan.  From now on, I will try to do videos at home if I cannot get to the gym (which at this rate, who knows when I can drive my van again.)

Here's the youtube video that I watched. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daoU86HqYPg

The Relationship between Yoga and Anxiety

A year ago I was having debilitating anxiety attacks.  I seriously felt like I was having a nervous breakdown.  I couldn't function.  I cried multiple times daily because I felt so messed up.  Of course, aggravating my anxiety was my grief over losing my son.  It was my first year without him which meant my first fall, my first Halloween, my first Thanksgiving, my first birthday, my first Christmas.  And all of that was Hell. 

Because of my overwhelming anxiety, I turned to prescription medication.  It helped.  I managed to survive the holidays.  However, my brain and body felt like it was in a fog.  I felt like a zombie.  Sure, this was better than the mess I was before, but I didn't like it.  I didn't like that I never cried even when I felt like crying. 

So eventually, I stopped the anxiety pills. 

I had been exercising which helped.  Though during that time of my near nervous breakdown, I did stop going to the gym.  It was winter.  I was lazy.   Early spring came and I finally made it back to the gym.  Thankfully, I have been going ever since. 

Back-peddling here:  I suffered anxiety about five years prior as well.  I found that simply adding exercise to my life helped.  Of course, I wasn't dealing with the loss of a child at that point in time.  So the anxiety wasn't quite as overwhelming to handle. 

Back to now:  Exercise was helping.  However, I was still feeling some anxiety here and there.  (I think I will always feel some anxiety here and there because of the trauma I have faced.)  After a recent anxiety attack, I decided to try yoga.  I had wanted to try yoga for years.  So I tried it.  I started doing yoga regularly over two months ago.  I still haven't reached my goal of doing it daily, but I try.  I would say I am doing it four days a week now, though I am aiming for five.  I have one day that seems nearly impossible due to my busy schedule.  I will know I have achieved yoga greatness (ha) when I start squeezing it into that busy day. 

Since starting yoga, I have not had any anxiety.  None. 

 Coincidence? 

I don't know.  I just know that Yoga makes me feel the best I have felt in awhile. 

My Yoga Morning Could Have Been Better

There was a lack of sleep last night, perhaps that was part of it.  I awoke with the temptation to skip yoga.  I wasn't planning to skip it altogether.  I thought I'd go to a later class.  I believe there is an evening class on Tuesdays.  Yet, I realized that I may as well get out of bed because I was awake. 

I have come to realize that I am more off-balance at the early morning classes than I am later.  I couldn't hold a pose for the life for me today.  I wiggled, I wobbled, I wibbled, I woggled. 

The instructor did something I am not a huge fan of:  she held the poses for longer and did less.  I forget what that style is called, maybe Hatha.  I know I prefer the Vinyasa Flow yoga where the poses are held for less time.  My biggest problem with the longer held poses is that sometimes I have a pose that is especially tough for me.  If it is tough and I have a hard time holding it period, then the fifteen seconds of it will feel wasted to me. 

The instructor had some serious expectations for the strength of my arms today that is JUST NOT THERE. 

I wish I would start losing weight.  Yoga would be so much easier if I weighed forty pounds less.

Yoga: Hope for the Newbie

Yesterday, my friend posted a photograph of herself in a difficult Yoga pose.  She was in a sort of back bend with one leg kicked upward.  I was impressed!  When I ran into her today, I asked her if she had always been that flexible and how long she had been practicing yoga.

Her response to the first inquiry was no, she has not always been that flexible.  Yay!  There is hope for me!

Her next answer was that she has been practicing yoga for two years. 

The other thing that gave me hope is that she has been doing it at home using a simple app on her own for all of those two years.  She has gained that much strength and flexibility by simply following an app. 

I'm having a rough week due to vehicle things.  Getting to my Yoga classes is going to be pretty much impossible.  So I will do it at home.  And I am going to learn to not make excuses anymore.  If I am home, I can squeeze in at least thirty minutes of Yoga. 

She seriously motivated me!

Photo credit:  my own

Yoga and Anxiety

I have been attracted to the thought of Yoga for quite awhile.  In fact, I tried a class probably ten years ago that was a pilates-yoga combination class at my then-current gym.  I wasn't impressed at the time.  It was probably too large a venue for a newbie like me.  I didn't try again. 

Then anxiety arrived in my life.  Initially, I seemed to manage it.  It went away.  Then my son died.  Anxiety returned in full force.  It became overwhelming.  I turned to prescription anxiety meds for help.  It helped me through those rough first holidays last year.  What I found, though, was that prescription medicine made me feel like a zombie.  I seriously had no emotion.  I didn't cry for months.  And I am a crier.  I went through my first Christmas without my son and I didn't cry.  Sure, I didn't want to be a basket case, but I wanted to feel my real emotions. 

So shortly after the holidays, I said bye bye to the prescription medicines. 

Exercise has always helped with my anxiety.  So I was trying to keep up with that as well.  As I started to feel a slight upturn in anxiety again, I decided to find a yoga class.  I belong to the YMCA which offers yoga classes.  So I had to find schedules that worked with me.  I did so.

Now it is over two months since I started and I can say that my anxiety has seemed under control.  I feel like I leave yoga class relaxed.  I can breathe easier, literally. 

I hated the idea of being tied to medications to function day to day.  I'm so glad I ditched them and found a more natural way to handle my stress.