Today, I did yoga at work

I found myself feeling like I was stuck at my desk and my muscles were all locking up. I’ve been having some back problems since I hurt myself at the playground a few weeks ago.

I’ve been to the chiropractor twice, now, and the spasms seem to have reduced, but things still get pretty sore throughout the day.

While getting my steps in and exploring the lower level at work, I found a quiet space and decided some yoga was in order. I loaded up the YouTube channel for Yoga with Adriene and found a perfect 10-minute sequence that I could do on my breaks.

In it, Adriene Mishler said something that really resonated with me–as I’m joining Weight Watchers, using a FitBit, going to Orange Theory Fitness, and really trying so hard to transform who I am. She said:

I love yoga because, yoga is actually not about transforming into something awesome. It’s about recognizing that you’re already amazing, and awesome, and unique, and beautiful, and if that makes you giggle, that’s fine, that’s okay with me–just know deep down that it’s true…

At the end of our yoga sessions we often take a moment to acknowledge how awesome we are; it’s not stuck up. It’s a way of going I’m awesome, you’re awesome, and we’re all awesome.

Gosh I just loved that. Especially since she acknowledged that saying “I’m awesome,” might cause some people to giggle, or refuse to accept it as fact. I have to tell you what, though.  When I interviewed for my job, I said I was awesome because I HAD to. Most of it was bravado and desperation to find my next career and actually excel at it. But I’ve been living that ever since I started my new career.  Am I perfect? No. Will I make mistakes? Of course! But you know what? I’m pretty freaking awesome.

I think if you need a boost and you want to connect with your inner-awesome, you should check out Yoga with Adriene on YouTube. She’s unique in the way she connects with her audience… less woo, more woo-sah.

 

Team Doge Wow Such Weight loss! Please Vote

I have joined a team challenge at work, and it’s off to such a fun start.  I’m on a team with a group of four women at work and we have dubbed ourselves “Team Doge Wow Such Weight Loss!”  The twelve week challenge kicks off with a mini-challenge to come up with the best team name (check!) and best team “before” photo (check!)

I would love it if you could check out our submission (below) and vote for us on the HealthyWage website (http://www.healthywage.com/leaderboards/team_standings/?team_challenge=80&secondary_filter=1).  This site is just like Diet Bet and Biggest Loser, except you cannot lose more than 1.5% of your weight/week and no more than 16.75% of your weight over the course of the challenge.  I’m really excited to have a team of co-workers to tackle this with.  They’ve been instrumental in my motivation this week 🙂

[EDIT: added directions –  access the link, and then select “GE HealthAhead’s Lose Weight, Win Big 2014” and “Mini Challenge #1: Best Team Name and Before Photo”]

Feeling so lucky!

My goodness… Out of respect for my friend’s privacy, I’ll not be posting photos here, but I am seriously on cloud nine after visiting my good friend and her new baby.  She is so happy and her baby is so bubbly… I just couldn’t be happier for them 🙂 I love her system of baby care, too!  The table in her living room is all set up with a station for warming the wipes, a pile of cloth diapers at-the-ready, a wicker basket of extra diaper covers, etc.  and on the other side of the couch–a lined hamper to keep the soiled cloth diapers in.  The fabric burp cloth that she has is embellished with a fabric with a ‘monsters’ cartoon theme to it that just adds to the child-like whimsy.  AH! Love.

*Ahem*

Please excuse my reverie 😉

Besides having awesome friends, I also feel very lucky to be getting back into personal training.  Raise your hand if you remember me talking about the Warrior Dash… anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Yeah, me too.  I kept telling myself that it was so far away and that I still had time, but here we are on the cusp of summer and the dash is just 4 weeks away.  I will be the first to admit that I. Am. Not. Ready.  Oi.  I am waffling about whether or not to even go, but I think that I just need to solidify in my mind that it is an event, and my life–both fitness and non-fitness related–with go on regardless of my performance.  Besides, the whole point is that it’s a *party* with an obstacle course thrown in.  I am sure I will psych myself up for it before the big day comes 🙂

Yesterday was day one of personal training with Emily, my new trainer.  Ramon is still a great friend and fitness trainer, but I got burned out.  I think that Emily just might get where I’m coming from and I feel like she can help me get to where I want to go.  She is big into form and function and so my first session was just getting the basics down so that she could see how I move.  We did things like Farmer’s Carry/Walk, static lunges, over-head presses, cable pulls, and squats.  The thing that I liked the most is that the warm up involved flexing muscles and moving joints that would actually be challenged in the strength training workout.  I have had injuries in the past, and she kept that in mind during the warm up and paid special attention to making sure that my previously-damaged-joints were limber and ready to work.

I think the thing that I am most excited about is that my session with Emily was spur-of-the-moment and inspired Jeff to start personal training too.  I didn’t have my workout clothes with me when I talked to her in the afternoon, but I was able to call Jeff and ask him to bring them to me.  Taking the opportunity for himself, he chatted with Emily about setting up some personal training for himself.  She is on the ball and didn’t waste any time.  I had talked to her at about 1pm that afternoon and she had a goal sheet and routine ready for me by 5:30pm.  Jeff talked to her at 5:30pm and she had a goal sheet and routine ready for him by 9:30am this morning.  Now, since she is officially training both of us, she put together a couple’s work out that we may be able to try this weekend.

I am really excited ❤

Pork and Porky

The obvious answer is that, no, a hammer is not the right tool for the job when it comes to sweet potatoes–Seriously, though, when I first starting working with sweet potatoes, I admit to taking a hammer to the crappy knife I was using.  These days, I have a much nicer knife at my disposal: It’s a Shun Pro Nikiri knife that my roommate splurged for a couple years ago.  It’s not in the budget right now, but I might put that on our wedding registry 🙂 it’s a NICE knife..

And with it, I made quick work of the potatoes, the onions, the garlic… If I hadn’t been stopping to take pictures, it would have come together in 15 minutes tops. Accidental discovery: I used steel wool to scrub the sweet potatoes and afterwards, it was not necessary to peel them. I loved the amount of time I saved.

This is one of those meals that I kept simple and let the flavors speak for themelves.  Keeping things simple in round 1, makes it easier to re-use the left-overs for round 2.  I put onion and garlic in the bottom of the roaster, put the pork-roast in the middle, and then snuggled the sweet potatoes in beside. I put more minced garlic on top of the pork-roast so that the flavor could run down and mingle with all of the other flavors

Bloggity

So, if you’re here for the food portion of my blog, that’s about it for now. Thanks for stopping by, hitting the subsribe button, following a pin, etc.

Now, on to self reflection!!!

My fiance texted me a picture that he had snapped of me one of these (fairly recent) days. I was aghast! Maybe it was the fuzzy pajama pants, maybe it was foreshortening, maybe it was a harsh reality that I do not want to accept, but all I saw in that picture was just big. Big pink-and-white-fuzzy-pajama swathed me. Fast asleep. Now, I was embarrassed enough to blush and ashamed at how I looked and just wishing I could make the picture go away. But then I took a deep breath, and calmed myself down a bit…. and I texted him back.

Me: So, what do you see when you look at that picture?
Jeff: I took it a few days ago, when you were sleeping 🙂
Me: […] I said what do you see when you LOOK at it?
Jeff: Adorable. Fuzzy Toby [our cat], Fuzzy blankie, fuzzy pants.

And I knew that if we were in person, he would have that loving grin on his face that radiates to me “you’re too stinkin cute!”

That helped me to take a step back and stop looking for all the imperfections in the photo and criticizing how huge my … looked and how I hate xyz. I looked at how peaceful I looked. How I was snuggled with the blanket the way I would’ve snuggled with Jeff had we been sleeping instead of me just napping in the middle of the afternoon. How the cat decided that I had a great idea and nestled into a little fuzzy purr-bucket against the middle of my back. He saw his family, there, not a porky! If only I could learn to see myself through his eyes 100% of the time.

If I delete every photo of me that I think is unflattering, I’m not just hiding evidence of my weight, I’m deleting memories from people who cherish them–myself included. So no, I’m not perfect yet, and yes, I still shrink from the camera-lens some days… but part of my “journey” (so overused..but what other word is there?) is to accept myself for who I am, how I am, every day. Because, little by little, I’m realizing that if I am not happy in life where I am, being skinny will not make me any happier.

Today’s goal is to get 8 hrs of sleep. As long as I shut my eyes within an hour, I should just make it 🙂

And as a bonus feature (if you read this far) here is why the pics of the food are always close-cropped, lol:

Reality

InBody230: October Readings, Reflections

I have actually had some good improvements over the last two months.  Here are the numbers:

Category: Then – Now = Change
Dry Lean Mass: 31.8lbs – 32.2lbs = +.4lbs of Muscle
Body Fat Mass: 105.3lbs – 102.3lbs = -3.0lbs of fat
BMI: 36.1 – 35.8 = -.3 points
PBF: 47.1% – 46.1% = -1% Body Fat
RMR: 1529 kcal – 1541 kcal = + 12 kcals burned per day

I was really happy with the results.  Compared to my beginning readings, though, I’m pretty much back to where I started.  I had taken a pretty big step backwards in July and actually cried over my results.  Taking a look at the data, though, I can see that compared to May, I have only lost .8lbs over all, but 100% of that loss has been fat.  I have lost .2% body fat since May.  I have gained 1.3lb of muscle in my torso/core, .2lb of muscle in each of my biceps.  Curiously, I have lost .4lb of muscle from my right leg and .2lb of muscle from my left.  I know that prior to starting my personal training, I focused a lot more on my lower-body workouts than I am these days.

I am scheduling my next PT session for some time either this or next week.  I am sincerely hoping to get a new workout routine because the one that I have been doing for the last few weeks has become a bit too routine.  It’s starting to get mentally boring @_@;

Weight Watchers is something that I’m giving a try.  I just signed up recently and they’ve given me a points plus allowance of 35/day.  We’ll see how that goes and I’ll report back here.