Yoga and My Judgmental Mind

I used to practice yoga on a regular basis.  I had a regular teacher with whom I practiced and I followed her to wherever she taught, until she moved to California, that is.  After that I had a difficult time finding a yoga instructor with whom I had such a great connection.  Yoga was just coming back in fashion, so to speak.  There were yoga classes at gyms but I found them to be irritating and not at all satisfying.  I ended up doing my yoga in the comfort of my home with tapes (am I dating myself yet?) and then DVDs.


Fast forward several years, I completely loved prenatal yoga and kind of liked the Mommy & Me yoga.  I did yoga after I had Lilly to help get those poor, post-cesarean abs back into action.  I would do downward facing dog with Lilly laying between my hands.  I could stay in that pose for hours if it meant looking into those deep brown eyes.  Life got a little busy, what with grad school and then back to working full time out of the home.  Yoga was pushed to the side.


When my hands were starting to get really bad about 2 years ago, yoga became nearly impossible because my hands hurt and were numb.  I had pain radiating up to my shoulder and I could not hold myself up in a pose like downward facing dog any longer.  I would sometimes try to do a DVD and work around poses that I could not do, but I felt defeated.  I had the surgeries (bilateral carpal tunnel release) a little over 1 year ago.  I am just now able to put some pressure on those hands in that way.  In the past year I have also had some foot issues.  And, to top it all off, I have gained weight.  


Where am I going with this?  Back to yoga.  Truthfully, I probably could have been doing some yoga in the past 6-8 months, which is when my hand stopped hurting that much.  I have a fabulous yoga studio around the corner from me, literally within walking distance, and I don't make the time or the money to go.  I think I was afraid.  A few times I had started to do a DVD or an on demand yoga workout and I could barely get through the first few minutes, let alone a 40 minute workout.  I wanted to be doing the kind of yoga I did 15 years ago.


I have been chatting with the yoga instructor at camp and I happened to mention my back pain.  (old car accident)  She has gently suggested yoga and I said that I know I should and that I love yoga.  My mom has even suggested I get back to yoga many times.  So tonight I did it.  I asked Vin if I could take over the living room for  a bit so that I could do some yoga.  I found a Gentle Yoga workout on demand.  I was tempted to try another work out....power yoga or strengthening yoga.  But I thought that maybe I needed to start with baby steps.  


Within seconds of starting it, I was judging myself.   I used to be able to do this and more.  I used to be able to do shoulder stands.  You're too fat to do this.  If only I had continued.  If only I had started again sooner.  And then I heard the instructor remind the viewer (me) to release any judgement of where you are from your mind.  Wherever you are is where you are.  It is not how far you are stretching up/down/to the side, but are you aligned?  Are you lengthening your spine?  A few times she asked us to lay there and think about how we feel without judging it.  My mind is a freaking chatterbox when given the opportunity.  I was this close to yelling at myself out loud.   I really had to constantly remind myself that it is okay that I am not doing shoulder stands or hanging out in downward dog for 5 minutes at a stretch.  It is okay that I cannot do what I could do 4 years ago or 6 years ago or 10 years ago.  


It is okay that I am overweight. Why?  Because I should not be judging myself on how much I weigh. Should I be taking better care of myself and my body?  You bet.  And I have been moving in that direction.  Slowly but surely I will get to a place where I am happy AND the weight that I want to be.  But until then, I need to be happy with me.  


When I was able to let go of the negative thoughts and actually FEEL my body, I could feel positive things going on inside.  Things that lead me to believe that I can get to a point of wellness.  When I was gentle with myself, my body responded more to my requests.  When I was not berating myself and when I was open, my body opened.  It was almost as if it remembered, too, what regular yoga could do for it.  But my body remembered in a nice way, not the judgmental way of my mind.  It was telling me, and my muscles and joints, to take it slowly, but surely and most importantly...to do it.  

My daughter and her chubbalicious thighs

Even before I became a mom I was aware of how a mother's actions and words can affect her daughter's own self image.  As a preschool teacher I encountered many a young girl who thought she was fat, when really she was just how she should be.  Young girls have soft, pudgy-ish bodies.  Even when they are lean, they have soft bellies and thighs.  They are squishy and cuddly and perfect.

I was heartbroken to hear a young student of mine say how big her belly was as she grabbed it and complained that her thighs touched.  When I later spoke to her mom about what I witnessed, she cringed as she realized that her 4 year-old was mimicking what she herself has done in the young girl's presence.  All you have to do is google "mothers and daughters and body image" and you will see numerous articles on this very subject.

So here is the thing, as a grown woman who has more belly fat than I would like at this time, I am so tempted to do that very thing.  There are times when I am getting dressed and I am so frustrated at myself for not losing the weight already that I want to rant about it.  Out loud, very loudly, not silently.  But Lilly is usually right there next to me, my little shadow that she is, and so I tell myself to shut the hell up.  It is a little inner argument I have with myself.

I can totally picture it:  I grab my belly/thighs/arms and say, "Ugh, why is my (insert body part) so big?  Why can't I stick to a diet?  This just looks gross in this dress/shirt/pants."  Lilly overhears me and looks down at her belly/thighs/arms.  She sees how her belly sticks out a bit or notices that her thighs jiggle as she jumps up and down like a lunatic to the Fresh Beat Band.  She starts to wonder if maybe her belly is too big...

Research backs this up:
Throughout the daughter's childhood, Fuerstein says, mother and daughter become like mirrors for each other's sense of self. The daughter, in particular, tries to fit into her mother's view of her. In a family with several sisters, for example, one daughter is often seen as the responsible sister while another is the popular sister. At the same time, the daughter is influenced by her mother's own self-image. This last is called modeling, Fuerstein says. When mothers have a realistic self-image, the modeling is healthy. But mothers who are unhappy with some feature of their body or personality can produce daughters who see themselves through the same distorted mirror. For example, mothers who constantly talk about how fat they are are more likely to produce daughters who feel fat as well—even if neither is overweight. - Laura Arens Fuerstein to write "My Mother, My Mirror" (New Harbinger, 2009)

How can Lilly know that her chubbiness is the most beautiful thing in the world to me?  I am still amazed, 4 years later, that we made that skin, that my milk nourished her body for so long.  I tell her all the time how beautiful she is.  I squeeze her and kiss her and rub lotion in to keep her skin as soft as it should be.  I tell her how much I love her thighs, belly, heinie, face, feet, hands...I tell her how smart she is and proud I am of her when she overcomes her own little struggles.  I do not want there to be any confusion in her mind that she is a beautiful girl, no matter what she weighs and looks like.  I do not want Lilly to ever think or feel "less than" because her thighs touch or she does not have a flat belly.  Deep down inside I am trying to convince myself that I am beautiful even with jiggly thighs and a big belly; that I deserve to love myself.  But until that happens, until I know how beautiful I really I am, I will fake it.  Fake it till you make it is an old saying I have heard many times.  I will fake it so that Lilly can make it.

NC 2011

Last year Vin, Lilly and I drive to NC to visit my college bestie Michelle.  Michelle moved to NC at some point in college after her parents, gulp, moved there while she was studying abroad in Australia.  Where, by the way, she met her hubbie Jason.  I had visited over the years but have not done the drive since Lilly came along.  Last year we stayed in a hotel 1/2 way both on the way down and back.  This year we were road warriors!  We drove all the way down in 1 day!!  Lilly was an amazing traveller.  She seriously did not give us any trouble going or coming back.  We spent about a week there visiting and getting to know her little miracle baby Porter.  From the looks of him (picture to follow) you would never guess that he was 10 weeks early!  He is an amazing baby and has the sweetest disposition.

We decided to take it easy coming home and stay over in VA.  Well, thank goodness we did because it took us 5.5 hours to drive the 200 or so miles from NC to VA.  yikes!  Vin was so hardcore...doing ALL the driving and not even letting me drive a tiny bit.  I was the Lilly helper....food, drinks, snacks, DVDs, books, crayons and baby dolls.  I will add pictures when I can find my wire to download them to my computer.

Now that I have had my fill of BBQ....swoon...I am getting back on that same old, same old bandwagon.  Eating healthy and daily exercise starts tomorrow!  I know, I know....I say that all the time.  But seriously, I need to just fucking do it.  I am tired of not fitting into my cute summer clothes.  Plus, I have some super cute fall skirts that will look so hot (yet work-appropriate) with my boots!  Must. Lose. Weight.  And I really, really just want to feel better about myself and I know I do when I just get the job done.  It is not that I lose weight and feel better because I start to feel better a lot sooner than any weight loss occurs.  I feel better about myself when I exercise regularly.  And then I make better choices.  And then the weight loss occurs.  Or probably it all happens at the same time, but you get my drift.

I am sure this should have been 2 posts but it's not.  My blog, my prerogative.  Kinda like the random profanities...my blog.  So bite me.  :)

p.s.  I was never into the term "bestie" when used by people over say, 12, but it has grown on me.  I always feel that BFF was limited to 1 person whereas bestie may refer to a few people because really, who has just 1 BFF?

the scale and whatnot

If you follow my blog (I hope someone says yes!) then you will know that I was attempting to follow Weight Watchers.  I say attempting because I was only really doing it full heartedly for a few weeks.  I would do well for a few weeks and then fall off.  Then I would get back into it but then stop mid-week or something.  There was always a reason why I was not counting points that day or following it exactly.  Or I would start counting the points and then I would get a bit psycho about it.  Only to myself, mind you, but I hated feeling that way, so then I would stop.  i would weigh myself every day, multiple times a day and I would allow the results to dictate how I felt about myself.  I decided not to renew my membership, even after I saw both my SILs who are following WW and doing an AWESOME job!  (Go Kelly & Gina!) I have realized that after trying WW 3 or 4 times that it really might not be the plan for me.  

You will also know that I had fallen off the exercise wagon.  I was doing some Wii stuff but nothing regular and I was not utilizing my gym membership.  Last week I started back to the gym and I have been going regularly.  And it feels amazing.  I mean, I am a bit sore but I am so happy to be back.  I was thinking that I was going to be embarrassed that the guys who work there would know that I was MIA for so long.  I am not.  I am not worrying about what other people think of me.  I might have to remind myself of that every once in a while but I am not letting it get to me.  I am concentrating on cardio and my ab exercises (which I learned in PT to help my back) and stretching.  I am hoping to do yoga again soon, but for now I am just incorporating poses into my post-workout stretching.  I need to build up the strength in my wrists before I start really doing anything with weights again, so plank, table, and downward facing dog and cat/dog are perfect for that.

Here is the big thing: I am not getting on the scale.  I slipped last week at one point and I could really tell how it mentally brought me down for a few hours.  Besides that one slip, I have not weighed myself in about a month.  I feel crazy good about myself right now.  I know that I did not lose all the extra pounds in one week at the gym, but I just feel better about myself.  I am a little bit firmer perhaps and my legs always get definition quickly.  The main thing is how my state of mind has been able to remain positive. Even this morning I was feeling so good about myself and like maybe I even lost a few pounds so I thought, "Maybe I will just step on the scale and see."  I resisted because if I stepped on the scale and I had not lost any pounds I risked losing my positive outlook.  Maybe someday I will be able to step on a scale without it affecting how I feel about myself that hour/day/week.  But until then, I have sworn off the scale!

Now I just have to remember all this when the going gets tough and work starts back up September 1st. 

New start

As I have written before, my husband has type 2 Diabetes. He was diagnosed about a year ago and it has been a long journey since then. He finally found an endocrinologist that he likes and trusts. Yesterday we went to the doctor's dietician and got some really great information.

As I have also written before, I have been gaining weight and trying to get motivated to get moving and to change my eating habits. I am getting uncomfortable in my own body, which tells me it is the right time. I used to be pretty active. I was even active a few months ago, but I got off track and it has been hard to get back on. The truth is that I have always struggled with my weight and/or body image. I don't understand why I have been gaining weight so quickly recently. I swear there is something else going on (thyroid?) but when they check they say it is normal. So I will try my best and if things still don't change then I will talk to a doctor again.

So here we go...Vinnie and I will be working as a team to support each other and change our lifestyle. Our Lilly baby deserves two healthy, active parents.

It starts NOW!!!

blah

I know I am getting my period anytime now, and this is the most likely culprit for this feeling. I am just feeling so fat and blah. I tend to keep those feeling inside and kind of just let them live. I was thinking that maybe if I got it out in the open (like on here) it can help me let those feeling go. I have struggled with these feelings as far back as middle school age and especially high school. Even in college, there were times that I worked really hard and got in good shape...and I still felt like this. It is kind of like this...no matter what my body actually looks like, I have a picture in my head of what it looks like. Most of the time I have a realistic picture in my head, but sometimes this other picture takes it place. And when it does, it affects my whole outlook. And of course then I want to eat cupcakes. :)

So really this was about just letting those feelings go. I am acknowledging that I am feeling like this, but not giving it any credibility. I am doing the best I can right now. It may not be enough to lose weight, but it is what I can do right now.

Now that I have a daughter I really want to get a handle on these feelings. I have read several books over the years about how young girls are affected by what their moms and other women in their life say about their own bodies.