Tag Archives: weight loss

Jan3

Look! Squirrel! What I learned from a squirrel this morning…

Posted on by
Standard
Look! Squirrel! What I learned from a squirrel this morning…

D2B93767-66F6-42B7-B10E-06E1EB562DABThere was a big, fat, cheeky, cheerful squirrel (as is the case on most days) performing acrobatic stunts and possibly saying “na na nana boo boo!” (in the language of squirrels) as he faced Jane’s wall of glass this morning from his perch atop the vertical slats of the wooden fence.

It was six degrees Fahrenheit. I know this because my Volkswagen told me so as I drove my creaky, holiday-overstuffed body to practice yoga this morning.

These are the mornings I want to stay in bed, to plead the case to myself that if I just stay home from yoga and diet for a few days, I will feel SO MUCH BETTER about going. Because for the past 60 days or so, I have been traveling, drinking, eating sumptuous roasts and the fatted calf and the sacrificial lamb and Burgermeister Meisterburger’s turkey leg…and the cookies. And enough chocolate for an entire neighborhood’s Halloween. And I’ve loved it, but my scale says I’ve loved it ten pounds worth. And my skin is itchy. And my sinuses are sneezy. Even my elbows are fat, or it feels that way. Zippy pants make muffin top, so I had to temporarily abandon them. So I want to hide for a week or two, get myself back in order, and then come out.

If I weren’t teaching yoga now, there’s a decent chance that I would have done just that. But I can’t, because later today, and tomorrow, and going forward, I have a commitment to teach yoga. (I don’t call it a job.) A commitment that I love, and that I live. Because part of the reason I WANT to do it is to share it with others. So, as I always joke to my husband at this time of year, some days my success is that people can come to my yoga class and say, “See? She can do it, and she sure isn’t shaped like a yoga teacher!”

And that’s okay. Because that really IS a success. I’m happy to support that line of thinking.

Back to the squirrel. (“Look! Squirrel!) This morning’s squirrel was fat and sassy, but his (or her) girthy butt was out there, confident as ever. That extra fat, designed to keep him warm and fed during the winter, did not hold him back from leaping with abandon towards a nearby tree branch. It didn’t stop him from balancing and then running on a wood track maybe an inch wide. He didn’t fall, he didn’t balk.

His body didn’t forget what to do. It didn’t lose strength because it had more to carry, it gained it. His power was palpable, the sinew twitching beneath his meaty haunches.

He was also full of joy. Strong and free, season be damned. He was in a good mood.

Sometimes this Tarzan-esque squirrel, or another member of his brood, will taunt us through the window, luring our drishti away to follow his antics, stopping just short of jamming his little squirrel thumbs into his ears and waggling his tongue at us. He is playful but business-like.

If you’re feeling the same way as I am, hesitant to drag your holiday-plumped, pale, wintertime self to do anything physical, come on out.

You’re strong, and your body hasn’t forgotten it. You’re stable, and you will see that you can count on it. You’re flexible, in body AND mind, and that’s what will get you there. And you’re beautiful, which you will realize as soon as you join the rest of us on our mats and see the whole group of us as individual, lovely disasters.

We’re exactly where we need to be.

Have a day! No pressure!!

Jan10

On setting goals: my post on mindbodygreen.com

Posted on by
Standard

A New Year without goal-setting?

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-12207/why-i-started-rocking-at-life-when-i-stopped-setting-goals.html

 

Uh-oh. It’s a new year. A new year, with all of its bright, shining potential. We’ve all been bombarded with advice about resolutions, fresh starts, and how to make things achievable. Most gurus recommend goal-setting as an important part of making changes that stick.

I, for one, have some of the same goals that so many others do: getting into better shape, restoring good habits which have waned, and checking new things off of my aging bucket-list. I lost my dad this past summer after a few years of his illness, and the love and support (read: ham and cookie baskets) which my family received began a long downslide for me.

It was the fall and winter of gluttony, sloth, and laziness. Plus cocktails. While there is a time to mourn, there is also a time to dance. Kevin Bacon said so in the original Footloose, and I believe him.

So, like many, I approached this new year as an opportunity to set and achieve all sorts of goals. I’ve gained weight, taken a weeks-long break from yoga, the freezing cold temperatures have prevented me from outdoor walks, and finally finishing college took up my creative writing time. I set out my lined paper and pen and planner and began to formulate the hard-lined goals for success: dietary restrictions…yoga class times…scheduled writing commitments.

But part of planning the year ahead successfully is looking at the years gone by reflectively. What had I accomplished in 2013? For that matter, what have I accomplished since I last made actual, written down new-year’s resolutions? That’s been a few years.

Well, I graduated from college at age 44 with top honors. I did Stand-Up Paddleboard yoga on a little lake, then a Great Lake, and then the Gulf of Mexico (that one with my best friend of 30 years). I learned to stand on my head. I forged a few really valuable new friendships. A website published my essay. I “took up” tennis. I tried vegetarianism. I volunteered at an animal shelter. I went to church more. I wrote to a person in prison. I bonded with my mom and sisters.

The past few years have been the richest in my life, and today I realized that I made all of that progress without goals. Shhh, don’t tell the goal-oriented people that! Being goal-oriented leads to success—all the job descriptions say so. I’m not going to refute that logic, but I made the greatest progress in my own life when I specifically did not set goals.

And it all started with yoga.

I did not start yoga because I was interested in weight loss, strength, exercise, socialization, or self-improvement. I began yoga to help me relax for an hour from anxiety, because both of my parents had health issues at that time. I went in to each yoga class with zero expectations for myself as far as poses, not caring what I could or could not do, not watching what anyone else could or could not do. It just felt good to be there, to stretch, to hear humble positive words. It was only in hindsight that I could see that yoga made me lose weight.

Yoga gave me physical strength. Yoga gave me the confidence to have the courage to even try to stand on my head, or get out on a body of water on a paddleboard. (I am not a swimmer.) It made me more mindful of my eating, my friendships, my possessions, my thoughts. It gave me an hour’s escape and a day’s worth of peace. I learned patience and appreciation for transition, enabling me to process the ending of my dad’s life. Yoga introduced me to new ideas, new people, and through those, ample fodder for creative writing. I talk, write about, and attempt to share yoga all the time.

But it’s time for me to walk the talk and listen to what I say. I can’t go into yoga in 2014 to lose pounds, gain arm definition, or train for the next athletic endeavor or writing project. All that I have been taught by yoga and my mentor, Jane, is that yoga will find in each of us what we need, and help us to fill it ourselves. Yoga can tell us, we don’t need to tell it. That’s how we take yoga off the mat and into the world; not by setting the path, but by following it.

Photo Credit: Stocksy.com

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com