My Path to Outer Skinniness

Breakfast is a tricky meal, at least for me. I get up in the morning and manage to limit most of my routine to the upstairs. When I finally make it downstairs I usually have about 10 minutes left before I need to dash out the door. It seems the options for a fast healthy breakfast are pretty limited even without a 10 minute time limit. One of the things I've been doing is to eat yogurt. I'm really weird about yogurt though. I eat it in phases and when I'm not in a phase I feel like I have to force-feed myself what's left. I'm also kind of picky. My favorite yogurt is the Brown Cow Maple or Blueberry greek yogurt. It has lots of protein and it's really creamy and rich. Another thing I do is to make non-instant oatmeal. I'm not a fan of the texture and the chemical flavor of the sludge that comes in the little brown paper packets. My doctor told me the chunkier the oatmeal grain the better the benefits. I had been eating steel-cut oats, but they take at le...

Charlotte will be 2 in June. This means that I have been trying for almost 2 years to shed the 40 pounds I gained in pregnancy. I'm halfway there, but these last 20 pounds are a bitch to lose. So far I've adjusted my diet toward more whole grain and power types of foods like chia seeds, local honey, fruits and vegetables, and healthy oils like coconut and safflower oil. My kitchen pantry is like a showcase of Trader Joes, New Seasons and Bob's Red Mill. I've also been pretty good about going to yoga once a week. But this is obviously inadequate. I know this isn't particularly profound but I've been realizing that your body is the physical appearance of what you do to take care of it. Exercise tones and shapes it. Healthy foods make it glow. Stress wears it out. Trans-fats make it flubby. Throw in a late-night visit to McDonalds and more than a few trips to starbucks (why would I want it nonfat and sugar free? I don't want to taste the coffee!), a not-so-...

I was debating about writing about todays yoga experience, first because I know at some point this is going to sound like the same thing over and over again, and second because I had a bad yoga day and I've been so positive about yoga I kind of wanted to just pretend it didn't happen and move on with life. But I've decided to go ahead and talk about it because this path to outer skinniness is about being honest about the journey. Being fat is hard. Getting skinny is hard. Staying skinny, also hard. I think there's this barrier that we create mentally towards each other. Fat people assume skinny people don't know how hard it is to get to be like them. We assume skinny people couldn't possibly have the same insecurities and body issues we have. Skinny people assume fat people are lazy or just not trying hard enough. I'm making rather broad generalities, but you know what I mean. The truth is we all have a lot more in common than we have differences and if ...

This yoga stuff is starting to really grow on me. Tonight I made it to my third class with the same instructor at 24 hour. I decided to put my mat about halfway back the room right next to the window. There was a little patch of mirror so I could see myself but not the whole time. I was really surprised at how much I've progressed in such a short time. I think I'm starting to understand the flow of the movement which really helps. I also know where I'm supposed to end up when she calls out a pose like warrior 1, 2, or 3, or low versus high lunge. I was able to actually go into a full warrior 3 pose with my right leg as a base! I held it for probably a good 10 seconds before I started to lose my balance and had to catch myself but I was pretty proud of myself for getting my leg in a straight line behind me. Warrior 3  Then she had us try standing split pose. I'll take my victory with warrior 3 thank you very much! Standing Split Pose I still haven't lo...

Last night I had planned to go to yoga at 24 hour fitness at 5:30. Since I had a bit of time between teaching and my class I decided to drive to the high school to catch up on some work. By the time I was satisfied with what I'd accomplished it was 5:30 already. In other words, I was going to miss my yoga class. I figured I could just go to Zumba at 6:30 instead but it occurred to me that I didn't have my tennis shoes. I need a gym bag for my car that I keep all of these things in. *noted* So I decided to use the power of smart phones and find another drop in yoga class. I must say, there are far more yoga studios than I expected in Portland. They aren't quite as frequent as Starbucks, but there's at least 3 in every neighborhood. Anyway, I found a drop in class that was reasonably priced so I made my way to the studio. I took this picture outside the yoga center. I liked how the flowers on the tree were the same color as the rusty wall of the building. I ende...

Apparently I need to earn 4.5 graduate level credits to renew my teaching license. This could have been done to some staggered expense if I'd thought about this about two years ago. But now it's due in May. Lucky (?) for me there is an entire program through PSU for continuing education that offers these credits for $55 each. The only catch is the course fee. These are typically in the $300-500 range. Bummer. I skimmed through the course catalog and stumbled across a class that was only $150. This I can figure out.  So now I'm registered for a class called "Psychological Elements of Global Citizenship". The last time I took an online class it was for my cluster courses that were my alternative to general education classes. I took gender studies. It was basically an exercise in arguing with people who all agree with each other to be more liberal. Just because someone "identifies" as "male" doesn't mean he has an anger problem. It was poin...

Everyone, I'm sure, has different things that they give up at one point or another - an instrument, a sport, hobbies and activities - expecting that they'll get around to doing it again someday. At some point we face reality and decide that we'll probably never do said thing again but it was nice to have done it and boy don't we wish we had the time/skill/energy to get back into it? Then there's the things you try, aren't much good at and even hate, and then you throw in the towel fully expecting never to do it again. For me these are running and yoga. I've always had a very strange love/hate relationship with running. I'd love to be able to run.  But running hates me and my joints/lungs/feet. (I promise not to use any more slashes now). I've taken up running - specifically running, not running as a result of doing another sport - probably about three times now. I've decided to quit and not try again all three times. I'm sure it will surfac...