day 60 back

So. The scale, as I just stepped off of it, reads: one hundred and friggin’ seventy pounds. I cannot get that damn number below 1-7-0. I have battled with my weight and figure since about 10^th grade. Is it coincidence that I had a VERY traumatic experience happen to me in the late 9^th grade year? Perhaps. Or was it just that simply, this was my year to start buying size 10 jeans as a 16 year old? When the previous year I was loose in size 7, juniors. Perhaps it was just me growing into the figure I would always have as a woman. But the unhealthy weight set in, regardless.

I have never had an eating disorder. But I did somewhat starve myself a few times. In high school I would go months with just nibbling. Just barely eating enough to NOT pass out. Why? I had no one at school who I was comparing myself to. I just knew that I hated cellulite. The devilish little divots covered my entire thighs, front and back. And in gym class as we did a forward bend while stretching out for dodge ball, I remember seeing the cellulite covering my thighs and hating them. Hating myself. But was it the cellulite that I hated, or the personal choices and massive emotional mistakes coming out, personified in my body jelly? Or was it that no one had ever just taught me how to be strong, both physically and emotionally? I think a little bit of both, but mostly the latter. Unless you were an Olympic hopeful gymnast, I had no one in my life who had a physical routine of health, wellness and exercise telling me anything about fitness.

Truth is, I never really liked myself. I battled with dealing with a school bully for YEARS. I had school mates lying about me and starting horrific rumors. I went inward and hung out away from everyone which ended up being the wrong places. The outward body was long forgotten. I struggled through school emotionally and scholastically. And when it was time for college, I wanted to find elite fitness, new friends, a new town and a new Becca. The scale did not matter so much, or the pant size. I just wanted to be fit and feel amazing in everything I did.

In Savannah, and at my beloved Savannah College of Art and Design, I ate whatever I wanted and joined the crew/rowing team. Life was good. If only I could stop making all those stupid decisions with the kids on my free time, life might have been perfect! I kept getting myself in trouble. I would make friends and screw it up. I would have boyfriends and…..screw that up. Mostly it was because birthday parties and connecting with party buddies intrigued me more than most of my classes and projects. As one former boss of mine put it to me several years ago, “back then we were just trying to connect and trying to experiment with our spirituality.” True! I was trying to find love and something real, something beautiful, exciting and feeling good for the first time in my life. And hardly any work out or school project ever made me feel that way. But I was bound and determined to NOT gain the freshman 15 I saw so many older generations do. They came home for Thanksgiving and everyone hardly recognized them. When it was MY turn to leave for college, this would NOT happen. And it didn’t. I could safely say I was in the best shape of my life whilst rowing. I loved the water, I loved the workouts, but I had a hard time finding balance between that, schooling and my social life. The three did not mix. And like the poor-decision maker I had always been, socializing won out. I was so excited to have awesome friends for the first time in my life. Two years later I dropped the team and up, up, up went my weight.

At the end of college, I decided to re-visit something I had dabbled in when I was around 18 years old; YOGA. I am pretty proud of myself for getting into Yoga before it was cool and before it was offered in gyms and DVDs and on magazine racks at any local store. You had to search for Yoga and the mystery and difficulty in finding the material on it made it all that much more romantic to me. It was like a treasure hunt. In college in the south, there was not ONE SINGLE Yoga studio where I lived. So I made my boyfriend drive me to Blockbuster and Best Buy where they would occasionally have a VHS tape on the racks of the Rodney Yee and Patricia Walden Gaiam/Yoga Journal Yoga series for sale. There were 8 total VHS tapes in their series and I had located them all. Long before the days of Amazon, I found my VHS collection and started my studies on this ancient art I (kinda) had no idea why I was fascinated and obsessed with. I just went for it and dove into it. I think the scale hoovered back down again at this point. Possibly went back into about size 8 pants.

prepping for ashtakrasana

I think it was this: for the first time in my life, I found a way to be conscious. I had been barreling and slamming through life like a rickety dump drunk on a bumpy, gravel road….going down a muddy hill and not sure where or what the destination was. I was finally stopping. Breathing. Moving with grace. Feeling. Loving. I remember when I did Trikonasana or triangle pose for the first several times….not during, but the next day I would feel an awareness in my legs like I had NEVER, ever felt. My legs felt amazing, circulation right. Rooted. Grounded. THERE. Present. I felt them as they carried me to the grocery store and to class. This was self love trickling through my post office trips and carrying me to meetings, all from a one hour practice I had done a day or two ago! I was addicted. I found one Yoga class offered in Savannah above a coffee shop. And though I had never been to a proper Yoga studio, only 2 different locations and types of classes offered in make-shift meeting locations, I sat on the beach at the age of 20 and wrote in my journal: “I want to be certified to be a Yoga instructor.” I knew nothing about it. But was hungry and had a silly, big dream and had no idea why. It was as though my passion was coming from another place. Another life. Another brain from another person. I just obeyed and listened. I followed it. I was clueless. But determined. At this point weight didn’t even matter or phase me.

Very rarely have I gotten the chance to work with amazing Yoga instructors. I have gone to far fewer workshops than I have wanted to go to. But I got there a few times. I was honored to work with several different renowned instructors when I worked in the office of a retreat center once and briefly. I learned boat loads there and will be forever grateful for that insane and fleeting experience. And when I was enveloped in my Yoga, my certification next and then my teaching, I worried not much about anything else. And that was when I had the body and physique I (pretty much) always wanted. If bills, parties, art, relationships and friends were not in my frontal lobe, Yoga was it, my body was balanced for the most part and for the first time in my history.

THEN LIFE HAPPENED. Bills built up. Relationships spilled in and spilled over into my personal choices. The need for fun crept in. So I would move, looking for more money, more fun, more gallery openings, more life. Thus bringing, more belly rolls and all the way up to size 14-16 pants. I never was able to find balance. Ever. I teeter tottered back and forth through life, adulthood, wellness and fitness….and the scale and pant size.

Then one day a baby came. And while she was not planned traditionally, I, personally, believe we all choose our paths consciously or subconsciously. I believe that at the time, my higher self was ready to be grounded. And this baby did it. Babies keep your butt at home and keep your butt healthy, while pregnant and as a new, nursing parent. You crave sleep, cannot live this new life without it. Some people go back to their wild ways after babies, I did a little a little, here and there, with the first one as she aged. But recently have chosen not to return to the monkey life. My new wild ways are my constant dates with Tony Horton. Damn him. He better deliver me a size 6 jean some day soon.

One thing my Yoga practice and teaching always lacked was: STRENGTH. See, I am hyper mobile. I have always loved stretching. When I played soccer for 10 years or so, my favorite part of the practice was the stretching. I did it naturally, even when I was not doing a sport. I always stretched out. No matter what, every day. So I became really flexible over the years and was a bit flexible but nature, perhaps. So Yoga came very easy to me. I gumbied myself into most asana quite well. But one thing that was so dangerous with that, was that I could flop into several different medium-level asana with hardly any conviction. I could fly through a Yoga practice without really muscling into anything! This is not OK and lead me to an injury in my early teaching days. (One reason why I cringe when people say, “I could never do Yoga, I am not flexible” Yoga is designed for the people who are not flexible, that is who SHOULD be doing it most, in my opinion) So my goals right now are lean and mean and strength. Then I plan to return to my Yoga regimen with new found strength and see where it takes me. I am eager to push into my twists and folds with strength and stamina that I have been gaining so rapidly from P90X.

I have tried not to be too hard on myself with the scale’s numbers. I am still nursing after all, and only had a baby 7 months ago. But I really believe that the weight I have on me now is not baby weight. It is old, stale, tired weight that I accrued during my years and years of gluttony and caring more about hors d’oeuvres and the parties at which they are served. When I started P90X back in September, I weighed about 176. I have only lost 6 pounds in 60+ days. BUT. I have yet to measure my inches. I am waiting until day 90 to do that. I feel like the weight I have has just totally redistributed rather than fallen away into nothing.

Today I find joy in fine foods of raw and vegan-ism. Though, I am not a vegan, I appreciate the food, lack of dairy and cleanness of the diet. I like the idea of NOT cooking food. This makes it easy to avoid grain products and embrace gluten free whole foods which have not been processed and baked to kingdom come. I find meat to be essential to my energy levels, but that one I am still sorting out how to eat with consciousness. I highly recommend getting a raw food cookbook even if you do not plan to go totally raw. It is good to learn how to whip up a dinner or side dish with no stove or microwave (Gasp! Ew!) to lean on. I love raw food preparation. Here is an example of my new favorite “pastas:”

These are the beginning prep of zucchini and carrot pastas I have been loving lately

I know this new workout regimen and lifestyle is new-ish to me. Once I have embraced it 100% over years and time and found balance with it and my Yoga practice combined, I am sure I will find a more stable, lean physique. I am trusting the process and not so upset by the scale and numbers. I am letting my baby grow as I focus more on her than the number that the scale reads or the tag in my jeans.

I will keep you posted on my stats. The 170 I am at now ( and CANNOT get below for the life of me!!!! Damn that scale) feels SO SO SO much better than the 179-185 I battled with for the last 3 years. I cannot seem to get into that 160 range. But maybe someday the weight will just start flying off. My goal is to get to a healthy, strong 135-140. For my height I think that is do-able. I am not in a race to completely achieve that. No rush. But I am also learning to not be so attached to numbers. I am feeling fit and healthier than ever in my long, dramatic life with struggle. I am not worried so much about anything other than that. When our body and mind feels great, our heart goes wide open and only beauty from life and the most beautiful, kind and generous people come to you. It is magic. Now that is perfection.

I would love to have you join me on this ride.

http://www.teambeachbody.com/zenmamma

Namaste

The best thing about being a Yoga instructor, I would say, is when you are standing in front of a group of adults and you ask them to stand tall, lengthen their necks, and roll their shoulders around. This seems simple and meaningless, but for some, when you remind them to think about how this makes their shoulder blades feel, this is the first time in quite possibly their entire life that they have ever even thought about how the shoulder blades and the muscles around them feel on their backs. You can see on their face and in their demeanor an awakening to their body and life. You see a realization and awareness of something, some part of them that they have long, long forgotten, pushed away, ignored or perhaps never even known was there, something beautiful, rejuvenating and relaxing. That is such a gift to experience. Often times when you get the beginning student into a deep twist or complicated bent and folded position and you request that they wiggle their toes, the toes do not move. In their strange, different positioning, they don’t know where their toes are! It is common. Even if you are just doing a seated forward fold over your legs, head down, eyes in, you have no idea what your feet are doing or feeling. Our brain can only focus on one thing at a time here. But when you practice Yoga often you become aware of your entire psyche, body, every cell, your whole being, heart, breath and mind. This is called circular thinking. It’s practiced just during our Yoga classes, but brings amazing majesty to the daily life. Awareness. Conscious living. This spills into expanding gratitude, understanding, patience and kindness toward others. How beautiful. And it is beautiful to witness unfolding in others.

But then, over time my practice and teaching got stale. I am not sure why. My inspiration faded. Yoga studios became harder to find wherever we moved. Perhaps I did not put enough money toward going to retreats and workshops with inspirational teachers to continue my learning. It is hard with children and being a military wife, to just jet off for a week or a month and brush up on your Yoga skills and practice. And I let it get away. I lost the magic. And then my body started to close up. My habits started to become dirty. I fell into a slump. I became the beginning student who never knew how her shoulder blades felt. My darkness lasted in and out for the better part of 5 years.

With P90X, my body has started to wake up again. I am saying hello to muscles and body parts that I never knew where there. My strength is restored and built up more than it has ever been in my entire life. I’ve found old strength that had gotten very dusty on an old shelf hidden away from my daily living. I’ve found new strength that I never imagined I would have or should I say, deserve.

A dear friend asked me if I blogged about my P90X journey and told her I had not. But I also told her that was an excellent idea. She said she would read, if I did so. Thank you Liz. This is for you and whoever else wants to read. But really, this is for me. I NEED to document this sacred time of awakening for myself. But also I know how so many people have in common the things I struggle with. So this blog is also for them.

Today I did the Yoga X DVD. This practice calls for an entire blog in itself. Shew! This DVD has the longest running time of all the P90X DVDs. And I thank the Universe, God or whoever made it possible today, that my baby napped for the entire duration of the program. I was so happy to have one, huge, complete, sweaty, non-stopping practice to myself. Today’s Yoga practice was one of the best I have had ever. Occasionally when I feel like total-tired-washed-up crap (as I did this morning) before I push play, the workout does not lift me up much and struggle through it and I may just feel a little better at the end, just thankful I made it through and probably with not very good form. But today, about ten minutes into the practice I felt like my body was starting to make sense of all this work I have been fumbling through these past 45 days. I started to feel like my Yoga form was almost as good as the form of the practitioners I see in my Yoga magazines. I felt like I had made real transforming leaps in my body and structure. This can only be something that is a daily practice, slow and steady, there is no way to achieve this feeling in a fast pace.

While practicing today, instead of being angry or rejecting the flaws and weaknesses of my body, today, I simply gently released them with my every exhalation and said a sweet goodbye. I said, “belly fat, you no longer serve me. You have protected me, carried me and my babies through long, hard times. I thank you for being there, and bringing me to this moment. But I greet you kindly as you get the hell out of my house…my body temple. So long and you are never welcome back.” I am on my way to a Beach Body. I am not looking for a body to show off as I parade myself down the shoreline in a trashy bikini. But there is NOTHING wrong or conceited about wanting to achieve a body that beams health, balance, strength, posture, wellness, tone, vitality, knowledge, self love and comfort. That is where I am headed. This is what I am doing. And I will feel that sweet comfort in a very classy bikini, some day. And soon.

In P90X it is important to remember your goals and envision them while you are working out. During this program, I have discovered what has stopped me over and over in the past. I am still working on this one aspect: When you work out and you curl and jump and bend and twist and fold and move, you inevitably feel your rolls, your jelly, your squoosh, your cellulite, your baggage, your weight. Before you are in peak physical condition, it is actually really hard to bring these things to your attention. It is a sad feeling to do the Plyomentrics DVD and with every intense, high and hard jump, feel your entire mid-section jiggle to kingdom come. That is why it is so amazing to have this series in your own home and your Beach Body coach just an email away to help you with any questions: YOU HAVE PRIVACY and the benefit of support all at the same time. This is why I think I did not succeed with a personal trainer. When I first started this program, I didn’t even realize what I was hiding from. But my movements within the workouts were compensating for the fat and weakness and laziness I did not want to feel. Sure, my body COULD jump higher than I was letting it, but then I would feel that sludge in my mid section and inner thighs and that is uncomfortable to bring to one’s attention so I didn’t jump as high as I could without even realizing it. At about week 2 of the program, I realized that. I celebrated my practice being ALL BY MYSELF, no one to see. I threw my t-shirt off and it was just me and my sports bra jumping and kicking and flexing in a way that I had never done before. These are all movements and exercises I had done in the gym, when I was on the rowing team in college or Yoga classes I attended one thousand times over in the past, but this time I had my teacher on a new disc every single day, on my home television and no one around to judge me, and this time not even myself. I was not judging my body or my weight or my fall backs or my past bad choices (that show up in the jiggle on your ass) or my weaknesses. I was just going for it with reckless abandon. I was letting it all shake and hang out and I was free and loving it. And guess what happened? I saw all these issues from the past (who I WAS yesterday that’s piled onto my midsection today) starting to melt away! Every time I feel that nasty belly roll get in my way of a perfect weight lift or Yogic twist, I tell it to scram and I keep my mind from feeling disgusted with myself and move my vision toward the strength and perfection I see for my health and my body in the very near future. And this is bringing my goals and dream into my TODAY and my reality.

P90X works through your body piece by piece, section by section, day by day in a very well thought out pattern. All of a sudden you feel your physique starting to just come together in a perfect design. Your beach body is emerging, steadily from your eye’s squinting dark distance vision into your well lit present moment.

Within 2 weeks I saw results in my body that neither me or my coach could have imagined. I actually took a photo of myself in a sports bra. I am not sure I would have ever had the thought or comfort to do that in my entire life!!??!! Now, on day 45 (half way!!!) I have seen plateaus and set backs (like oral surgery and Halloween, I had to take 3 days off to get the surgery and yes, when Halloween rolled around I did dabble in my daughter’s Laffy Taffy, I deserved it and I don’t care, the occasional cheat and rest is essential). But all in all I don’t even need to finish this program to know what I already have discovered about myself: I am at a gorgeous time in my life where I know now that I am ready to love myself to the fullest. I care about what goes into my body in drink and food. I care about working out with intensity to feel my best and prevent disease and obesity. I care about pushing through my barriers and breaching boundaries. I know I am finally achieving the body of my dreams that I have always wanted, the body which is in the best shape of my life. And I am going to maintain. THIS is my new lifestyle. And I was ready for it when I turned 32. No more excuses. There are NO EXCUSES. Don’t talk to me until you have thrown out all of yours. And when you have, I am here for you and will be until you get everything you want and beyond.

-Stay tuned, and much love. XOXOXO

Becca