Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Accomplished

Daily Plate seems to be down so I can't post what I've eaten and done today so I will be honest and just say I had a pork bun before noon and you know what? That ain't so bad. In the middle of class last night, Elizabeth noted that she lowered her blood sugar by cutting carbs after 12 noon. Sure, one can assume that doesn't mean get your pint of Ben & Jerrys in before lunchtime, but well, I'm still learning.

I just got back from Michael's Vinyasa class and feel thoroughly worked through. I managed to make it through the ab work he does at the end of class without wanting to hurl.

I feel really good today. Last night's Bikram class was really empowering. The room felt hotter then normal when I first stepped in to put my mat down, which instantly worried me. I felt every nerve in my body star to panic. Evening classes usually mean I want to die within the first 5 minutes. And if the room was hotter then hot before anyone was really there for class, then I would be dead within the first half hour.

But after class started, I sorta just fell into the groove of it and made my way through the poses, the push and pull of muscles felt familiar and I found myself not necessarily going deeper, but going...righter? Does that make sense?

I felt I was doing the poses right. Correct. More correct then I had ever done them. Standing legs were straight and strong. No shaky knees. Feet were firm. And somewhere in standing bow, with Elizabeth giving me instruction on how to kick back and adjust, I found myself in the pose, steady, one leg fixed, one foot planted on the ground and one foot kicking in my hand above my head. She even sounded surprised.

I was shocked.

But not as shocked as I was when, later on in class when I found my hands on my heels in Camel pose, the pose that makes me want to throw up. The one that makes my heart race and my brain freak out, standing on my knees, hands on my lower back, reaching my chest up, my throat open, head back, and back and back and...

before I knew it, my hands were on my heels.

Not being able to see how close I was to the ground, i never reached back for my heels. It was enough of a strain to just push my hips forward and drop my head back, but when Elizabeth told me to drop my arm and grab my right heel, and I did, and it was there, no one was more shocked then I.

After coming out of it, Elizabeth told me that was a big move, and I knew it was and I had never been prouder.

I had just passed the 50,000 word mark in my novel. My boyfriend and I have managed to make it almost a complete year. I roasted a duck. And none of these accomplishments match up to the fact that I reached back and grabbed my heels.

While I probably did not look like the long haired white girls who do this pose on the cover of Yoga Journal, who gives two shits.

Waiting for the bus home, I thought about why this was so monumental for me.

I was never an athletic kid. I didn't like sports, especially team sports. I dind't like individual sports because I never wanted to be the center of attention and I would suck at it anyway, so why even try. Not being a proficiently active healthy kid, I grew up into a inactive adult who mistakenly believed that women lost weight via dieting alone. I was surrounded by ridiculous diets in LA. I tried the "He Broke My Heart I Am Going To Stop Eating" diet in Boston, which only ended in the deathly consumption of 100 cannoli's from the 24 hour bakery across the street. And I'm still struggling with the carbohydrate fear that the Atkins diet instilled in me.

God forbid a girl lose weight via exercise. Weird. I know. How did I completely miss the boat on this? For soooo long?!?


Coming into the work out thing so late in the game made me afraid of my body and the many many ways I can hurt myself. I got overzealous one day and tore a calf muscle. I'd overextend an ankle here or there. I'd pull something and then I'd be off a treadmill for days, worried sick that I was stalling any progress because progress was measured in the form of a scale and the number of pounds lost.

For the first time in a very long time, I feel like I'm starting to get off the diet path. Well, the bad stigma that goes with the word diet. All those master cleanses and cabbage soups can go screw. While the number on the scale isn't budging a whole lot, my clothes are a lot easier to get into these days and that, my friends, is worth its weigh in Pork Buns.

(Goddamn dim sum to go place near Bikram studio!)

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