Category: fitness

A teacher’s Summer and Yoga!

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Summer.  Teachers live for it.  Don’t get me wrong- we are super excited in August stockpiling all those nifty school supplies and planning our room theme with the year stretching out like a ribbon of unexplored highway.  We come back and work day and night to get those rooms ready and greet those new little faces.  The air is ripe with possibility and we are the world’s optimists.  We work feverishly and we’re exhausted, but luckily there is a long weekend right around the corner.   Labor Day to Christmas flies by.  We return in January to a fragmented month banked by Christmas vacation and the MLK Jr long weekend, and before we know it, it’s February also known as the beginning of the wilderness. This time between Groundhog Day and Spring Break is where we begin to show a little wear and tear around the edges and we begin praying for snow days.  The weather channel becomes our favorite website or channel and we watch fervently for the southern storm which will give us an opportunity for a delay or even better a day in our jammies to catch our breath or catch up on our planning, grading, IEPs, laminating file folder activities or PECS, etc.  Spring Break dawns like an answered prayer and goes by in a flash and we return rested and ready to plow on toward summer.  By late May, we are shells of our former selves- veritable trolls who rarely clean house, eat right, or get enough sleep.  We dream about early retirement, but summer looms like a beckoning oasis in the harshest desert.

Every teacher knows that the first week or two off is just like the first pancake or two- right in the trash.  We go into a death spiral of languid escapes like sitting in our pajamas catching up on social media until we are suffering from the worst kind of inertia.  It happens effortlessly.  We think, wow, we have an entire summer to clean out the closets, list all that junk on ebay, plan and execute the perfect vacation, plan our entire next school year, catch up on all those doctor appts., read at least 10 books, go out to lunch with all our old friends we have ignored for another year, and go on cool day adventures with our kids or grandkids, and lose those stubborn pounds we put on this winter by working out.  One day, we come back reality and realize that we do not have three months off, that we barely have 10 weeks and oh how quickly that will go.  Then, a vacation or a project kicks us into gear, and before we know it, it’s the 4th of July.  That’s when the first alarm goes off, holy shit, my summer is almost half over and I haven’t even (well, you can fill the blank here).  Then there is that mid-point, where I find myself today, when another month of summer lies before me like a sparkling, shimmering pool.  Now, I will live more intentionally and savor each day, unwrapping it like a unique chocolate truffle, a new flavor and mouth feel each day.  This is strictly metaphorical since I am off the carbs again, but you get the idea.

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This morning I decided to go to yoga class at an actual yoga center in a metropolitan area.  This is sort of where you would expect me to be, but then, not so much because while I have always gravitated toward the granola, I’ve never been inclined toward yoga.  As a younger woman, I didn’t get it.  How could all that standing and leaning over and lying down do anything for you?  Fast forward to that rocky precipice we call menopause and chronic illness [Rheumatoid Arthritis if you haven’t been reading this bitchfest of a blog], and you begin to “get it.”  So, yeah, I get it now.  I should have been eating better–from the years of Capt’n Crunch and Lucky Charms to the young woman stuffing Hershey bars and Kisses like somebody needed those wrappers back to the donut-loving, carb-worshipping. trainwreck who woke up one morning and could not walk on her broken little feet.  A body needs to move.  It doesn’t have to run marathons, although I’m not discounting those and one day I might get on that bandwagon, but right now, my joints need to be stroked out of their gel-lock by deliberate movement that elongates and opens all those chakras.

So, I studied the center’s menu and settled on a class for 50+ year olds.  I am only 51, but I thought, I might find a class of blue haired ladies I could keep up with.  I dug the yoga mat I purchased online 3 years ago out of my spare room closet and tossed it into the back of the car.  I put on my yoga pants, because we love those things whether we have ever taken a yoga class or not.  I’m sure you feel me here.  I donned a loose t-shirt and headed to class.  I had to park around back and walk around the two-story business complex, up a hill, and loop back around to the front where the yoga center is situated.  This 9:45 am walk was smack in the middle of my morning stiffness time and so I had several joints and tendons yelling at me as I climbed the hill in the hot morning sun.  My left hip was screaming, my right Achilles tendon was moaning, and my left foot [that feels like a bone might just poke on through at any moment] was whining as usual.  I thought, omg, what am I doing here?  I walked in to the center and was greeted by a kindly little woman with heavy rimmed glasses and salt and pepper hair pulled back into a perky pony tail.  She was wearing a cute little kimono-like top and some loose capris and she asked if I was the new sign up.  I said yes, and this would be my first real yoga class.  She was incredulous and asked what made me decide to come.  I said, because this was a 50 and over class and I was diagnosed with RA a year prior and thought this might help.  I knew from her bio that she too was an RA survivor and she quickly shared that remission came after she took up yoga more than 10 years ago.  I was in.

The yoga studio was quiet, with shiny blonde wood floors, windows looking out toward a wooded area across the highway, and colorless with gray walls and white trim.  The class participants were quite varied.  I chose to place my mat between a short, muscular, bald man of about 65 dressed totally in black and a plus sized woman of about 60 with a kind face and a graying pony tail.  I was the youngest in the room, but also the greenest.  I had to watch what other people were getting off the shelf.  Do I want the foam blocks, the blanket rug thing, the pillow bolster, or the bean baggie thing?  I had no idea, so I took one of everything.  I was way in the back of a room with about 15 or more mostly women, but there were two quite dignified looking men.  Everyone sat criss-cross applesauce waiting for the class to begin with their hand palms up on their knees.  I had to strain to keep my back straightened as it wanted to fall into the slouchy “c” of the computer user.  Keeping my spine in a straight line was an exercise unto itself and my hips, especially left, were dying in this position.

We began with a melodic group Om and then went straight into child position where, with my head down, forehead to mat, I could not see what I was supposed to be doing, and as I am auditory learning challenged [this gives me tons of empathy for my students who are primarily visual learners], I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing down here.  My ass was indeed in the air though, flailing about, and I had to concentrate on keeping those straight line.  At one point, I sort of laid my cheek on the mat and fell into a private giggle about this particular quandary I was in.  Later, on our feet, we entered the warrior pose– now I was made for this pose.  The teacher said, “I could see your face become warrior like as you entered this pose.”  I enjoyed lunging and back bending in the warrior until a wave of nausea came over me.  It’s warm in the yoga room and I had only had a bit of cheese and half apple for breakfast, luckily, or I think I would have up-chucked onto that shiny light wood floor.  I had to leave to go out and get my bottle of water and take a sip and make sure I was not going to actually vomit.  False alarm, but strong evidence that, yeah, yoga does stimulate the organs and get that digestive train rolling out.  By the time we arrived at the part where we got to loll about on the bolster pillow on the floor and meditate, I was all in.

In the end, I felt better than when arrived, and that was enough proof that this was where I needed to be.  I plan to go back and am excited about the possibility of attending a restorative yoga class where you get over an hour of all floor pillow-hugging stretches and meditations.  Apparently a guy named Steve teaches that class and his voice is quite soothing.  I will leave you with a video I found.  I am not a skinny girl. I have never been the long lean willow of a woman.  Even at my tiniest, I always had curves.  Currently, I am between a size 12 and 14, so I am not particularly over-sized, but neither am a I what you typically envision when you see the yoga devotee.  This video made me laugh out loud– lots of good tips :).

Fat Girl’s Guide to Yoga

Namaste’ [Yeah, I think I’ll stay]

Be calm & keep moving forward..

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I have been meaning to write this post for a number of days now.  Some of you may know that my weight loss journey has been so successful this go round that I decided to pay it forward and become a health coach for Take Shape for Life.   Anyone who has talked to me in the past 3 months knows that I am crazy excited over this program and how it has worked.  That might lead them to believe that it has been easy for me or glitch-free, but that is not the case.  The things I love about this program are that it is:

  • so simple to follow
  • that it is healthy and balanced
  • the weight loss is faster than on other plans I have been on [seriously, ever]
  • that it is structured enough that I don’t self sabotage by making poor food choices that hijack my blood sugar or fudge on points and flexpoints

I love how it makes me feel- more energized, more alert upon waking, empowered, and sometimes giddy with excitement.  But I have not been successful because I have more will power than someone else [I most certainly do not] or because I lose weight easily [I do not- I have hypothyroidism and it is harder for me to lose weight].  And while it has been the most successful weight loss journey I have had in my adult life [and the most swift], it has not been without moments of doubt or feelings of frustration. 

I have only been a coach for a month now. My new clients include my sister, my boyfriend, my sister’s friend, and several other personal friends. Some of them have complained at times that they are not losing fast enough, that they did not lose fast enough in the first week, that they did not lose fast enough in the second week, or other complaints about the pounds and the numbers of the scale.  My sister called one day and said, “I don’t know what is going on, I haven’t lost any weight for six days and I am getting discouraged.”  I said, “my goodness, you lost 22 lbs. in 25 days- that is almost a pound a day- your body needs to rest every now and again or you are going to look like a Shar Pei!”   She has a lot to lose and had large glycogen stores and lost quickly in the early days.   Some have been disappointed that they “only” lost 5 in the first week and someone else lost 9.  They are happy when they are losing a pound a day or 7-12 in a week, but then dejected when they have a week where they lose none or just a few.  They look at me, seemingly shrinking away in just 3 months and want that and want it now.  Well, these three months have been longer than you think, and I think it is important that I share some details of my weight loss. 

Month Pounds Lost Numbers I was seeing on the scale
October 17.5 190’s
November 5.5 180’s
December 7.5 170’s
January TBD 160’s

I have lost more than 35 pounds, but I started at the beginning of October.  If you look at the chart above, you will see that I have gone steadily downward since I began the plan and I have only gone off plan once- Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.   If I made a chart of what the numbers looked like each day, you would see how they go up, down, same, up, down, down, same, down- well, you get the idea.   I was discouraged during the times the scale stayed the same or went up, but I trusted that if I followed this plan, there was nowhere to go but down.  I am glad I did not give up. Weight loss is a funny funny thing, too.   You don’t lose in a linear fashion, you have ups and downs even when following the plan.  This is mostly because you are more than70% water and your degree of hydration at any given moment affects the numbers on the scale.  Weight loss is funny too, because you won’t always like how it looks.  When I first started losing quickly, I looked at my thighs at the end of the second month and thought, OMG, I can’t live with these hideous things!  They were sagging and looked like they had had bites taken out of them, like literally there were lumps and bulges in weird places and they were not smooth or shapely.  A month later, they are bagging less and in different places and the bulges and hollows have moved.  As your fat cells shrink, they do not do this in a perfect and orderly fashion, it is sort of haphazard and random.

What if I had quit after that first plateau?  I would have gone back to my old eating ways and most likely gained it all back and more.  It would be three months later and I would remain stuck and feeling sluggish and fat and like a failure. I would not have been able to open a package from Kohl’s and remove a size 10 petite pants and hold them up and go, “geez, I will never get into these tiny little things,” only to have them fit!!!  What a moment that was!  What if I had quit during December when every single day someone was eating wonderous foods around me- butter cookies, candy, cake, meatballs in sweet sauce, martini’s, you name it and the weight was not falling off of me- remember I only averaged a little over a pound and a half a week that month.  I would have missed that moment today, when I walked into REI and took a size L blouse off the sale rack because they run so small  there, only to have to go back and get a medium!  If I had given up, I would not have had my first glimpses at my collarbones 28 years!!

If you are not losing fast enough on this plan, go back and read your quick start guide and make sure you are not   messing up on types of leans or greens and their amounts.  Make sure you are not using too many condiments [half n half, parmesan cheese, artificial sweeteners, whipped cream, etc…].  Determine that you are drinking enough water because this is the hardest part for some people and losing weight robs you of water.  If you are sick, go off the plan and come back on later.  Get well first; the plan works best when you are healthy and well hydrated. 

Ultimately, know that if you follow the plan– you will be smaller next week than you are today, you will be much smaller next month, and the next, no matter what numbers are on the scale.  Try not to be a slave to the scale– they are just numbers and you are much more than numbers.  People ask me how much more I want to lose.  At just over 160, I would need to lose at least 35 more to be at an optimal BMI, but those are numbers; I will know when I get there.  Already, I feel younger, I move easier, I breathe easier, I snore less, I feel more energetic, I wake up easier in the morning, I pant less when walking up hills or stairs, I can run faster and for longer jaunts.  I am happier and I make new discoveries about myself every day.  I have learned I was eating way more food than my body needed for most of my life.  I have learned that I can live without bread and Hershey kisses, that I can make small, continuous choices that add up to big success.  I have learned that I can live without leaning on my drug of choice when in crisis or stressed- sugar; and that instead, I can lean on others, I can write, I can go for a walk, I can have a cup of tea, or I can just have a good cry. 

So, when you tell me that you are frustrated and the scale is not doing or saying what you want it to say;  I understand.  I have been there and will be there again.  But, I can tell you that only three months into this journey, every one of those moments have been worth it. 

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.

Ten reasons why I feel crappy today

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Bean wants to know why I feel badly today and when I went to bring my son lunch money at work and he asked me to sit with him while he ate so we could talk and catch up, he asked:  “why do you look so sad?”  I really could not give him an answer.  The answer I gave Bean was ‘nothing specific,’ but really ‘nothing yet everything’ felt more appropriate.

So, I am writing to see if I can discover the answer.  I guess I could hang it on the menopausal coat rack, but that is becoming farcical at this point.

So, here goes.  First to define how I feel.  I feel lethargic and like I could cry if I had enough energy to put into it.  I feel tense in my shoulders and warm and yucky.  I feel unattractive and kind of sad.  I have no one reason, but I do have many.  Here are some:

1.  There are no clean bath towels in my house.  I am not sure where they all are– perhaps the same place as all of the teaspoons.

2.  My uterine prolapse has been bothering me the last few days, randomly and I am not sure why- so I have a physical heaviness in my pelvic region that makes me paranoid and causes me to google disorders and treatments.  I find myself making hypotheses like “having a tipped uterus makes one more likely to suffer from the “cele sisters.”

3. I spent over an hour today googling yoga positions that help with retroverted uterus or prolapse, but didn’t do any of them.

4.  My to do list– it is endless and I don’t seem to be making great progress lately.

5.  I have gray roots that are approximately 3/4 of an inch and they stress me greatly.  I am sick to death of coloring my hair.

6.  I am not eating well.  When I say that I am not eating well, don’t get the wrong idea.  There seems to never be a time where I don’t eat enough; I am not eating the right things.  Last night I skipped supper and then ordered Hershey breadsticks from Pizza Hut to eat at 10:36 pm.

7. I worry about the mildewy smell in my house.  My dehumidifier fills up very quickly and when my air comes on it smells mildewy.  I picture black mold in my crawl space and/or venting.

8.  I miss Bean.  The on and off nature of our relationship is unsettling and makes me feel unbalanced all the time.

9.  I feel like I should be doing so many things and yet I am compelled to do none today.

10.  Bean wants me to meet them to go hiking, but that requires a shower and me fixing my hair, and I am lacking energy and a towel.

Just Do It comes to mind just now, so I will.  I will just make myself take a shower using a pool towel and go and meet Bean and the little beans for a hike.  I will take the advice I give everyone else all the time and choose a positive space to occupy for at least part of this day.

9 vials of blood– 8.5 mil each

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That’s how much blood was ordered drawn by my new menopause specialist, Tammy Worrell of Triad Integrative Wellness Center.  I found Tammy, who is a registered NP and not a doctor [not a big fan of doctors, myself], using an Internet search of women’s holistic care and natural hormone treatment in my area.  Of course, she is not a network provider for the state health plan of NC- of which I am a member- and so I have to pay her $150 per visit charge out-of-pocket and then file myself [for record of payment only], since BC/BS will pay 60% only after I meet a ridiculous $1300 deductible.  I had my first visit over the phone where I was asked many questions about my health history and my goals for the visit[s] to come.

My stated goals were:

1. to check hormone levels and obtain access to bioidentical hormone treatment if warranted

2. to have all of my thyroid levels checked and make sure that I am receiving optimal dosing of natural thyroid [I have Hashimoto’s Disease]

I told her of the issues I was having that I am attributing to menopause/perimenopause:  dizziness, eye dryness and irritation, wild mood swings, headaches, sleep issues, fatigue, loss of muscle strength, spaciness/mental fog… all of these could be related to thyroid or other issues just as easily, but it’s kind of nice to have one hat rack to hang them all on.

Tammy asks that you pay her a $100 deposit each time you make an appt in order to guarantee you will keep that appointment or cancel it in a timely manner [which seems counterproductive for women suffering from mental fog and memory issues].  She also asks that you sign an agreement that you will not file frivolous malpractice claims against her.  I went ahead and signed since I don’t make a habit of doing this, and feel like if I was going to take the time to file a claim against a health provider, it would not be a frivolous act and would be based on some serious misconduct.  However, both of these unusual requests make being Tammy’s new patient a little anxiety provoking.

Tammy stood out and was someone I might want to seek out for treatment because she is open to bioidentical and natural hormone treatment and provides treatment in a holistic manner [meaning the whole person mind/body/spirit].  I have been dealing with hypothyroidism for almost 20 years and have a great understanding of this condition and the way it affects me and needs to be treated.  In my experience, most general practitioners, gynecologists, and unfortunately even specialists in endocrine disorders, do not have an intricate or extensive knowledge about thyroid disease and how Hashimoto’s is unique in cause, symptoms, and treatment needs.  It is very disappointing to have a book/Internet knowledge about a condition that appears to exceed that of the person you are trusting to treat you.

I showed up at LabCorp on Monday morning bright and early ready to leave my blood when I was asked to sign a waiver and hand over a credit card stating that if my $3,469 worth of lab work was found non-covered then I would be responsible for payment on that card.  Wow, just wow.  I said, “hold on,” and called my provider to make sure that this lab work would be covered even though ordered by an out of network provider.  And… whew, yes… so, we proceeded.

Waiting for lab work now and about to make an appt to go in and discuss the results.  This summer has been hot as hell on earth and new occasional episodes of personal warmth [I cannot call them full-fledged hot flashes because I don’t feel like I might die during them, just very warm] make it even hotter.  I have never been so ready for fall before August!

I escape by reading about hiking the Appalachian Trail [but that’s another blog entry] since I am currently plowing through AT thru-hike memoirs and enjoying each hike vicariously.  Currently, I am on day 28 of 46 Days:  Keeping Up with Jennifer Pharr Davis on the Appalachian Trail.

Kettlebells

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So, at school they are offering this free class twice a week:  kettlebells.  I had no idea what a kettlebell was, but then again, I didn’t know what curling was until a couple of weeks ago thanks to Winter Olympics.  A few teachers had said they had been and it is a good workout, and heck it’s free, so Holly and I decided to check it out today.  A kettlebell is a weight that looks like this:

The workout is supposed to be a good workout for your core and your upper body, and since I have been only working my lower body with walking/jogging, I thought this could add some balance.  Holly & I changed after school and showed up in the weight room under the gym at 3:30.  We grabbed a mat and a kettlebell while our leader started some music.

The workout consists of three sets of standing exercises and three sets of floor exercises with 12-20 reps each and 30 second breaks in between sets.  The exercises are things like dead lifts [where you bend over and lift the weight off the floor], overhead lifts, starting the lawnmower lunges [you can probably picture this one], push ups, up and out sit ups, and so on with every exercise utilizing this weight.

Good gosh, is this a killer workout.  Becky said she was really sore a few days after her first workout… I am sore now.  The first set of reps is not that tiring, but subsequent sets begin to wear on you quickly.  Push ups were not as hard as I thought, but sit ups and crunches were awful.  Apparently, I have no stomach muscles– not a one.  No wonder my stomach looks like it does.  On the over and under front lunges, I was completely off in my timing and felt like my arms were getting tangled up in my legs.  At times during this workout, I felt like I was performing physical comedy in a Judd Apatow movie.  Holly was like, “Isn’t this fun, Whitman?”  I was like, “Um, I wouldn’t exactly call it fun.”  It was invigorating though, and a great way to celebrate Holly’s surgiversary:)  Holly is ready to do it again on Tuesday.. I think I might do it again on Tuesday, but I really have to practice those crunches.