A short waisted woman and yoga pants...

Third yoga class tonight. This evening was the warm yin yoga of stretching so it was very low impact. Unlike the ass kicking I got last Saturday with power yoga, I need this type of class to regain flexibility and range of motion. It was a good night. I wasn't bored as much as the first time and a friend of mine gave me a powerful tool to help concentrate on my breathing. He said that sometimes our minds just want an answer for what we command it to think. I was telling my self to breathe but I wasn't answering the command. So I said in my mind, "breathe in...I am breathing in...breathe out...I am breathing out." Oddly, it worked. For most of the evening. At one point some douche bag started their car and the headlights penetrated the dark glass, curtains, and my eyelids to burn an image directly onto my retinas. Like the after affect of the flash on a camera? Yeah. That frustrated me a little. Shortly after that the trainer for the boot camp next door opened the door, stood there chatting with a few people, then proceeded to walk through our session like we were inanimate blobs of flesh laying on the floor. I kinda lost focus at that point and it was difficult to get it back. 

This now brings us to Ethel and the reason I felt compelled to blog tonight.

Ethel is that roll of blubber that sits above my navel. Ethel likes to hang out OVER the button of my jeans on average days. Ethel is the demon that wants cookies, cake, and fettuccine alfredo with garlic rolls. I do an okay job of concealing Ethel on most occasions but when I am wearing yoga pants...she's positively possessed. I am short waisted. This means that when most women wear low rise jeans they rest nicely on their hips. When I wear low rise jeans, it rides right at my waist line. When the yoga pants go on I have to pull them up higher because otherwise I will have that too-long-in-the-stride bridge of fabric spanning the divide of my thighs. It's not an attractive fashion statement nor is it comfortable. This means that I am now wearing my yoga pants above my navel because these effing pants are made for normal shaped women. Whatever. I have a long shirt on over it. As soon as I sat on the floor in the butterfly I could hear Ethel moaning and groaning, straining to be freed from her confines of yoga pants. I leaned forward a little and felt the pants roll slightly. The more I moved the more Ethel strained against the cloth. The more Ethel strained to be free the more my pants rolled down over my belly. The momentum Ethel gathered forced my yoga pants to roll down past my navel slightly to sit precariously on my kangaroo pouch. This meant that as soon as I stood up both Ethel and the kangaroo pouch would be revealed. Uh uh uh Ethel...I remember my lesson from the first class. I wore a longer shirt!

I never knew to give Ethel a name until I heard Wanda Sykes talk about her first experience with Spanx a few years ago. She calls her blubber Esther Roll and fights her demands for cheesecake and alcohol. . 

One last thing. I know some of you, my faithful readers, have told me you left comments on my blog posts. For some reason I never see these. Not sure if it was in my settings but I made some adjustments. Since I share on Facebook...go ahead and leave comments there too. I want to know your thoughts...good and bad.

Carrot cake...SHUT UP ETHEL!

I hate rushing, the chatterbox, and lessons learned.

Last night was my first time in years doing yoga. It was warm yin yoga. There were only five people in the studio total including the instructor. I was the last to arrive because the fancy little boy that checked me in and took my Groupon failed to give me instructions that the yoga studio was next door to the fitness center. I was all harried running in and trying to unroll my brand spanking new yoga mat and arrange myself on the floor without calling attention. Too late. It was kind of like running into class after your professor has started the lecture and dropping all your books on the way to the closest seat you can find which happens to be in the middle of the class. Anyway, I try to listen to the instructor but she has music on so can't hear anything but the Charlie Brown teacher voice. This means I have to take the cue from the lady in front of me on what to do next and I think she was a beginner. 

Remember it's been about 20 years since I've attended a yoga class. And even then it was at the Y so not even really sure it was yoga. The first thing I was to learn was belly breathing. At least that's what I think she called it. I also heard something about ocean breaths or echo something. Whatever...breath in through your nose really deep and exhale through your mouth. It may have been the reverse but breathing either way was good. This deep breathing is supposed to help us relax and open up our channels. We started off laying on our backs and breathing and relaxing so we can move on to stretches. As I am trying to focus on the breathing my brain kept interrupting. I swear it would not shut up! I am thinking.."breath in through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Make the belly rise and lower. Feel the diaphragm working. Your left ankle isn't relaxed. Back hurts a little lying on the floor like this. Let your shoulder relax. Is my shirt pulled over my belly? Right leg just stiffened up a little. Breath dammit. I need to take out the pony tail, it's making my neck tweak laying here on the floor. Stop crinkling your brow. What the hell are you doing? Smells like patchouli in here. Belly rise. At least it doesn't smell like feet. Belly fall. I don't get the echo-ocean thing. How much longer do I have to lay like this? I'm not comfortable. Stop picking your thumb nail. Maybe it's the kinda hissing sound you make when you exhale that deep. Oh wait. I think I am supposed to be breathing in through the mouth and exhaling through the nose. Nope. That's not it. Now I have a loose booger. Flapping...."  

Finally we move into holding the stretches. We are sitting up with legs apart and I am stretching over my right knee. My brain is still chattering away..."Breath in. Breath out. Relax the knee. Ouch this hurts. Breath. Ouch. Let the thigh relax now. No. Don't point your toe. This isn't ballet. I thought it was supposed to be warm in here. I hope I don't fart. Oh my gosh...it feels like I need to fart. Clench up. That was a great line in the Avengers movie. How much longer do I have to do this? It's really pulling the ligaments inner thigh. I think that's the point. Ok. Oh. Finally. We get to move..." After an hour and 15 minutes of stretching and breathing and thinking about everything under the sun I wasn't very relaxed. I did feel longer. Does that count?

Two things I learned from one yoga lesson: Do not wear a wire bra. Wear a longer shirt. 

Guess who is going shopping again?! I am scheduled for another yoga class on Saturday morning. 

Namaste. 

Fart, fart, baby....dun dun dun dun dun dun dun...fart, fart, baby...

Always trying to motivate myself to eat right and exercise. The eating right isn't too difficult as long as I avoid flour, sugar, pasta, bread, rice, noodles, and basically follow the "if it's white, don't bite" philosophy. So add no potato, potato chips, french fries, or loaded baked potatoes. I can feel the bloat just watching all that good comfort food pass through my mind. Oh, how I love fettuccine alfredo, bread with butter, and cake. Now, I am not a crazy anti-carb freak but I know how it makes me feel so I avoid it as much as I can. As long as I can control the inner cookie monster most days are good. I challenged myself with keeping my calories under 1200 a day. So far it's not to hard if I stick to veggies, fruit, and lean meats. One other thing I had challenged myself with deals with portion control. I try to eat only half of what I take at dinner time. sometimes I serve myself on a small dessert plate. It works ok. I splurged and bought a 90 day shake meal replacement thing/system and though it's tasty and great for the morning, I had a hard time sticking to the two shakes a day. There just wasn't enough calories in the day to keep me from binge eating at night when I got home. Protein shakes in the morning for breakfast has actually been a diet staple for the past year. So that was a gimme but anything more than that was a failure.  

New challenge!!!

I used to exercise a lot. I used to have the time to exercise a lot. My rants lately revolve around my lack of me time and lack of exercise. I had a membership to a huge gym. Was totally inconvenient and I hated the scene. I looked into a place called 9rounds. It's a circuit exercise joint that honestly felt like a cave where you do interval training while wearing boxing gloves. I used to exercise at a circuit place before and loved it but their hours of operation are not convenient to my current schedule. The only thing I really want to do is tone and regain lost flexibility. The added benefit of losing some inches aren't being overlooked and is obviously welcome. I love Pilates and yoga. Used to do it quite a bit. Most of the studios in the area aren't open late enough and well, again the inconvenience. I am the type of person that has to go somewhere to exercise. I am also a loner when I exercise. I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want anyone to "spot" me. I just want to go in, do my thing, then leave. Ugh! I just want to find a place that has classes beginning between 7:30 and 8:00 in the evening and have the potential for decent classes on Saturdays. 

Ask and you shall receive!

I rejoined Groupon and happened across a fantastic deal for a yoga/Pilates studio in my neighborhood. Sweet! This place has hot yoga, yin yoga, pilates, ballet fusion, kick boxing fusion, spinning, zumba, and a crap load of other boot camp type classes. My challenge is to take, at the very least, two classes a week in various exercise disciplines until I reach the prepaid 20 classes. The lady that runs the studio says if I decide to stay I get some kind of discount for re-upping my membership. One step at a time, Lola. Most importantly, one day at a time. Of course you know this meant a trip to Target. I got a yoga mat and carryall to use. All zen like non-chemical and stuff. If I like it and decide to try the hot yoga I will go back to buy the towel and block. It's odd but I am kind of excited. I am looking forward to stretching my muscles and watching my fat cry in desperation to leave my body. Yeah I worry about farting in class, or worse, not being able to stifle the laugh when someone else does it.