Let It Go On Its Way

Looked at Gloria and we started laughing -- a hold over from yesterday's laughter yoga class.

It was my first time going to laughter yoga and, with anything new, I had my reservations but I went. 

Before I entered the studio, I was captivated by the staircase. I love passageways and corridors.

The Way to Flex Fitness

What to say about laughter yoga? So funny. It was both what I expected and what I did not. One of the most powerful parts of laughter yoga was the laughing meditation -- think savasana but with peals of laughter. 

We were all lying down with our heads in the same direction. Gloria was next to me and just about caused my demise. Her intense laughter, soon joined by the intense laughter of others, made me absolutely lose it. I slapped my leg, stomped my foot, took my glasses off and said Oh my God a few times...

Emma, our laughter yoga leader, is really good. She guided us, beautifully, at the end of practice: If a thought comes, acknowledge it and let it go on its way...

Gloria had me chuckling again right before practice. She read funny quotes about mothers. She also had me laughing when she said that she didn't like her mother until she was around 40 since they had their differences and she also "confessed" to not being a perfect mother but said that she did the best that she could which reminds me of one of Oprah's favorite Maya Angelou quotes: when you know better, you do better. 

We started off in downward facing dog. Gloria said that we should feel warmth and I instantly felt the heat which was kind of nice since it was such a chilly morning. 

Get hot happy Gloria said as we folded over then she encouraged us to make a healthy forward fold by bending at the hips instead of bending at the back. 

I don't fold too much but I often think of what Madonna said: the more you do yoga -- the more your body opens up.

The View Leaving Flex Fitness

The Yoga Bug

Hasn't happened in a while but I experienced distorted vision earlier in the day. I temporarily viewed the world through a honeycomb-like bubble. I immediately went for the acupressure point between my thumb and index finger. I also held the third eye, rubbed my temples and took deep breaths and experienced a first, the sound of my chest popping. Okay, now that I think about it, there's been popping during a chest fly.

As I cleaned out my inbox, I came across an old Dr. Oz article on Oprah.com and I never tire of reminders to breathe:

Most of us never take a deep breath all day long. The most fundamental practice in yoga is the deep, belly breath through the nose. The diaphragm is a large muscle located just below the lungs that ideally should pull down the lungs during inspiration.

I was glad that yoga was on today's agenda. Didn't feel particularly stressed but there was the whole distorted vision thing...

There were only six of us so the instructor had us pull out chairs which we started off sitting in. For the first time since I've known him, he went into full teacher mode -- reminding us of the three bodies and how if the body is strong and the mind is weak, something needs to be worked on. He talked about the solar plexus, the third chakra and not letting mental turmoil in...

After doing all kinds of twists and after I had wobbled considerably, we were told to cross our arms and to hang loose which felt good but it was even better to have a clear view.

Saw this comic as I went through old papers and I think it's official: I've been bitten by the yoga bug.

Rx For Tension

The thrill of Winter/Spring swimming is over. Not only have the hours for open swim changed at The Wreck Center but the kids are out of school and spending lots of time at the pool. More adults are present too.

I approached Madame D on her throne where she was turning a cheddar popcorn bag upside down. That woman snacks all the time but she doesn't have an ounce of body fat which reminds me of the time that Dr. Phil was on Oprah and said Don't worry about people with good metabolisms because that ain't you.

I asked Dana if she had seen my swimming suit which I had left in haste on Monday. She had seen my suit and it was tucked away in one of the lockers. I put it on and realized that it was showing signs of wear and tear. It's also has more slack even though I've already made some alterations, albeit jacked-up ones, to it.

Dana was nice enough to open up two lanes so I was able to get some laps in despite the water being wavy as all get out. At a quarter to 6, Madame D starting blowing her whistle and evicted everyone from the pool.

It was an abbreviated workout which was okay because I didn't have a lot of energy and the few laps that I did get in helped to relieve some tension.

As I headed to the locker room, this woman said I saw you doing your thing. I told her that she could do her thing too. No, I can't and I won't; I'm afraid of water. I wanted to continue the conversation but she had kids to round up. I think it's cool that her fear of water is not preventing her from bringing the kiddos to the pool.

Another Teaser

I got pulled in by another Oprah teaser. Contestants from The Biggest Loser were on the show on Wednesday. I didn’t know that it was a rerun but, as the library likes to say about books, if you haven’t read it, it’s still new.

The contestants were from season five when Ali Vincent emerged as the winner.

Several season five contestants were on the show to display their new bodies. Oprah brought up the amount of exercise the contestants are asked to endure and wondered if six hours a day was an attainable goal for most people. Jillian said that they don’t advocate six hours in real life but want to show what people are of capable of and, if the contestants are able to exercise for five hours a day, she thinks that people can exercise for five hours a week.

Oprah also asked if the contestants would gain weight once at home due to the reduction in exercise but Jillian said that the contestants would just need to break even since they would be moving into maintenance mode and would not need to make such a massive calorie deficit.

I do wonder how the contestants withstand all of that exercising, though, since I tend to exercise for an hour a day and I can feel the soreness, especially in the lower half of my body. Today, whenever I planted my feet, I felt it keenly in my thighs. My hips are sore too.

Pictures were shown of Jillian's plump years. In her teens, her heaviest weight was 170 and she’s 5’1.

I was thinking that I would love to be 170 right about now.

Vincent said that when she started gaining weight, she remembered her very first five pounds and the additional pounds as she continued to gain.

The irony for me is that I never used to weigh myself and, now, I do it all the time – way more than I should. I weigh myself so much that when there are normal fluctuations in my weight, I get crushed.

I liked Bob's advice. He said not to wait until Jan. 1st or your birthday or for Monday; start today on your journey toward well-being. And that's timeless counsel.

Mo'Nique And Precious

Saw Mo'Nique on Oprah last week. It was a memorable show for a couple of reasons. I'm hardly ever home early enough to see Oprah and I enjoyed the comedians who were featured. George Lopez and Dane Cook were on the show as well.

Mo'Nique, a plus-sized woman who exudes confidence, talked about how her husband gently brought up the topic of weight. He told her that 262 was too much. Mo'Nique says that she almost immediately started working out.

The comedienne also stars in Precious, a film based on the novel by Sapphire. More than 10 years after reading Push, the book still resonates with me. The main character faces many issues but at the forefront of my mind is the size of Precious:

But I'm big, five feet nine-ten, I weigh over two hundred pounds. Kids is scared of me.

And I've always remembered the part of about the arms:

If Precious was fat, there was no word to describe her mother, who took up half the couch, whose arms seemed like huge animals.

The passage in which Precious compares herself to a vampire and talks about how, in many respects, she doesn't exist in the larger picture is also memorable.

Sapphire is also known for Wild Thing, a controversial poem about the rape of the woman who became known as The Central Park Jogger.

Central Park Jogger Still Running 20 Years Later

I can't wait to see Precious and I hear that Mo'Nique really represents in the film.

The Queen of Comedy

What's Earth Day Got To Do With It?

I taped Oprah on Wednesday because a teaser, What happens to our garbage?, pulled me in.

As it turns out, an astounding amount of paper (71.6 million tons) ends up in our landfills. I recently weaned myself off of bottled water and I will try to do the same with napkins and such.

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, was one of several guests on the show and is an advocate of meatless Mondays. Pollan claims that if everyone went meatless for one day of the week, it would be the equivalent of taking 20 million mid-size sedans off the road.

Pollan also said that people are not aware of the carbon footprint of food and that agriculture changes the landscape more than anything else that we do. This statement was my favorite:

When we sit down to eat, that's our most profound engagement with nature.

I also like Pollan's advice to shop the periphery of the store where the real food is at. In the middle, he said, is the food that never goes bad.

Pollan's rule of thumb is to only eat things that his grandmother would recognize which does not include items like portable yogurt. Expanding on the grandmother rule, Pollan advised people not to eat anything that won't eventually rot. It's not real food, he surmised. This advice reminds me of Morgan Spurlock's documentary, Super Size Me, in which he did several experiments with food and the composition of McDonald's french fries never changed.



Some nice stores were featured on Oprah's Earth Day show, including:

Mysigg

To-Goware

Terracycle

As you can imagine, since the organizations have been mentioned on Oprah, increased traffic has affected the websites. Whole Foods is also giving away tote bags for free but the coupon expires today.

Whole Foods Coupon

Doing Better

I went swimming yesterday even though my arms were still quite sore from Thursday's rock climbing. I completed about 13 laps but can't be sure since I misplaced my lap counter. I sometimes lose count even with the lap counter; c'est la vie.

I'm trying to decide if I should order a new ultra-cool counter or get a used one from Amazon like the one I lost. Maybe I should get a red one which would be a little harder to leave behind.

I went to swim at one of my favorite places which will now be known, from this point on, as "The Poo."

"The Poo" is almost my favorite watering hole but I would really like for the water to be a tad bit warmer. I hear that competitive swimmers like the water cold but cold water is not my cup of tea. I can't imagine why. Of course, I wasn't imagining why when I went to the Wohl center once and the water was very cold. Since I had traveled so far, I stubbornly went ahead and got in the shockingly cold water. Once in, it wasn't so bad since I was continuously moving around but I did have to tell the disappointed woman who had come for water aerobics and who followed me into the locker room to get my opinion about the water that, yes, the water was artic-like.

Mehlville's pool was pretty crowded yesterday. There were two girls from the school district's swimming team. Their black team swimsuits are rather cool with green panther tracks on the suit and swimming cap. The one girl's butterfly stroke is a thing of beauty to behold.

Several kids were taking swimming lessons and the ones who weren't were exuberantly jumping off the creaky diving boards. Twin five-year-olds, who had on bulky floating devices, got into the act and started jumping off the boards too. I was later surprised to see one twin treading water without her float suit. I wish that I had learned to swim as a child.

I also heard the swim team crew talking about how many calories they had possibly burned. I never thought about such things in high school. Although, I'm sure we burned quite a few calories playing basketball.

I also wish that I had paid better attention to nutrition and fitness before. Oprah Winfrey likes to report that Maya Angelou told her "when you know better, you do better." So, here's to doing better.

Jam-Packed Gym

There were a few free cardio machines when I arrived at the gym but they were soon occupied. I go to a fitness club that has quite a few locations in the STL area. I went to one of the more spacious of those gyms today and just about every elliptical trainer, stairmaster, AMT and treadmill were taken. Even the class, Drills to Make You Sweat, was jam-packed. Then, I had what Oprah calls an "aha!" moment. I had forgotten that we were in resolution month. January alone explains why the gym has been packed even on weekends.

There were so many folks in the fitness club that you could feel the heat of so many bodies in motion. I like seeing other people in the gym, though, since it inspires me to keep moving. The people run the gamut from young to old and from people with subtle muscles to muscles that look like sculptures. There are people with singular tattoos and ones with full body coverage.

You never know when something is going to jump off in the gym. I've seen people start doing jumping jacks in the middle of the weight machine rows and when I was participating in the National Body Challenge last year, this guy was doing "crouching tiger, hidden dragon" style stretching in itty bitty yellow shorts in front of, not only the mirror, but in front of the elliptical machine that I was on. It took everything in me not to explode with laughter -- especially when the woman in the row ahead of me caught sight of the guy in her peripheral vision.

The New York Times has a very insightful article, "New Year, New You? Nice Try," about why resolutions are, by and large, unsuccessful.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/fashion/01change.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&em