Yoga

[fabrisse]

Since siderea wrote about starting yoga, I'm feeling a little inspired at the moment.

I love exercise. I'd forgotten how much. And I got back to it about 18 months ago when eanja and I started at a little local yoga studio.

I don't think there was a single class when I wasn't the fattest woman there. For the first several classes, that embarrassed me a bit, but nowhere near the level of embarrassment I'd get at other types of exercise.

There were a couple of factors playing in to the lesser embarrassment/no embarrassment. The first was that the classes were just difficult enough that no one did every pose perfectly. They also emphasized the idea of "keeping your concentration on your own mat" which meant that most of us weren't looking at each other most of the time. It helped.

Side note, there was one Thursday night class when the teacher wanted to experiment with holding the poses longer -- beginner classes don't just modify some of the poses they usually don't hold them as long -- and wanted to make sure we had the props we needed to keep things from being uncomfortable. The pose was the one that's often called the butterfly pose and it's preparation for cobbler's pose which is preparation for lotus. Essentially you sit with your feet together, knees out. It's a groin opener.

We had a couple of women in this class who were skinny and pretty flexible and who didn't keep it to their mat. I'd caught a couple of glances and giggles at me and overheard at least one comment about too fat for yoga. I don't know if the teacher caught the remark, but I do know that she knew my strengths (believe me, the flexibility in my hips is a genetic gift) and this pose played to them. I hit the pose perfectly without props. I was the only person in the room to do so (that includes the teacher). The girls kept to their own mats afterward. I never heard another comment.

I lost a little weight, about 20 pounds over the year.

I've been trying to manage a sun-salutation every morning, and I find that my body will also crave other poses.

When my dad got sick, I asked my sister to get us a membership at the YMCA (she'd made the offer earlier, I wasn't making demands). She never got around to it. Mom offered me a membership at Curves. I wasn't interested because there was no possibility of swimming, but Dad found a swimming solution for me. So I tried Curves.

I haven't lost any weight. But while I was with my folks, I was eating more than I've eaten in ages because we ate out every night. I didn't gain any weight either. I've lost inches, and I feel stronger than I have in years (at least physically).

Now that I'm visiting jerminating, I'm walking, too. There are walking and running paths just up the street and I've used them nearly every day. I seem to cover about a three mile area. I can hear the birds sing and the water burble and smell the freshest air I've been around in a good long while.

I like using my body. I missed this part of me. It's good to have it back.

Comments

[siderea]

Neat!

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Yeah!

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I love exercise. I'd forgotten how much.

I'm envious. I absolutely detest exercise of all kinds. I don't mind a purpose. I'd walk to the store for a reason, but just walking around in circles in my neighborhood is so pointless and boring--and the treadmill is even worse. I have such a hard time staying motivated, because I also absolutely hate the way exercise makes me feel. I've always been the type to prefer to read about it than actually *do it. ;-) Even now when it comes to exercising I buy more books and magazines about it as though just reading them would make me fit and thin. hehe (I think I'm hoping to find the motivation, but it doesn't work.)

We had a couple of women in this class who were skinny and pretty flexible and who didn't keep it to their mat. I'd caught a couple of glances and giggles at me and overheard at least one comment about too fat for yoga.

:-( How rude.

There are walking and running paths just up the street and I've used them nearly every day. I seem to cover about a three mile area. I can hear the birds sing and the water burble and smell the freshest air I've been around in a good long while.

I like using my body. I missed this part of me. It's good to have it back.

It sounds happy. :-)

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Hey, it was better than the comments I got in a Southern California ladies' room about how fat people shouldn't be let out of the house.

I do the "let me read about it" thing too.

Still, I used to walk all the time in Europe. During the week it was to get somewhere, but on the weekends it was for fun through the park. I don't know if there's any way to make it less boring for you. I've been trying to note the difference in trees between the East coast and here, and the birds have been pretty and talkative and...

I guess that's how it stays interesting for me. That, and I like the way my muscles feel when I get home.

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I do the "let me read about it" thing too.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. :-)

I guess that's how it stays interesting for me. That, and I like the way my muscles feel when I get home.

Those are good ways to keep it interesting.

When we lived in AK, for the last few years we lived right on the base--practically right next to the hangar (I could see it from my front yard and the taxiway went right by our houses). My husband would could home for lunch everyday and he and I and the kids would all exercise together. We actually all did Walk Away the Pounds (those tapes) and then did Tamilee Webb's stretching DVD (just a 10-minute stretch). It was a good workout. For whatever part of the year that we could, we'd also walk about 2 miles every evening, but that would be at a more leisurely pace. Other times we would walk outside to other places or sometimes go for walks/hikes in the woods--just for the fun, not really for exercise, but it was good exercise, too.

Here, though...I don't like walking around the neighborhood. It's a nice neighborhood--it's not that. It's just...houses and people. ;-) There are no sidewalks and no place to walk to, really...

Hey, it was better than the comments I got in a Southern California ladies' room about how fat people shouldn't be let out of the house.

That's truly, truly horrible. :-( It's such a much smaller thing, but when family was visiting, toolman33 took out some older pictures of us that he was showing around, and I actually heard his uncle say in a shocked voice, "What happened?" ;-) This man has known me for probably longer than I've known my husband (because I was a friend of his daughter, toolman's cousin) and he was at my wedding and everything, but I guess he didn't remember that I used to be thin, I guess.