Yay for Yoga at the Gym!

Better late than never! I joined the gym last year to get yoga for cheaper than going to the yoga studio. But when I finally went to the gym with my yoga mat, there was a sign on the window that the yoga teacher had suddenly quit. That was the day I met Khris and signed up for personal training and my life changed so all in all things went the way they were supposed to go!

Then I went back to the yoga studio every once in a while on Wednesdays. The gym got a yoga teacher once for about 5 minutes. I went once and she was okay, but she didn't last long so it didn't matter. I love Samantha at the studio on Wednesdays, but I seemed to have dentist appointments and other things come up on Wednesdays that kept me away from yoga during the last few months. 

Then suddenly the gym got a new yoga teacher! And she has several classes throughout the week. Free yoga! I've started doing yoga again. And it's great! It's so centering and relaxing and destressing and magic! And this yoga teacher is lovely. And very yoga! I love yoga. I want yoga. I don't want gym yoga without the yoga. I want the Sanskrit words mixed in. I want the focus on the breath. I want yoga, damn it! 

This yoga teacher starts with a good minute or two centering and focusing on the breath. She also does one of my favorite things. She allows time to set an intention and she does an ohm. We don't have to join her, but most of the people do. It's such a nice vibration in the room. We end our practice with an ohm as well. 

It's the little things in yoga and in life that make things nice. She does adjustments and highlights options, modifications and the use of props . She stresses that we access 80% level of our poses and go for sensation and not pain. 

During shivasana, she comes around and holds her hands, which are scented with essential oils,  above our faces so we may breathe in the loveliness. She presses on our shoulders or lightly massages our arms for a moment or presses on our foreheads for just a split second. 

Never underestimate the little things in life! Yay for yoga! 

Why I'm Glad I Did Yoga Even When I Was Big

Yoga is magic.  I love yoga. The first yoga I ever did was in my living room in my apartment in Chicago on Clark Street with a video tape. It was the most gorgeous yoga video tape on a beach. I fell in love. I became crunchy.

I started finding more yoga tapes and reading yoga magazines and adding yoga to my step aerobics at Bally's and my guts and butts class at the dive gym down the street.

I secretly thought I was the shit living in the city by myself and walking everywhere and going to the art theaters and walking by the lake and through the zoo every day in the summer. I was my own kind of crunchy.  (I still am!)

When you do yoga, no matter what your size or your flexibility, you become more body aware. You become more present. You walk taller. You breathe better. You want to eat better. You become more aware of very subtle things.

When I was different sizes, I was able to make different modifications to do different poses. I learned to lift my stomach to do twists. I realize now that I'm not much more flexible or open in my hamstrings or my hips at different weights.  I was never very flexible; I always modified for tight hamstrings, but I am much stronger in my warrior poses now.

When I was in Jenny's class at a heavy weight, I breathed through and modified through some strength and balance poses that some of the smaller girls couldn't do.

I worked on crow pose every week and eventually got it. It was harder for me because I was balancing a lot of weight on my arms. I remember getting bruises on the backs of my triceps when I first started. I also remember falling forward onto my forehead, which she said was good because I wasn't afraid to lift my feet off the floor.

I remember trying to get to crow off the blocks from a squat and that seemed easier to me even though it was a harder modification for some people. Today in our yoga class, we did a squat with flat feet, which I can never do, but the teacher showed us how to use 2 blocks under our butts and that can make your feet flat.

Then she said, if we wanted to try and it was available in our practice (a lovely yoga phrasing), we could move forward and try crow. I just put my hands in front of me and I went right into crow and balanced like it was nothing. Inside my head I was smiling like a big goof ball.

I remember going to a yoga conference at a hotel in Itasca with all the big fancy names in yoga. It was such a great learning experience for me. I went to a vinyasa class with Seane Corn. It was no joke. I modified, of course, and I went to child's pose as they tell you to when my breath couldn't match my movement.

When I was in child's pose one of the teachers who was walking around came over to me and did a hands-on adjustment massage on my back. It was like an affirmation to me that I was doing what was respectful for my body instead of trying to compete.

I went to a hip openers for meditation with Rodney Yee. The two things that I remember most from that session was that he said that the purpose of yoga is to prepare your body for meditation. It is to open your body enough to allow it to sit quietly without fidgeting when meditating.

He also said that in some ways beginners have it better in yoga because they don't have to do as much to get to the sensation as someone who is more flexible. So beginners shouldn't be upset that they can't do the advanced poses, they should just be happy that they can reach the sensation when they reach it and do the pose with integrity.

I'm paraphrasing his words, but I like that idea. I've always listened to exercise and yoga teachers about good form. I always want to use good form and not try to force something. Doing yoga and other exercises when I was heavier taught me to modify and not judge. I'd rather have good form and modify than be sloppy.

Doing yoga when I was bigger also allowed me to feel small movements that you don't see. I learned to use props. Now I really use props to my benefit still. I understand how props work and that they are not just for beginners. They are an important part of anyone's practice. Doing yoga at all sizes and fitness levels allowed me to feel what poses were supposed to feel like. Now sometimes what I felt, I can see in a different way.

Triangle pose has always been a challenging pose for me. I've always tried to really feel it. Teachers really stress not bending forward and getting out of the same "plane" in triangle. If you let yourself try to bend too far, you will do that.

As I've lost weight and gotten stronger, I am starting to see in my triangle what I felt in it before. It's a nice feeling. I'm not able to reach or bend any farther down. I'm not any more flexible. I just see what I feel.

Not every pose or everything in yoga is available all the time. But something in yoga is always available!

https://twitter.com/frecklesgraham/status/988812610572292096

Letting Go

Fibromyalgia is a mysterious condition. Many people don't even think it's real. It gets made fun of by families of people who have it. It gets made fun of by doctors. It gets made fun of by people on the internet. People are told it's all in your head. People are told they are faking it.

We are known as complainers and whiners. We are given all sorts of advice about what we need to do ranging from suck it up to push yourself to vitamins to lose weight to gluten-free diets to Mucinex to stress relief.

I have some thoughts and beliefs about Fibro that are not scientific; they are what I believe is true for me. It may not be true for others, but I have seen it in me and I have seen some common themes in people who have Fibro.

I believe I have had it my entire life to some degree. I think stress and the cummulative nature of life brought it to a very acute and debilitating stage a few years ago, but I think it was always in my body.

I was always a tired person and my body always hurt. I never stayed up late like the other kids. As a silly example, I remember the movie The Ten Commandments. I never could see the end of it because it was on until 11 pm from 6 pm. I always fell asleep.

In school, I always went to bed early and I always had a hard time getting up in the morning and I was always tired in school all day every day. I never remember feeling rested. I remember distinctly telling myself to go to sleep when Johnny Carson was on because I would be tired the next day. But I was still tired. I would take naps after school in my school clothes because I was so tired.

I also believe that people with Fibro are sensitive. Sensitive to the point of being empaths. We take in the emotions of the room. Many people with Fibro have abuse in their childhoods. I do not. However, I grew up with an alcoholic father and a very codependent mother. I craved attention that was unavailable to me.

Alcoholics are very selfish by nature. My dad used to want me in the room with him, but he didn't want to talk. He would literally say, "Suz, don't talk a lot."

My mother is the worst listener on the planet. It's not her fault. She grew up with alcoholics and married an alcoholic. She trained herself to tune people out. Whenever I would try to talk to my dad, and he would say antagonistic things, she would tell me, he's drunk, don't listen to him; tune him out.

My brothers were fun to be around, but they had their own friends as they got older and went out more. I was a loner and stayed home more.

Life was never relaxed. It was nice, but it revolved around my dad. Tiptoeing around him and how he would react to things. I realize now that where I found fun was in 2 places. With food and in my room with music dancing. Those were 2 places I felt loved and free. I was always a skinny kid so food never seemed like problem back then. Although digestively, and emotionally it was.

I believe that what a Fibro body does is store your stress and tension in your muscles. Your body helps you and hurts you at the same time. It takes all its empathy and sensitivity and it has your organs and systems like your digestive system and your muscular/skeletal system and even your sleep try to compensate for all of the stimulation that you are getting.

Your systems are getting overloaded and overstimulated and they try to help you in any way they can figure out to help you. They clench, they block, they shut down, they get sick, they scream, they get your attention or they become invisible.

I never got sick in the normal way. Whenever I got sick as a kid or an adult, I got sick in a spectacular way. I got 3 week ear infections or 18 day shingles.

I developed coping mechanisms for shutting out stimulation that I didn't even know I did. I always sit facing away from the door so I don't see all the people coming in and out. I don't watch the news.

As I am making improvements with my training, I'm learning more about my Fibro. I would love nothing more than to not have it, but I do.

It's so much better now and I'm managing it better, but I have an irrational fear of people thinking, "See, you were just fat, you didn't really have Fibro. You just needed to lose weight."

But it's so much more than losing weight. I still have pain underneath; it's still there. It just doesn't radiate to the outer layers of muscle, which makes it feel so much better. So much better! That didn't happen when I lost a lot of weight. It didn't happen until I started training.

The training is also doing something that I don't think happens with everyone who trains. It's releasing emotional pain. I believe really old emotional pain.  And it's doing that in stages. It happened quite a bit when I first started training. It was shocking back then.

It happened again a few months later. And it's happening again now. For some reason I thought Khris made the workouts harder in these times. But I think it's my body. I asked Khris if things got harder last week. He said they always get progressively harder. So I think my body just decided that it's time to let go again so it seems harder to me.

He said I should always come in everyday wondering if I will make it through the workout. That's good for me to know. I actually do think that mentally; I love pushing my body in training,  but there comes a time every few months that my body decides to let go of some new things.

It decides to shed some more. I get extra tired after the workouts. I get extra weak during the workout. I get sore. My body just doesn't feel right.

I let go of lots of tears of joy, and tears that I don't know what they are from in the locker room and in the car and at home during those weeks.

I may come into my workouts wondering if I'll make it through, but I have no doubt that I will make it through my new way of being this time because I am completely letting go. I feel as free in my workouts as when I was in my room dancing as a kid. And I feel as loved eating good food now as I did eating bad foods before. I have never let go this much before. Keep opening up muscles!! I'm ready!

My Fibro Whisperer

There used to be a commercial for a perfume with the slogan, If you want to capture someone's attention, whisper. Whispers are soft. Whispers are private. You have to pay attention to hear a whisper. Whispers communicate without assuming, presuming or overpowering.

We know the idea of the horse whisperer and the dog whisperer who train and communicate with animals through compassionate methods. They calm, tame and encourage. They train with love. With their presence.

My trainer is my Fibro Whisperer. He has tamed, and calmed my Fibro through his compassion and encouragement. With his love. With his presence.

Now, don't get it twisted. Khris is extremely demanding. That's a key part of the equation. But that's the only part that most people think about needing in a trainer--the stereotype of a drill-sergeant trainer. No, no, no. That's not what we have here. KBuddah is different.

Today we did a tough workout, but it included a few good new lessons: Patience and patience.

The first patience was a reminder lesson. Doing challenging push ups with knee tucks on sliders, I was reminded that I can take breaks or do whatever is necessary to be able to do them perfectly. It's better to take breaks than to worry about doing them without breaks and do them quickly with bad form. I only had to do 3 of them. It's important to try challenging things and do them well even if you only do a few. It builds patience and persistence.

The second patience was the opposite. I did some therapy on the foam roller to help my back, my posture and my knots. This patience was to relax and let things happen at their own pace. To not force. To just let my body find its way and let go. It's important to let your body open up on its own. To give it time.

I went to the doctor recently and she was amazed at my improvements because of my training. Fibro is a mysterious condition. She has recommended to her patients that they try training and tells them about me. We talked about how it is the deep muscle work that is the important part.

My training has been pretty miraculous. I look forward to even more improvements. The muscle work has really made a huge difference. But my Fibro Whisperer has made the real difference.

Fibromyalgia and Training

Routine and Discipline

Routine is just good for you. It's funny when you think about all the motivational speakers and inspirational posters that you see, it seems like they encourage you to be adventurous and take chances, but when you really, really listen to them, underneath that you hear them stress routine and discipline.

Eric Thomas talks about what you do every day and doing the little things right. He actually kind of yells at people for trying to do the big things when they haven't learned to do the little things yet and for not having a routine. 

This week, my routine started to fall apart just a tiny bit. My routine is more "routine" than most people's. I have to pace myself to maintain it. Last weekend I was sick and I didn't do my laundry for the week of working out the way I usually do and my workout schedule changed a little this week starting on Monday instead of Tuesday.  

But I did not and would not give up my exercise routine. I just let my house get a little messy. Today after a workout class and then yoga, I made myself pick things up instead of resting right away when I got home. It felt good to have things picked up again. I never want to let things get too out of control. I've experienced that. 

Yoga reminds me to stay calm in the struggle. Yoga is magic. It's so good for your body, but it's even better for your outlook and your attitude. It's so calming and relaxing and energizing at the same time. It reminds you how big the tiny things are in life. 

I was so tired this evening that I didn't want to take a shower, but I knew I needed to because I'm going to training tomorrow and I sweat yesterday and today and I needed a shower. I was tempted to take a bath so I didn't have to stand up, but I needed to wash my hair. So I just did it. It wasn't the best shower in the world. I did a lot of standing there with my eyes closed and letting the water hit my back. 

But it made me think about how great it is to have yoga again now that the gym has it. I've missed yoga on Wednesdays because of so many dentist appointments and other stuff happening on Wednesdays. I need yoga. Yoga is the model of routine and discipline. 

Routine and discipline is the foundation that allows you to have the freedom to have things in order so you can open up and receive and explore the bigger things because the little things are already in place. You're already calm in the struggle. The chaos on the outside doesn't affect you. You've tamed the inner chaos. 

Numbers

There's a girl on Twitter that I don't really know, but I see her Tweets, who must be in some kind of contest or wellness challenge at her work where they have weekly weigh-ins. She's doing great and she posts about it. She also has a coach, who I'm assuming is a trainer, who sets goals with her. This week her goal is 7 pounds! She has lost 17 pounds of her 20 pound goal in 9 weeks.

All of that is really irrelevant, it just made me think about my goals and my training. I've never had an actual number in mind for my goal weight or how much I want to lose.

I think that has helped me. I do like losing pounds, of course, and seeing lower numbers, but I haven't freaked out if numbers go back up again a little sometimes or if they just don't go down at all for weeks in a row. I've actually reached a point, after a year, where I forget to weigh myself in the morning sometimes.

What's interesting to me is that Khris has never asked me how much I weigh or how much I want to lose or if I'm losing. He's never, ever given me a goal of pounds to lose in a week like the trainers do on television. I can't imagine him being disappointed in me for not reaching a pound goal.

Whenever I share with him pictures of my scale and the numbers going down, he is happy for me, but it's because I'm happy. He doesn't really care. He's more interested in how I'm feeling and how I'm doing at the exercises. It makes him happy that it makes me happy to be in smaller sizes, but that's not what he cares about.

Maybe other trainers, or trainers on television focus on that because they know it's what the client wants or because they know it's what other people see and they want people to know they can get results for people so they can get more clients.

Khris wants people to see that I feel better and I walk taller and I have more happiness beaming from me. I don't know if he'd even be able to answer people if they asked him how much I've lost.

185 pounds is a pretty awesome number for me. I know I will lose more eventually, but it's the number that I happened to land on (I didn't choose) that feels pretty great. I wouldn't be more motivated by Khris putting weekly pound goals on me.

On an opposite note, I saw a Tweet from a guy who was frustrated at his perceived "failure" at the gym the last few times because he was recovering from something and he didn't lift some exact number of pounds that he had done before. I didn't pay attention to exactly what he was talking about, but I paid attention to his energy.

He was talking about failure and not going back if he continued to fail and it was all so negative just because he was lifting like 20 pounds less than he usually lifts. Again, those are only numbers. Khris changes my numbers for doing things all the time.

Sometimes I'll do only 3 of something new or kind of heavy and sometimes 10 leg lifts at the beginning of a workout feel totally different than 10 at the end or on a different day.

I usually use the green kettle bell and the other day I used the purple one, which is lighter, because I think he was trying to have me stretch or strengthen my back. None of that is failure.

I understand psyching yourself out. I've done that. But that's part of what blogging is about: getting those lessons fixed up in my head so I don't stay psyched out by the counting.  Mah. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Something inside you

This is going to be a really short post, but one I've been thinking about.

Sometimes you have to just find that something inside you and not always worry about what it is or try to figure it out. Some people can really articulate and point to what happened that got them motivated or can tell you why they have always been motivated. For me, often things happen in a mysterious, mystical way and I can't explain it.

For me, it has to be more nebulous and less concrete. But it really has to be for me. And once I decide, I know I've decided. Something that was reinforced to me recently is that no matter how much you think that it will feel great to get reinforcement from others, it will never come in the way you think it will and it will never be enough to keep you going.

Some people may notice. Some people may not notice. Some people may notice and not say anything. People will never notice as much as you think they will or think they should. And even if they do, it's not what will keep you going.

I have to continually do things that make me happy and make decisions that keep me in the moment and focusing on enjoying the process. If I slip and think I'm going to be happy from faster or bigger results or what other people notice or say to me, I will inevitably be disappointed.