Asian Turkey Lettuce Boats & Asian Eggs: One Recipe Two Meals: Best QUICKIE Diet Solution EVER with “go to food” solutions!

July 29, 2011 By 2 Comments

Ingredients: Sriracha Hot Chile Sauce, 2 packages of ground turkey, lettuce, onions, bell peppers, celery, rice vinegar, soy sauce, Mirin, salt pepper, fresh garlic. This is going to be the base recipe for two different meals, breakfast and dinner.

It is so hard to develop what I call my ‘go to foods’. ‘Go to Foods’ are the daily meal options that I have created for myself to help me avoid eating poorly. This recipe does quadruple duty, it can be lunch, dinner, snack, or made into a tasty high protein breakfast.

This recipe is not really measured, so much as it is thrown together. To eat healthy on a daily basis you have to replace your current, ‘go to foods’ with new ‘go to foods’.

What exactly are ‘go to foods’? Simply explained it is what you eat when your hungry, that you know will satisfy that craving be it emotional or real. We all think that we eat a wide

Get the pan hot with two teaspoons of either canola oil or olive oil. I use them both. Fat is not an issue when you eat good fats. I use about two tablespoons.Always get the pan hot before you add the food.

variety of foods, but the realities are: Most of us eat two or three different breakfast, lunch, or dinner options. Look at your last week honestly and tell me often you repeated a type of food? Did you have three or four hamburgers last week, or 4 turkey sandwiches, or three breakfast burritos. Did spaghetti or pizza show up numerous times? I want you to really look at how many different meals you ate. One of the most diet defeating things that most diet gurus do is provide great daily diet plans with simple to follow menus and shopping list. Which begs the following question:

I use a Slap Chop for the garlic, lettuce, bell peppers, and celery. Plus I use a great big pan. I am making Bill and I at least 4 meals each out of this dish. So you can see I added the celery, onions, and bell peppers.

How many of you use a shopping list and plan your meals for a week in advance?

I suspect that unless you are a stay at home housewife or house husband and your bored, then you have time to follow a meal plan and a diet. Freak, that is too much work and too much drama. So I am sharing recipes and quick ways of cooking that has helped me loose over 50 pounds.

So throw away your old style of eating and try some of the foods I eat, create some quick go to meals on your own based on what I do or what you already know. Replace your old ‘go

Once the veggies are cooked down I add the turkey. I already gave a squirt of Sriracha to the veggies prior to adding the turkey.

to foods’ with a battery of new ‘go to foods”. When your house is full of your “go to foods’ you eat better. Here are links to several of my favorite “go to foods” cooking ideas.

Guacamole Deviled Eggs

Zesty Chicken White Beans and Bacon

Burrito Bowl on a Plate

The Fat Yogi’s Bag of Tricks This is not a recipe it is a link to skills that I have adopted to help me make better choices.

Hope you enjoy today’s meal option! Tomorrow we will make the breakfast option!

Add the Sriracha Hot Chili Oil and the mirin, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and if you have it, you can add some tasted sesame seed oil. I am cooking in one pan and not taking time to prepare it like a FOODIE would. This is 'go to food' so you can cook, clean and eat quicker than going out or nuking. We all look for short cuts in everything, that is what drives human forward. To lose 50 plus pounds you need to make your go to foods quick and tasty. They need to satisfy a craving.Brown in one pan. There is going to be a lot of juices, you can drain if you want. I don't drain. The turkey was low fat. I made about a 12 to 14 serving dish, so the addition of Mirin (max two tablespoons) and the other liquids create the flavor. Without adding the guilt. Just remember to really look at the sugar and carbs of condiments. Use Sparingly over large dishes for flavor.Scoop and serve! Now lets take this mixture and make it BREAKFAST!!!!

Filed Under: Cooking, counting calories, Food News, Food Plan, Motivation, nutrition courses

Sharing Family Secrets With My Daughters

July 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As I look at all the messages, life lessons, and traditions that I have shared with my children, perhaps one of the most important has been the key to healthy living. My parents were pretty naive about food. The biggest imprint they left on me was to try anything and everything and to clean my plate.

So that got me to thinking about the messages that I send my daughters about food. To be honest I never really shared with them the knowledge I gained from the nutrition courses that were completed as part of my undergraduate education or the many diets that their mother and I had been on over the years as we both yo-yo’d up and down.

But the entire picture had never been as clear as it is to me now or as simple. Yes there is a lot of explanations about what I eat and what I don’t eat, in this blog and on my ever evolving food plan. The simple message I share with my daughters, the secret Sawyer Family tradition to looking great and feeling young as you age is:

“Eat Beans, Meat, and Vegetables Six Days a Week and on the Seventh Day eat whatever you want. On top of that MOVE, I do Yoga!”

That is the entire family secret to a healthy life and longevity. It is brief and to the point. There is no counting calories, though I do pay attention to calories. The is no measuring the quantity of what you eat, you simply eat a series of no-carb, a slow-carb or low carb days, following cheat day. Which series your going to follow depends on how much weight you want to achieve and how often you have been on the stage you are on. You should never go on the no carb stage of the diet for more than three weeks at a time.

But to keep the message simple I always start and end with the same old time tested and true advice from the annals of Sawyer Family legend.

We can be skinny, we can be vibrant, we can be healthy if we “eat our beans meat and vegetables”.

Filed Under: Beyond Yoga, bikram, Cooking, counting calories, exercise, family legend., Food News, Food Plan, Motivation, true advice, Uncategorized, weight loss Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Don’t I look Yogafabulistic! I sat on that rock for 30 minutes till someone…..

June 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The things I notice is that I look thin sitting down. You can see space between my elbows, I did a happy dance when I saw this photo!

……finally, came to my rescue and took that picture. Okay, for the first 20 minutes the squirrels in Mears’ Park literally ran circles around those lovely white birch trees dancing mere inches from Corky’s nose just across the water. They were relentless, if I had my F350 dually and was out at the Torturro’s I ‘d saunter over to my truck pull out my pink pistol pull the trigger and shoot corn nuggets to feed the poor fellows. I am not that red neck, I don’t own a gun, yet! My dad did make sure I was proficient in gun safety and I did my share of shooting as a kid. Just not a real gun fan now a days. No need to own one, at least not for me.

I just knew that Corky and I would look so cute sitting there, that surely someone would come and offer to take our picture. I hadn’t planned on the squirrels or the fact that by the time the dog settled down and my clearly obvious gestures of sitting there with my Droid……

Bill's sister lives on Little Birch lake and we spend many weekends at her cabin with Bill's neice and nephew. Linda is one of the strongest women I know and she raised two fine children I am proud to call family!

…..in my hand taking pictures would surely end, when a kind person finally offered to take the photo. Thirty minutes on a small flat stone surrounded by cold water, one can say I was stiff and that smile was trying. But it is the photo I was looking for to celebrate the next chapter of Will and Bill’s Excellent Adventures.

You see moving to Minnesotawas Bill’s idea, not mine. However, Bill has followed me all over the country this last decade while we opened a bed and breakfast and an equestrian event production company, so there was never a question when Bill wanted to return to his family. The problem was

After we got my great photo I wanted one of Corky!

The Fat Yogi and Nicole.....look at that fat cowboy it is a wonder my horse ran that fast!

that once I got here, it did not feel like home and then to add to the misery, Minneapolis got hit by the November Snownami 2010 and then pummeled by one of the worst winters in more than 30 years….. I don’t do snow!

I like to cross-country ski and downhill ski and I am little kid on a tube or a sled, but…… I don’t do snow! Just like as a cowboy barrel racer, I did not do horse shit. Of course I have shoveled, albeit less than my fair share of shit and snow, but I have shoveled a great deal in my life. I would not call me lazy, I am just extremely motivated to find other options than shoveling. You might say I have shovel PTSD.  In fact I shoveled my way through six years of graduate and undergraduate education. Every summer I worked for my Mormon buddy who owned a landscape company. He and I would spend weekends in the fall either setting up a pumpkin stand or preparing for the Christmas Trees and gift shop sale at his nursery retail center in Idaho. I more than know the value of work and being poor, but i also know how to avoid a shovel at all cost…..I bet I am not alone in that skill. It is all because my father had me shovel 13 tons of mud from behind our house in the 80′s to pay for my high school ring.

I have shoveled so much that I know I don’t like to shovel, it is a job best left to those who enjoy it and I am willing to go to great lengths to avoid things I don’t like. So my horses were kept in stables and my life is in a loft in Lowertown St. Paul.

Why Lowertown Saint Paul?

Last year after spending several weekends trapped in our home or a hotel because our hybrid could not clear the snow in the alley. It did not matter though, none of the

Living in a loft neither of us will have to shovel! Poor Bill he was way better at shoveling than I was.

4wd’s could clear it either, the city was shut down. Shortly after the trauma I told Bill that I would live in Minnesota as long as we are in a Sky Way condo  or loft and then I worked until I found us one. Hence the photos of the our loft. Next week we will showcase the loft in it’s own blog post.

So the reason this photo of our next life adventure, is of me alone sitting contentedly in Mears Park with Corky. Is because I finally am feeling like I have found a home. I have a vision for my future and a

Bill on a tractor in Oklahoma!

plan. I have a wonderful family that supports all I do and I have a brilliant husband whom I adore. Lowertown Saint Paul, Minnesota is now my home.

The Fat Yogi’s Next Bold Adventure!

So as Bill settles into his new job at an IT firm in the Twin Citiesarea it is time for me to begin working on my next projects. Here is where things are getting interesting. Once I shed the weight, I found some incredible energy and a new vision for my life. Bill says, “You change the world one person at a time, Will”. I never really know what he means but I think the person who changed

So here we are! Will and Bill in Minnesota!

from my blogging so openly and honestly about being fat and doing yoga is myself and since I love to write and create and share, I truly hope that I can inspire others to shed their fears and find their own best life. Along the way I am going to blog about my schooling, not only will the recipes continue, but there will be projects that I share with my readers as I learn them and work on them in my new studio/mudroom in our loft. I often feel as if I have been blessed with an incredible curiosity but a short attention spanwhich was why barrel racing was such a great sport for me. The

Here is the cool old werehouse that houses our loft!

entire competition would run from 14-18 seconds, I probably have ADHD and that was about all the concentration I have, of course we accomplish about 80 separate movements in that 14 seconds….lol…back to the story….

So I have been accepted into the pre-interior design program at University of Minnesota College of Design. I know exactly what my readers are thinking and they are right, gay guys barrel race, no matter how much I pretended the sport is filled with straight dudes, there are a few, but honestly that sport is gay guys and hot chicks. So yes I am following my next passion in life and going to design school as a 47-year-old man. My daughter Hillary just got a $20,000 scholarship to the University of British Columbia, so we will both graduate the same summer in 2015. How cute is that?

We are never to old to got back to school and chase our dreams!

Here is one of the rooms I did at the Inn and Spa at Parkside that Bill and I owned in Sacramento, CA. Bill really wanted a yellow room and it is not one of my favorite colors to work with so I used it once! The end result surprised me. The room was called Kiss and I imagine there was a lot of kissing done in this room. That was the point!

So the Fat Yogi is still going to be a blog where we really talk a lot about being fat and doing yoga, because it is an everyday struggle for me to eat correctly. But I do go back to the principles out lined in my food plan every time I take a diet holiday I never go more than three days and then with steely determination I start over and the end result is 182 pounds and dropping!!! Yogafabulistic!!!

During the first week or so of moving into our new loft while we were building walls and furniture our diet was less than perfect and as we got all the dishes unpacked and the kitchen restocked, we went firmly back on the eating plan.

So yes we are going to still be a blog about food and yoga and reclaiming our lives, but part of reclaiming our lives is following our passions. My entire life has been spent it chasing

It took us 30 days, two new walls, a new entry area studio/mudroom, and 1300 square feet of vast empty space. Are you curious about what I have gotten done and what is going to be done? Stay tuned!

my passions and it is fitting that my hunger for design and my desire to live with my husband Bill Swenson has brought me to the first home I have truly felt is not just Bill’s home but this loft on Mears’ Park in Saint Paul. Is now my home also!

Filed Under: Beyond Yoga, fashion, Motivation, Uncategorized, Yoga Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Down 43 Pounds and I Went on a Shopping Spree: Vote your favorite look! PHOTOS!!!!

May 14, 2011 By 10 Comments
Here is my birthday last year! I hid in hoodies. I was a mess. I Love the cake my daughter made me for my birthday.

 

I am taking a break from part three of “The Fat Yogi’s Bag of Tricks” to bring you a little fun! Last week while we were in Oklahoma I had to leave behind three pairs of pants because they were falling off. The two pairs I bought to replace them are already falling off and all my large shirts and too large. So I decided to go buy an outfit to wear to out or to work that actually fits. Buying new clothes is so much fun

So vote for the outfit you like the most.

I like how casual and nice this cobination is. Though I am not sure it is dressy enough for a night at the Ordway or the Guthrie.

The Gingham and Paisley look with a three pocket sweater is so "Hipster".

 

I can't believe I am wearing somthing other than a black tent to hide my belly under. I am love wearing color again.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Filed Under: fashion, Motivation, Uncategorized, weight loss Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Part 2: “The Fat Yogi’s Bag of Tricks” Before During and After Photos of 41 Pound Weight Loss

May 11, 2011 By 5 Comments

From 230 Pounds to 186 Pounds!!!!

Yesterday is was 40 pounds today it is 41 pounds…..woohoo!!! Bill snapped todays photos and he was impatient. I interrupted his birthday eggs to take this picture. Tonight we are going to the Ordway to see the hit new Broadway musical, Next to Normal, to celebrate his big day! Hence the photos are a little blurry.

December 17, 2010 Wow I was FAT!!! 230 Pounds!!! Looking trim at 189.6 Pounds!

 
 

189.6 Pounds!!!!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So how exactly did I lose the 41 pounds? Not only did I start on the Slow Carb Diet, I discovered it weakness after I lost the first 20 pounds and based on my years of studying and real life experience I developed this bag of tricks to actually lose weight and keep it off.
 
The Fat Yogi’s Bag Of Tricks
  1. Binge weekly: at least one day per week as noted in my food plan.
  2. Weigh Daily: Ignore what the pros say about weighing weekly. There is no research that shows that weighing weekly is better than weighing daily. Daily weights give you a running total of what direction you’re heading.
  3. Identify a weight range of six pounds, three pounds each direction and make sure on a Day-to-Day basis you are staying within that 6 pound range.
  4. If you are losing weight only record your weight weekly, on the same day, at the same time. This is your official weight. Through the week during this phase you are looking to see if you are staying within the range for that weeks weight loss. If you at anytime during the week you creep to 4 pounds above the range, look at what your eating.
  5. It is OK to cheat between cheat days. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you have to open your mouth like and swallow that ball whole and fast. You need to create rules for cheating. These rules are to help you balance your goals with real life actions. Rules for cheating give your permission to start over each and every meal.
  6. Allow yourself a bag or two of popcorn, no added butter and a diet coke once or twice a week, it must replace a meal or a snack and if the next day you get on the scale and your out of your safe weight range , double down on the food plan.
  7. Once you have gotten the first 20 pounds off it is time to pull back on the beans a bit and focus on lean meats and vegetables. I will eat beans only once a day and many days are sole veggies and protein.
  8. Protein bars with zero grams of sugar. I eat Think Thin protein Bars. Buy these by the box full, you will eat them a lot!!!!
  9. Get used to feeling hunger. This is an entire post all on its own and it really has a yoga connection. Which is why it is a post all on its own. Let me just tell you there is power in developing a healthy desire for the feeling of hunger. REAL LIFE CHANGING POWER!!!
  10. MOVE everyday. Even if I don’t make it to a yoga class everyday, I practice yoga daily! Getting your joints open and moving creates space for fluids to work in your joints. If you’re not opening your joints and moving them they get stiff and stuck and there is no room for joint fluids to move around.

Part 3: Hunger Pain and The Yoga Connection!

 

Filed Under: Beyond Yoga, bikram, exercise, Food Plan, Motivation, weight loss, Yoga Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Fat Yogi’s “Bag of Tricks” To Healthier Living: Part One-Do you ever hide your food?

May 10, 2011 By 5 Comments

 

On December 17th, 2010 I began this blog and I weighed 230 pounds. Boy was I a big guy and my poor horse had been hauling my fat ass all over the country. Today I am down 40 pounds and my blood pressure is that of an athlete, 115/75.

What you see above is evidence of the binges around the time of Easter, hence my favorite trailer trash confection, PEEPS! Now I did not eat this all at once, but over about three weeks, every couple of days or so, and after Bill would go to bed. I would drive over to Walgreen’s or McDonald’s and either eat a Big Mac or two boxes of peeps.

Confessions Suck! The entire time Bill was being completely faithful to our new choices, but I was adding a few bad food choices on a meal here or there. Plus, almost the entire time Bill and I have been following the low carb diet I have been eating one to two small bags of movie popcorn, no butter and a large diet coke.

Yet I still lost 40 pounds in the last five months and I am continuing to lose. I credit my success to a regular yoga practice, better food choices, bingeing, and learning to enjoy the feeling of hunger. The synergy of yoga and diet over the last 5 months is absolutely amazing and it created what I call my ‘Bag of Tricks’ (Bag of Tricks blog post part 2, tomorrow).

I have read almost every credible book written and tried every credible diet. I have taken multiple nutrition courses at the college level. I would have to say that no diet has ever given me permission to cheat as much as I have cheated on this diet and still lose 40 pounds.

I must have been eating close to 5000 calories a day or more prior to December 2010. So the occasional bad meal on top of about 1500 calories a day plus excercise (yoga, swimming biking) really did not change the over all outcome of the diet.

That is because, when I had a meal, where I made bad food choices. I did not let that meal or snack start the beginning of a spiral to seven years of bad food choices. I simply enjoyed the moment and my next meal was a correct choice. I attribute that to calories, even though I am not counting them.

A Big Mac has 540 calories and I would probably eat about 500 calories of PEEPS. Good thing PEEPS are so sugary, you can eat to many and after a box of 4 bunnies the second box is never as good.

So that would bring my calorie count to about 2000 on the days I was bad. Yet Bill hit a plateau and I was still loosing weight. I think eating 1500 calories or so a day for three or four days and then one day of 2000 and then back to 1500 calories for a few days before the big binge day, is the key. My metabolism probaly can’t figure out if I am starving it or fueling it. That was the beginning of my developing my “Bag of Tricks” to help me lose the weight and continue to lose wieght without feeling discouraged.

Feeling discouraged is worse than feeling hungry……….REPEAT THIS PHRASE….it is a key piece of information to the secret to losing weight.

When you are changing your daily eating habits, you are not joining a monastery, you are changing your day-to-day eating habits. That does not mean you can’t enjoy the occasional splurge several times a week, but you must have rules that you put in place to guide you willingly back to better food choices for the next bite that goes into your mouth.

If you are like the old me, one Snicker bar on the way home from work would set me off for weeks. Always waiting for the next Monday, while a growing sense of shame and FAT creeped into my soul and leaked out into my jeans. I was a pro at starting over.

I stopped starting over and started living……REPEAT!!!!

But I still have not talked about hiding food, hmmm……..the evidence is above and it is humiliating to look at. Hiding food, secret eating, am I alone?

I had never hidden food before, but Bill and I are making the same food choices and eating the same foods. So when I made a decision to (how can I minimize this????…hmmm..) I surely did not want him to know I was cheating, he would think so poorly of me. Plus he takes out the trash and would see the evidence. The thought occurred to me that this might be how people start a food disorder. Hence the confession and of course I have not done a Big Mac run or had a PEEP melt down since Easter. More importantly, I stopped hiding food. I can tell you those secret trips taught me more about my relationship with food than any thing I have ever read. We will come back to this but I would like some feedback about others secret eating and secret food stashing.

If you are brave enough to share your story about your unhealthy relationship with food…..I can tell you the 3000 followers of this blog would love to read about it, send me an email at wdsted@gmail.com and I will select one or more to blog about. I feel like I am only scratching the surface.

This is a part post!

Part 2: The Bag of Tricks and Before and after photos…

Part 3: Hunger Pains and the Yoga Connection

Filed Under: Beyond Yoga, bikram, exercise, Food Plan, Motivation, Swimming, Uncategorized, Yoga Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

My First Class With Bikram Choundry

March 21, 2011 By 10 Comments

 

Will and Rajashree at the Yoga Championships: More to come tomorrow on my interview with Rajashree and USA Yoga! Plus videos of the Minnesota competitors!

I was able to escape from the harsh winter of Minneapolis, MN to the perfect March in California for 10 days. On my first full day there, I went to the Los Angeles headquarters for Bikram Yoga, to take a yoga class at the world headquarters. I knew that on the following Monday Bikram himself would be teaching but as long as I was in Los Angeles for the Yoga Championships I would practice at the Head quarters. Imagine my surprise when he the teacher that day.

After four months of hard winter in Minnesota, I was surprised at how perfect the weather was on my drive to my morning class. Of course my own winter madness had not thawed as well as I had hoped when I found myself chewing out a fellow yogini for taking a parking space that was rightfully mine. So you can imagine my surprise when I walked into the lobby of the studio that was jammed with students, not just a packed class, but a class so full that our mats and towels overlapped our neighbors mat and towels on all four sides.

Abbey and her husband rescued me by taking my mat and towel. I was so happy to see a familiar face in that sea of people, I hurried into the locker room and changed. Abbey and her hubby had saved me a place next to them.

Bikram made his way into the class and began teaching right from the start. He let us know that his classes were always long because so many people come so far to takes his class that he always gives 100%. This class was no exception it went about two hours.

Bikram is 100% a large personality person and he is a happy person. You can’t help but feel his excitement as he teaches. You actually smile and giggle a lot in his class. Of course the class is so crowded. My head was in the guys feet in front of me and my feet were all over the lady’s face behind me. It was a little disconcerting too not be able to see your knee, your eyes, or anything you wanted to look at to correct in the mirror, all you could see was bodies, but not your own.

When I bent over to do separate leg stretching, on my way down I had to sway to the right so that my chin would not hit the backside of the dude in front me as I went around his leg then ducked under his butt. However I forgotten how I had gotten there when Bikram finally released us from the pose. I raised my head straight up in to the ass of the guy in front of me.

Bikram really explains each and every pose and in a class of 80 or more students he had no end of students to guide into better expressions of the current pose. Of course that means the rest of us are free to remain in the pose until Bikram releases us. Yikes!!! No wonder I forgot how I got down separate leg forward bend and almost knocked the guy ahead of me over.

If you have read either of Bikram’s books or listen to his CD’s, you know that Bikram is a character and a live wire. I don’t really want to tell you everything he said or everything he did that inspired me to be a better yogi, but he was definitely inspiring!

Bikram is a celebrity in the world of yoga and to take a class from a world-class teacher, who has taught presidents and movie stars, is treat that we should all make time to enjoy.

Filed Under: bikram, Motivation, Uncategorized, weight loss, Yoga Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

60 Day Challenge Completed, NOW WHAT?

February 25, 2011 By 10 Comments

 

Standing Head to Knee. Stand with your heels and toes together.

Today I am going to do day 61 of Bikram Yoga. Might as well, I have gone everyday for the last 60 days. I feel better and I am thinner, my pants are falling off in public places. I guess I could remedy that by wearing smaller jeans, but there is something rewarding about your pants falling off, especially when just two short months ago they were so tight my belly was straining against the belt and pouring over. It was so attractive.

 

There are things that change when you do yoga, one is your appetite. Of course I have been following the Slow Carb Diet which is basically beans, lean meats, and vegetables with lots of water. The diet is basically gluten and dairy free, except one day a week I binge and eat whatever I want. But beyond the diet there is the changes that occur to your diet simply because you do yoga daily. You find that you eat less.

 

Lock out your left leg and bring up your right leg.

Completing a 60 Day Challenge in yoga is a big deal, but I don’t really have an amazing story to tell or a great secret to share to make it easier for the next person to do it.

 

Seriously it is about making a commitment and sticking to it, no matter what. It seems like that is the hardest thing to teach a person. The value of making personal commitments and sticking to it.

In my life I have seen many great things happen as a result of personal commitments I have made. But does the yoga commitment end at 60 Days or it is a lifelong practice. After 4-5 years of start and stop yoga, this is the most committed I have ever been to a daily yoga practice.

So, now what?

 

Grab both hands under your feet. Ideally your fingers should be interlocked. Mine won't reach around my feet yet, my belly is the way. So I grab with one hand at a time. As I thin down more room will be created.

I guess I go to yoga today, day 61, maybe I will do another 30 days. I am getting flack from Bill. He is always so practical. He reminded me that my daughters are coming in a few weeks and that I need to not let yoga get in the way of our time with them. One good thing is my daughter Hillary loves Bikram Yoga. I have not got Felicity to do it yet. Though I have gotten my eldest daughter Jayne to do a class.

 

What Bill is referencing is his desire to go to Lake Superior with the girls during spring break, of course I want to go to Miami. There is no Bikram at the lodges at Lake Superior or the Wisconsin Dells.

Of course, after five years of Bikram classes I can go through all 26 poses on my own, so I can do yoga anywhere. It is just comforting following the directions of the teacher.

So 60 days down and a lifetime of yoga ahead of me! Join me on this journey and you will see your own life change.

 

Ideally my head should be to my knee and after two months of yoga, this is how far I have gotten. It is not about getting there your first try, it is about sticking to it and evolving to a better position. For at least a month I stayed in picture number two, just locking out my leg. Eventually my head will be to my knee!

 

 

Filed Under: bikram, Motivation, weight loss, Yoga Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

OMFG!!! Check out my before and during photos! WOW my belly is going going ……..

February 18, 2011 By 27 Comments

Yesterday was day 53 of the 60 Day Yoga Challenge. It feels so good to see that I am capable of what I thought I was not capable of. If I can do it anyone can do it.

Only seven days to go till I complete the Bikram Yoga 60 Day Challenge. There are many things going through my mind as I near this first step in creating a healthier lifestyle for myself. Perhaps the most compelling thoughts are those related to my ability to stick with this self-imposed commitment.

60 Days of Yoga, not missing one day, no matter what, now that is committment! I was pretty confident when I started this that I would be able to do 60 straight days. I had done about 20-25 classes between Thanksgiving and Christmas preparing myself for the 60 Days. I knew it was coming, Tracy, who attends the same yoga studio I do was fast approaching 200 straight days when she challenge me to do 30. I, of course being all butch and masculine decided, I’d do 60 days.

December 17, 2010 230 pounds!

February 17, 2011 I weighed 202 pounds yesterday for a total weight loss 28 pounds.

 

That was a hell of a commitment. What was I thinking? To tell you the truth, I was feeling pretty desperate. My body was falling apart. I felt like shit. I was miserable. I needed relief and I needed a challenge. I needed to struggle and fight my way back to living. I needed a mission and a focus. Tracy’s challenge was just what I needed.

December 17, 2010 Left side photo

February 17, 2011. Just two months later my belly is shrinking! I can totally do another 30-40 pounds!

 

Let me be the first to say that this has been a battle. It has been a personal war on my own attitudes and a war on my body. I am not a flexible person. Many of these poses feels like I am stretching cold hard rusted steel into position instead of a sinuous body.

Yet I have prevailed. I have only seven days left. I am going to make it, nothing can stop me from hitting this first goal. Yoga is a life long practice that generates life long well-being and I have benefited tremendously from the last two months of yoga.

My injuries have begun to be healed. I can walk with ease and have started to swim five nights per week. I have lost four inches on my waist. I have plenty of energy and I have hope for a better and more healthy life. I have lost about 30 pounds. All from yoga!

If you think yoga won’t change your life or burn off fat or improve your mood, I challenge you to do 60 Days of yoga and see if your life does not improve. Besides look at the photos!

Filed Under: bikram, exercise, Motivation, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Day 42 of 60 Day Challenge (weight update): Why is this so damn hard and why do I want to give up?

February 7, 2011 By 6 Comments

 

This is my Eagle Pose, as you can see I am grabbing my shoulders. I did it this way for years and only a week ago I started being able to catch my hands in the first part. See below!

Total Weight Loss: 23 Pounds as of last Saturday!  

Last week was a real difficult week. Have you ever been to that place where the desire to just surrender seems overwhelming and that bag of gummy bears or chocolate ice cream screams out…..just eat me!

Well that is where I am at! But I made a commitment. I committed to 60 Day Bikram Yoga Challenge and I feel so much better as a result. Not just physically better, but mentally better, so why would I begin to even question my resolve in light of such positive improvements?

You see how my arms are crossed and I caught my thumb.....that is a major accomplishment for me! I am so tight that I have not been able to do this in 4-5 years of practice, but after 30 something days in a row, my shoulders released enough to do it!

I’ll tell you why. We are lazy! Humans seek the path of least resistance and it takes a formidable commitment to overcome that inherent laziness. When I committed to eat better in December I was so miserable that it would have been more difficult to continue eating and resisting exercise than it would be to change.

However almost two months later, my health issues have begun to resolve, my body feels and look a lot better, and I am no longer miserable. So my mind starts telling me to let up just a little, enjoy life. That bag of gummy bears is only 500 calories, it is not going to add 23 pounds, but would I be able to stop at one bag? That is the question? Which is why I am glad to have a binge day once a week!

So with all these emotions running around and a deep feeling of insecurity and doubt, I have to remind myself of the commitments I made to change my life. I can’t give up yet!

Here you can see Kate doing it right and me looking like THE FAT YOGI! My leg won't bend all the way around and I am struggling. The point is that I am at least trying and my body is changing slowly going in the right direction. That is how it starts! You simply can't be afraid to go to yoga. You just have to go and watch your body change. I never once believed I would be able to catch my thumb in this pose, now I believe I can eventually get to where Kate is. Though I never will if I don't go!

 

I made a commitment to do a 60 Day Challenge. In the beginning I was ready to make a 30 day commitment and I increased it to 60 Days on a lark. Surely, I can do it, I thought. During the initial days it seemed like I could quit and start over because I was not very far into the committment, now at day 42, there is no way in hell that I would quit and start over when the goal is within my reach. In fact I have been playing with adding an additional 30 days. 

But what accounts for my doubts? I know that I am going to finish the 60 Day Challenge. But what about getting below 200 pounds and down to 175 pounds or even 155 pounds?

Do I have what it takes to get through this emotional block? Do I really believe I can do it? Why is this so damn hard today?

I don’t always have the answers. Nothing about this life is easy. It is a struggle and I have to believe that I will succeed. It is a must, but that does not mean I am going to breeze through this time of change with ease. It just means I am going to have to be real and accept that self-doubt always creeps in when we are about to achieve something great!

Filed Under: Beyond Yoga, bikram, Motivation Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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