Wednesday, July 9, 2008

food, fitness and related

I’m struggling with my fitness program again. I’m doing it but I’m not loving it.

My new obsession, however, is my online food diary. And by obsession, I mean since yesterday morning. We’ll see if it lasts until Friday. I signed up at FitDay after seeing this article about how keeping a food diary aids weight loss.

I love having all the calorie calculations made for me, although FitDay seems to be telling me I have to give up half and half in my coffee which makes me :(. Maybe I should keep the half and half and give up the oatmeal cookies instead.

Then I started looking at the information on activities. An hour and fifteen minutes of hatha yoga burns just 211 calories? Dang. I need to step it up. Today is a DVD day. I’m suited up, I have the garage a/c cooling the room, now all that’s left is the showing up part.

For inspiration, I enjoy checking in on this blog, by a woman who lost 100 pounds and is still going. She’s a good, thoughtful writer and she looks great.

Speaking of yoga …

I hate it when my Tuesday night yoga teacher tells us to do a series at our own pace—especially when it’s the bow (we don’t include the tongue) to locust series.

Both poses are difficult and unfun for me. Usually, the first time through them, Marilyn tells us when to change poses and when to relax. But then she has us do them again at our own pace, telling us that when our bodies tire, we should rest.

Such a predicament! These poses make me tired almost immediately. I want to do each one for about two seconds and rest. But I am both too competitive and too determined for that and so I hold them as long as I can. But since my body doesn’t enjoy the poses (or is it my mind? These mind-body practices get me confused) it tells me to rest long before I think it truly needs rest and my mind and body end up in a power struggle.

When I finally give up and let myself down, I can’t resist sneaking a peek at my classmates to see who has out-locusted me. There’s always at least one. Damn.

I’ll never be a yogi. No, not because I can't keep up, but because I care that I can't. So un-Zen.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That FitDay thing looks interesting. Maybe I'll try it... at this point it'll be tomorrow by the way today is going so far.

I don't mind bow (I've never seen it with the tongue... weird) but locust is hard for me too.

Sophie said...

We do Lion, which involves the tongue, but never with the bow.

The bow has gotten a little better for me when I figured out that it's easier to breathe into the lungs than the belly with that pose. But it was a good abs workout to try to breathe that way...

Ruth said...

Ever since I discovered I'm very flexible (the first time I ever did yoga), I've been super-competitive about it. One time I stood next to a woman who was even more flexible than I am and it ruined my concentration. What a bitch. I hope she never comes back.

Sophie said...

God bless you, Ruth.