Light-skinned-ed Girl

WoYoPracMo: day 9

I'm learning a good lesson about the power of consistency.  My ideal yoga practice --what I would call "real" yoga -- is a sweaty, difficult class/DVD that tortures the practioner for at least an hour preferably more.  But real yoga is actually imperfect.  It is as much my ten-minute meditation practice as it is my Power Yoga DVD.  Yoga is about consistency.  So far so good . . .

Too Many Challenges for the New Year

Maybe but maybe not.  The challenges keep me focused.  If I do this and this and this, I will reach my goal.  I like those kinds of challenges.  So I will do my best to keep showing up --yoga Day 5 check; pushups Week 3, Day 1, check; situps initial test (not so good) check; still sticking to the cardio/lifting plan and the good eating regime too.  And it's taking a lot of time, but it all feels worth it.  (I get to watch Party of 5 DVDs while on treadmill!  What could be better?)

A Year of Challenges

I am motivated by these challenges.  Maybe you are too.  So far so good on my WoYoPracMo--I've practiced yoga four days in a row.  I am on Week 3 of the Hundred Pushup Challenge again.  It's going pretty well.  I'm back up to 35 pushups in a row--and that's after a good workout.  But now, guys, I'm about to start another challenge that I just learned about: Two Hundred Sit-Ups Challenge.  Yes!  I'm going to get my four-pack back by 40!  Will anyone join me for this one?

Yoga Scares Me

It's Day 2 of WoYoPracMo and I'm wondering how I'm ever going to make it through the month.  I put in my Brian Kest Power Yoga DVD this morning thinking it was a 30-minute segment I was following.  Lo and behold it was one hour.  And although I thought I was going to die at minute 17, I did not die.  I continued to breath in and out--sometimes I gasped for air.  But I finished the darn DVD.  More tomorrow--that is, if I can move.

A New Year Challenge: WoYoPracMo

Happy New Year!  After bringing in the new year last night with amazing food (highlights of the tapas menu include: pumpkin soup, tuna sashimi, pan-seared chili lime shrimp, polenta with roasted tomato sauce and duck confit--all made by husband--who is now getting comfortable being called Chef), incredible wine, good friends and a rousing game of Apples to Apples, it's time to get back to work. 

One of my resolutions for this year--really the next six months--is to develop some flexibility.  Specifically, I want to be able to touch my toes.  I know.  It's sad that I can't.  Years of running and wearing those cute high heels while walking too far have taken a toll: intensely tight hamstrings and calves.

Yoga is going to change all that.  In order to get a consistent practice going, I've decided to do the WoYoPracMo Challenge: do yoga every day for the month of January!  This is what you need to know to do it too:

"The 'rules' are simple: practice yoga every day in January. Your practice can be as short as 10 minutes! If you accomplish this goal, you will be in the running for prizes. We are also looking into a way to add a practice dedication or charity pledge aspect to the endeavor, and will keep you posted."

Okay, everybody: downward dog!

I'm Unhappy with my Mii

It's not possible that over the course of two days my Mii (meaning me) has gained 4.2 pounds.  Especially when I have been working out and eating well on aforementioned two days.  So, I am mad at my Mii for letting herself go.  Me, on the other hand, is on the good foot now.  Back to my workouts and my Hundred Pushup challenge--no, I can't let it go until I achieve the goal.  I'm keeping my eye on the prize.  I've gone back to Week 1 (new version) even though at one point late summer I was up to 60 pushups (boy pushups) at a time.  Anyone want to join me in the challenge?  And there's January's challenge too.  Yoga every day for a month!  Everyone downward dog!  Maybe then, I'll be able to touch my toes.  And I will keep working out with my jiggly Mii on the Wii Fit--there is progress: got a high score on the hula hoop today.  Whoo-hoo.

Update: 100 Pushups in 6 Weeks Challenge . . .

Feels like I'm on the zillionth week of this challenge . . . and I've still not reached my goal.  After finishing Week 6, my best exhaustion set was 60.  So I went back to the program for Week 4, I was much stronger and did close to double what I had done previously on the max-out sets for that week.  Then there was vacation.  Despite the fact that push-ups are portable, I did not do a single one.  So, here I am -- a little bit weaker-- I decided to go back to Week 3.  So far, so good.  My max-out sets are stronger, and I feel more stable when I do push-ups.  I feel, well, honestly, more confident of my form and kind of more dude-like.  If you haven't signed on to the challenge, you should, why not?  Download the whole program at www.hundredpushups.com.  It's free.

Update: 100 Push-ups in 6 Weeks Challenge

I am on Week 5 of the 100 Push-ups in 6 Weeks Challenge.  In my exhaustion test Sunday, I maxed out at 52.  Not bad.  But then yesterday, dude, I thought I would die.
My challenge was to do 5 sets of push-ups with 60 seconds rest in between each set.  Set 1: 40 push-ups.  Check.  Set 2: 32 push-ups.  Check.  Set 3: 30 push-ups.  Check, but really struggled.  Set 4: 25 push-ups.  Check, dear Lord, keep me going.  Set 5: max (at least 40) push-ups.  I gave myself 120 seconds rest before that one and still nearly bit it (dropped to my knees at 30).
All of that said: I did it.  That means I did 167 push-ups in the span of about 10 minutes.  Not too bad indeed.  So, anyone else inspired to join me in the challenge?

Bootstrap Girl

Enough with the melancholy.  I'm pulling myself up by my bootstraps military style with some hard-core workouts.  I have a big birthday in just 11 months.  It's never too late to start getting it together.  So with my new resolve I've added a push-up program!  100 push-ups in six weeks.  A mere decade ago, I could do 60 push-ups in a minute.  You should have seen my guns!  (Can't post photos--it was just too awesome--also it was the pre-digital age and I am too lazy to scan.)  I want my guns back!  So I'm back on track with my workouts and now also this challenge I just learned about: one hundred push-ups in six weeks.  It's a full training regimen you can follow along with me.  Today was Day 1.  I maxed out at a semi-respectable (for an old gal) 23 for my last set.  Anybody else game?

Photo melissann

On Fat and the Approach to 40

If you don't know of the writer Ellen Gilchrist, please find her books.  They're wonderful--particulary her short stories.  This little excerpt from her book, Falling Through Space: The Journals of Ellen Gilchrist, is not necessarily representative of her writing at all, but perhaps her sensibility.

"When I last wrote about fat, my friends and I were in the philosopher's kitchen trying to decide whether it was wise and/or sane to be so irritated at the body's natural desire to grow larger and to carry stores of food around on top of its muscles and bones . . . My friends and I have spent many hours this past summer talking very seriously about losing weight.  If it is intelligent to give in to prevailing winds of fashion about how large our bodies should be or become.  How much of our so-called body image is fashion?  we asked ourselves.  Is it helathy to divest ourselves of pounds?  If so, how many?  How will we know when to stop?

I am the ringleader of that faction that says, Yes, we must diet.  We must go to bed hungry and fit back into our clothes and never give in to inertia and complacence.  So I dieted all summer and in three months I had gained three pounds.  Needless to say I do not think this is funny.  I think it is very very cruel and unfair . . . We are diverse and wonderful creatures made of starlight and comet dust.  What shape and size our indiviudal bodies take cannot be measured by steel scales and weight charts.  We are breathing oxygen created by plants on a planet hurtling through space.  We are not a flat image in a mirror or the reflection of a starving model in a fashion magazine.  Life is soft and round and generous. 

Some of us may be underexercised and over-guilt-ridden but we are not fat.  We are wonderful and mysterious and can swim in water."  --Ellen Gilchrist