'Nuff said

I'm Beat! But in a good way

Goodness! Mark and I just got home from shooting our first DVD for Dragon Door, titled "Learn to Swing". It was a fabulous experience and working together was only made more fun because I got to pick our co-star, my best friend, Fawn! Fawn flew out from icy cold St. Paul to rainy So. Cal to help demonstrate the two workouts I designed and lead for the end of the DVD.

Nicole DuCane did an awesome job as our make up artist, Fawn and I never looked so good. After over 9 hours of taping and training that ended with a photo shoot, my make up hadn't moved the entire day! So multi-talented, but I'm sure Nicole's not going to give up her day job as VP of Marketing for DD, but maybe next time I see her she'll show me how to do a "smoky eye"!

I can't wait to see the finished product which may be completed fairly quickly as the shooting went along smoothly. I'll post more photos and details in the next following days and weeks. But for now, I'm taking a nap....

Standard Snatch Swing Combinations "HV"

Before you all think I only make smoothies these days....here's how I ended my workout yesterday, after a really good 45 minute Swing class! I've been using a few standard "warm up" snatch/swing combinations for years, but just this past year I started using them more for "training". I posted a HV snatch workout last November that I did while I was at Hardstyle Ventura and mentioned that I thought it was a funny coincidence that "HV" stood for high volume and Hardstyle Ventura. I now think of and call these snatch swing combinations as "Hardstyle Ventura" workouts!

All 4 sets are 1 minute in duration

1 swing, 1 snatch, 1 transfer (12 snatch/ 24 swings)
1 snatch, 1 transfer (I call these "snatch transfers". 16 snatch/ 16 swings)
10/10 snatch R/L
25 snatch R/L (I divided them 12/13, or visa versa as the workout progresses)

Using these 4, one minute snatch/swing combinations only the rest period changes

First rotation 1 min work, 1 min rest (consider this your warm-up!). 8 minutes
1 min rest
Second rotation 1 min work, 30 sec rest, 6 minutes
1 min rest
Third rotation, no rest between the 1st and 2nd set, 30 sec before continuing with sets 3, and 4. 5 minutes
1 min rest
Fourth rotation, no rest between 1st, 2nd and 3rd set, 30 sec before continuing with the last and 4th set, 4. 5 minutes
1 minute rest
Fifth rotaion, no rest, all four sets done consecutive, 4 minutes

Total workout time 31.5 minutes
490 snatches
220 swings

As I mentioned I started out the morning training with my 6:00-7:00 swing class, and then I did this snatch swing workout for another half hour. I went for a 40 minute walk and then back to Girya to train strict presses and clubbells with Mark from 8:30-9:30....I did not make it to Vinyasa at 11:30! Too much on my mind to get ready for this weekend. Besides my exercise OCD needs to understand that I need at least one day off from any kind of yoga practice!

......and I think I have a winner! Avocado Tomato Smoothie

Tomato season may be way off, but good for me I have loads of homemade tomato soup and sauce in my freezer! In addition to the tomatoes, my homemade tomato soup has loads of onion, celery, carrot, jalapeno, and made with my own chicken stock. Not only was this smoothie delish (as Rachel Ray sould say), but off the charts in terms of nutrition.








Avocado, Tomato and Spinach Smoothie

1 c. lowfat cottage cheese 180 cal

1/3 med avocado 100 cal

1 c. tomato soup 80 cal

2 tsp sugar (to bring out the tomato flavor) 30 cal

2 tbl pysillium fiber 35 cal

handful of spinach 0 cal

juice of 1/2 lemon 0 cal (I would've used lime, but I didn't have one)

ice 0 cal

This smoothie will, for sure, be part of my daily menu for the rest of the week, except for one day when I'll have to use the one serving of cooked butternut squash that I still have in the fridge.

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Monday, my favorite day!

Tomorrow is my favorite day, Monday. Normally I would have a load of cooking to do first thing in the morning, but right now I'm getting a head start on my chickens. I thought I might roast the two I bought, but I changed my mind and decided to pressure cook them. Mainly for these reasons....less calories as the meat is poached, easier overall to harvest the meat from the bones (besides I needed some chicken for a dinner salad tonight!). But speaking of bones, along with the added ones from last weeks roasted birds I'm making a super rich stock for some soup I'll finish tomorrow.

Food plan for week 7

proteins, chicken, lamb, cottage cheese, & canned tuna (if I need it)

chicken veg soup with brussel sprouts or collard greens

cabbage salads with chicken or tuna

cesar salad with chicken and a mix of romaine and shredded cabbage, maybe some brussels

smoothies, avocado tomato and butternut

lentil dal I'll make with lamb stock, add spinach to wilt when it's hot

apple

I kinda overdid raisins and peanuts last night on my day off, so I'm going to try and cut both out completely this next week, including all dried fruits....but I'm not making any promises!

I made the most killer lamb and turkey meatloaf Saturday night and ended up making tacos with it! I used these seriuosly yummy soft corn tortillas our best friends Jen and Greg in Santa Barbara turned us on to.....I never get to eat them so I splurged!

I'm going to be on camera at the end of the week shooting another video, so I'll keep things a bit tighter than I normally would. Still journaling my daily menu, and I hope to share some of that in an upcoming blogpost soon. Interesting stuff.

My life is seriously good.

Avocado Corn Spinach w/lime smoothie and confessions of a supermarket roasted chicken

In my last blogpost about my cottage cheese smoothies I wrote about wanting to try a smoothie with avocado and tomato...well, Bee left a comment about how she uses an avocado in her smoothies and it makes them really creamy, so I couldn't put it off anymore! Bee also commented on how she likes her smoothies more savory / sour, than sweet...hmmnn...

I must be crazy because I can't bring myself to buy a tomato in winter, but somehow frozen corn seemed OK, lol Over the past 5 years corn has been an ingredient I've used sparingly, even in season (summer), because I don't consider it a vegetable, I count it as a carb, and since there are so many carb choices, by the time I get around to the farmers markets these days the corn season comes and goes almost as quickly as the asparagus season....(different seasons though) I'm going to change that this year!

Anyway, I decided to try an Avocado Corn Spinach w/lime smoothie. How did it go you ask? Well, the potential is going to be great, but there's definitely much room for improvements. Creating new recipes is a matter of simply tasting the food to make sure all of the ingredients make their "presence"....it's about balance. First let me say that the avocado was the best part...this time! It did, in fact, make the smoothie, well, smoother, lol The cottage cheese was the base and I added frozen sweet corn, a handful of fresh spinach (thanks Maribel!), the juice of 1 lime, and ice/water to my desired consistnecy. I also added 1 tbl of sugar, plain old white granulated sugar to make the corn flavor stronger and more pronounced. Corn is supposed to be sweet.

That's where it went wrong. I couldn't taste the corn at all! So I added one more teaspoon of sugar, as I was unwilling to add more, because the total calorie count was already on the high side....nothing, nada, no corn taste. But tasty in another way....not tasty enough to not want to make it better. How will I try and make it better? I'll wait until corn season, and I'll make some corn stock from the cobs to add instead of water.

3/4 cottage cheese 135 cal

1/4 avocado 100 cal (I'm guessing as I did not measure it)

1/2 c. frozen sweet corn 100 cal

1 tbl + 1 t. sugar 60 cal

spinach 0 cal

lime 0 cal

ice and water 0 cal

395 calories isn't bad except I grabbed the 1 c. measure instead of the 3/4 measure and add 45 calories more of cottage cheese and 50 cal more of corn by mistake turning it into almost 500 calories...yikes! Oh well, no big, it's just 100 calories....and it was alot to eat actually.

So now for my confession.....

I love supermarket roasted chickens! What's not to love? They are already cooked, and they are salted brined and buttered...or something....oh and they're cheap! And I'm not talking about the "organic free range antibiotic and hormone free" chickens you have to pay $14.99 at Whole foods. I like the ones from my local Mexican market! Good-ness a chicken you buy to roast yourself costs more and you still have to cook it, mess up your kitchen, wait for it to be roasted, and although my own roasted chickens taste killer good, so do these!

The guilt started getting to me, so I had Mark pick up a whole organic chicken for me to roast ($16 bucks!). The timing was perfect as I threw the bird in the oven at 5:45am, it was done at 6:55am, I tented it with foil, went to 7:15am yoga and when I got home lunch was waiting.

I forgot how good my roasted chickens were! I cut up an onion, lemon and apple to throw in the cavity of the bird, buttered it all over, salted and paprika-ed it. I didn't bother to tie it up, I simply threw it on a roasting rack, and into a 400 degree oven. I didn't have any chicken stock, believe it or not (plenty of pork and lamb stock), but lucky for me there was 1/2 bottle of white wine in the fridge to use as basting liquid.....oh and was it good! Too bad I wasn't making gravy cause it would have been mighty tasty.

I bought two more chickens at the market this morning and will roast them myself tomorrow. Does that mean I won't buy supermarket roasted chickens anymore? Hell no! But I'll save them for my cheat day so I can eat the whole greasy salty chicken myself!

PS On a serious note, I don't think there's anything wrong at all with buying cooked proteins. Especially these days when we have so many other way, way, way, worse options. Roasted chickens are great for all of the reasons I listed above and the convenience of harvesting leftover meat for salads and other home prepped meals is worth a little extra seasoning...and a hormone or two...just kidding...kinda

New Tricks, Old Tricks....week 6 and cottage cheese smoothies

I love my cottage cheese smoothies so much I could probably live off of them...seriously! It may seem that I came up with the idea of using cottage cheese instead of yogurt after reading 4HB, but I started using cottage cheese instead of yogurt before I read 4HB, and this is how it actually happened. I always put a pinch of salt in my yogurt smoothies, so I thought, hey, if I use cottage cheese then I don't have to add salt....but I will have to add sugar! That's OK, because vanilla, or any other flavored yogurt has sugar added, this way I add my own sweetner, whatever I chose...maple syrup, honey, brown sugar, etc., I chose! Besides that, cottage cheese has way more protein.

I looked at my new smoothies as "cheesecake"! What kind of cheesecake flavors would I like? My first "recipe" I posted a while back using butternut squash and brown sugar, kinda like pumpkin cheese cake. This last week I started to use lemon and blueberries, and yesterday I needed to use some leftover coffee, so surprisingly I happen to have had a banana in my freezer...cafe' banana smoothie. (*see note about bananas)

I'm not done playing around with flavors, maybe chocolate, strawberry (in summer), I've even thought about a "guacamole" smoothie using avocado and tomato. But for now I don't want to play around with too much choice, instead chosing routine.

Speaking of routine....

week 6

I like the addition of coffee to my smoothie, as long as it's my first meal of the day, between 9:30-11:30am.

Cabbage salad....I love my cabbage salads, and it's easy to pre shred and lasts 5-7 days in the fridge! If I get to add raisins or grapes to my salad depends on whether or not I eat my "fruit allotment" somewhere else (I love raisins in my lentils!)

My meat protieins this week are lamb, chicken and canned tuna. I've been making alot of Indian inspired dal and I was missing lamb badly with those flavors. I bought some shoulder chops (bone in) to cook in the PC this morning along with some ground lamb for some kind of soup or chili. I was looking for more affordable cuts.

I always have my "live trail mix", almonds in the freezer, carrot, celery and broccoli sticks with pnb and raisins for snacks, or preportioned lentils or dal with rasins.

I bought a couple of apples, and lately I can't help but buy red grapes.

I may add 1 serving of oats as a small meal.

I think that's it. Do I need anything else? Nope....I have everything I need except maybe a few pieces of candy! Lucky me.

*note about bananas I have, for a long time, discouraged bananas as a "dieters" fruit of choice because of it's dense sugar content and because it's a startchy fruit, much like a potato is a startchy veg. It's a fruit easy to overeat and doesn't have the water and fiber of other fruits. I haven't purposely bought bananas in years! The only reason I had one in the freezer was beause my son, Gabe, bought some months ago and the last one sat on the counter turning brown. I was going to throw it out, but instead I peeled it and threw it in the freezer, where it's been sitting since.

When I was trying to think of something that would give my smoothie more "weight", I remembered this banana. So, yesterday Mark was at Girya while I was teaching classes and he asked me what I wanted form the store. I said, "Believe it or not I need a couple of bananas!". One of my students overheard me and she questioned me...."Bananas?". She knew by reading my blogposts that I don't advocate bananas.....so I wrote this as an explaination!

I still don't think anyone that has a habit of overeating should include bananas on their shopping list....but I don't fall into that category, lol!

Improving on What I Already Knew

As I mentioned a couple of blogposts ago I have made some changes in my nutritional diet and my training. 5-6 days a week, I cut out grains, which wasn't that hard for me, and that also caused a chain reduction of cheese and wine! I prepare and portion most of my foods at the beginning of the week and plan a "theme" for a consistent menu of the same meals.

My motivation to make these changes came from reading the 4HB. In addition to so much good scientific information within it's pages, for me the message was more about the possibilities of changing your physical body by approaching it as more of as experiment than another desperate attempt to lose a few pounds (or alot of pounds). So that was my approach...I was simply going to conduct an experiment, remembering some of my own original, accidental, discoveries and reincorporating them back into my weekly schedule, and making, what I hoped were some improvements.

The mistake I made was that I made too many changes at once, so when I get to the part about the changes I did see, I'm not sure where the credit goes!

Here are the changes I made:

Out with the grains, replaced by mostly lentils, and rarely, beans and split pea ( a little bit of corn)

Replaced yogurt with cottage cheese for smoothies

Pre packed and portioned my foods. Stuck with the same foods 5-6 days a week

Cut back on my Bikram practice to 3 and 4 days a week, adding in Vinyasa flow 3 days a week.

Cut back slightly on kettlebell workouts...I said slightly, lol

Week 1 I informally started moving towards planning more structure, but I did not journal it.

Week 2 Wow! I planned it all out, wrote it all down and started to feel some real changes. Mostly in my mental attitudes about food, nutritional diet and eating. I started to enjoy it again! I didn't realize how much I was torturing myself over the decisions between all of the abundant choices I had to face, and what I was going to eat everyday. Gone...no choice...whew! I also came face to face with the fact that I was eating too much food....seriously, I didn't need all the food I was previously eating and I haven't missed it!

Week 3 repalced pork and veg soup with bean chili and corn stew...not quite sure about beans just yet, as Mark says that beans will put weight on you. Also replaced the cabbage salad, from week 2, with a spinach salad....not as "regular" as the previous weeks...back to cabbage salads, lol! The only "problem" I had this week was that I had some leftover prepared foods from the last week, so a completely consistent menu change didn't happen the way I wanted it to.

Mark and I went to San diego for the RKC reCert and I took some foods with me on Friday but enjoyed a killer barbeque dinner meal with some great wine Sat. night.

Week 4 I was going to incorporate back a bit of some of the foods I had cut out until I saw a pretty amazing change in my body Monday morning during yoga! Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Back to cabbage salad, and I tried a lemon smoothie instead of my butternut squash version, both are killer and I look forward to my smoothie everyday.

Last Saturday, my cheat day, I killed off the rest of the guava apricot chutney I had in the fridge with cheese and crackers, and a bottle of wine! Oh, and PNB and jelly sandwiches at the end of the night. There were a ton of choices I could have made for my cheat night, but I was way too tired earlier in the day after my 5 hours of training to go to the store!

Week 5 This last week I had the best time on Sun & Mon making all of my foods for the week. I made roasted califlower soup with spinach and chicken for my soup meal. This week my focus was more on continuing to eat meals, instead of turning snacks into meals by way of calories.

OK, so now for what's happened over the past 4 weeks? I got leaner! While I was in yoga I noticed a small part of my body where I had been holding on to a little chunk of bodyfat....it was gone! I couldn't believe it...where did it go? I was used to seeing it there, and now it had dissappeared. I showed Mark a picture taken of me this past summer to compare what I looked like now, and he identified the change right away!

Another thing that happened was a woman in yoga asked me if I had lost more weight. Really I didn't feel as if I had lost much because my clohes felt the same, I just looked different wearing them! I feel as if my mid section is significantly smaller and leaner, my abs, especially my obliques, are more pronounced. (I love having big square obliques....call me crazy!) I did weigh myself a couple of days ago because I was feeling much lighter and leaner, and I was surprised I hadn't lost more weight, in fact less than 2 pounds. Even Mark was surprised I didn't weigh less.

I had a bit of a candy craving Wednesday after I weighed myself...yikes! I know alot of people can relate to not "seeing" on the scale, bigger gains and losing motivation to the point of feeling like we want to give up. I'm sure that had something to do with it.... All is not lost. I usually get a grip, and feel my way back to what I know, and what I know is to NOT self destruct....a little candy never hurt anyone.

Here I am, loving every part of my life, yet having bits and pieces of doubt. I'm only human, but I still love myself, and I still I think I'm the shit! I'm loving life these days, lucky me.

Web MD review of 4HB

The whole "interview" with the writer of Web MD was, let's say, interesting. I have to get used to people telling me that they are doing a "pre-interview", but really they are not...they are doing the interview! I'm not going to get into the whole story because I could write the same kind of review about her...but I won't.

Anyway, I am one of the biggest fans of 4HB, and have nothing but positive things to share about what I think is the whole point of the book, which is "minimal effective dose". Getting the biggest bang for the buck...doesn't that describe the kettlebell swing? The point is that overdoing anything goes past a point of diminishing returns, and most people think they have to make much bigger sacrifices than may be scientifically true.

I got such a huge result with only two 20-25 minute swing workouts, (and so will most people) that I was motivated and compelled to take it to another level. Do I overdo now? Probably. But that's a different book! And the point is that I still transformed my once obese 40 + year old, unhealthy, boderline diabetic, high blood pressure, gassy, snoring, flabby and dimpled body into one of a healthy, athletic, fit, confident, lean and muscular (17-18% BF), almost 50 year old woman that wouldn't trade bodies with anyone I know. I love my body, I love my training, and I love myself.

The writer for Web MD asked me what my part was in the book....this was the first sign that she had taken no time, not one second, to even open the front cover! Basically I tried to convey to her that even though I had a very successful weightloss story, it was Tim that recognized that my story was so much more. My story was how I completely changed the composition of my body, after the age of 4o, building muscle and strength never before documented in this way. I told her that my adult profession was working as a manicurist for over 25 years, and now because of the transformative effects the kettlebell swing had on my metabolism, therfore my body, I recently had produced my first "exercise" DVD...I mean, can you imagine? How many people can say that?

I guess the point of writing this is that the book cost under $20, so don't you think it may have $20 worth of information, inspiration, or just plain old entertainment? Most people spend more than $20 on a large pizza. Which person are you?

Sophi and Grandma do yoga

I bought my granddaughter Sophi her own little yoga mat and DVD on yoga for toddlers http://totyoga.wordpress.com/. I thought it would be fun to play around with teaching her yoga when I visit, as well as including her mom, Cristina, and other grandma, Tina, too...we can all be yoginis! Besides, it gives us an excuse to wear cute yoga clothes, lol

Right away, when we rolled out Sophi's yoga mat she naturally went into a "up dog" position...belly down and chest lifted by her arms...that kind of surprised me! But getting her in "down dog", although it didn't take long, was more challenging for her because Sophi is used to squatting and bending her knees. Sophi doesn't spend much time bending over with straight knees! But she got it quickly and I can't wait to have more time with her, Cristina and grandma Tina to practice more.

link for kids yoga mat http://www.lazylizardsyoga.com/mat.html

600 snatches in 35 minutes

Tuesday mornings I have a mixed skill level class, and I try my best to remind everyone to scale the workloads to their own individual abilities, but I still take into consideration my strongest and my least strong.

Mark starts the class out with 10 minutes of joint mobility and then it's my turn for 30 minutes of solid swing combinations. 6:40 is when the "beginners" are finished as the last 20 minutes is snatch combinations and pacing.


I've been playing around with pacing snatches since way before I introduced the concept of swing pacing in my DVD, so pacing is how I handled my strongest and my least strong. The beginners were invited to stay for a couple of sets of minute long swing /snatch /transfers as a warm up, and then for 6 sets of 10 snatches, 30 sec work/rest for practice (they just learned the skill last week).


Beginners snatch reps in green type, advanced snatch reps in green and blue (in parenthesis is the side of the snatch reps). 30 sec intervals per snatch pace. Beginners rested after 10 snatches, alternating R and L. Advanced level snatched a downhill pace ladder through the rest period for 1 non-stop 6 minute set!

rotation #1

10 snatch R, 15 sn L
10 snatch L, (R) 14 sn L
10 snatch R, 13 sn L
10 snatch L, (R), 12 sn L
10 snatch R, 11 sn L
10 snatch L, (R), 10 sn L
1 min. rest

rotation #2

10 snatch L, 15 sn R
10 snatch L, 14 sn R
10 snatch L, 13 sn R
10 snatch L, 12 sn R
10 snatch L, 11 sn R
10 snatch L, 10 sn R (end of class, now for the rest of my workout!)
1 min rest

rotation #1

10 snatch R, 15 sn L
10 snatch R, 14 sn L
10 snatch R, 13 sn L
10 snatch R, 12 sn L
10 snatch R, 11 sn L
10 snatch R, 10 sn L
1 min rest

repeat #2 and #1

I lead my beginners through the first rotation for a total of 60 snatch reps and 6 min. I joined the advanced for the next rotation, and since it was the end of their hour I finished my own workout with 3 more 6 min. advanced, 135 snatch rep, rotations. 7 minutes per rotation includes the 1 min rest periods.

Total snatch reps 600

PS If you think this is hard, then do it in reverse! Pace up from 10 to 15! Even I knew better, lol

It's All Good

I've been practicing Bikram yoga for over 4 years now and I have always had a "love, hate" relationship with it....sometimes I love it more than I hate it, and visa versa.

I always love it when I have a good practice! Which is fairly often, as I do, in fact, have a good practice. I love it when I feel light and flexible. But it's probably the heat and the sweat that I love the most.

I dislike the inconsistency of the "teaching". In fact very few of the "teachers" knows anything about the body, yoga, stretching or strength, only knowing Bikrams dialogue and the whatever misinformation they have picked up from other teachers. And this is probably what bothers me most.... If I want to know more about a pose, then I come home and ask Mark!

I'm not going to get into all of that now because yesterday I finally realized that I was making myself feel bad about the practice (not MY practice, but THE practice). Because I live with and expert teacher and coach I have very high standards, and I know for a fact that Bikrams yoga lacks in number of ways....but that's not my problem and, lucky me, I can coach myself through my practice, which is why it's as good as it is.

My point is that Bikrams has been good for me. Bikrams is good for alot of people, but so are other yoga styles, or any kind physical activity that one choses to practice....even running if it makes you feel good. It's all good!

One thing doesn't have to be "bad" in order to make something else "good". I'm going to stop feeling bad about the fact that I practice Bikrams, and like it!

Three months ago I started a Vinyasa Flow practice in addition to Bikrams, and I'm looking into starting Ashtanga. I'm interested in what's best for my body and mind. Reminding myself that yoga is not about burning calories, and not about "exercise"....I get enough of that with kettlebells! But I feel I need to cut back on Bikrams because the challenge of the other practices will help me grow in more ways that the comfort of Bikrams. In fact, Bikrams gave me a foundation to try the other yoga styles, and practicing the other styles has improved my Bikrams!

I considered giving up Bikrams completely for 1 month to focus on some other styles, but I don't always need to be "all or nothing"...or maybe I do! It's all good.

Will You Workout by Yourself? (and not skip the hard stuff?)

Monday, Wed. and Fri. are my double yoga days. I used to do double Bikrams, but now that I'm trying to establish a vinyasa flow practice I try and do one of each. I soon plan to drop Bikrams down to a minimum, but I have to admit that I'm a bit addicited to the heat and the sweat.

Anyway, I look forward to my practices on the days I don't have to train kettlebells so when I showed up for a 7:15am Bikrams class and no teacher showed up to lead...well, I had to take matterss into my own hands! Lucky me I have a key to my yoga studio. A good friend of ours and fellow HKC Mike Mayle, owner of Balance Yoga Center supported me in trying to establish some sort of KB lessons there, and provided me with my own key.

I knew the heat would be on, but I didn't know how to work the humidity! Didn't matter anyway....I was stuck there because of traffic, it would have taken me more than 30 minutes to get back home....to do what? I would have happily lead the other students there through class, even though I'm not a Certified Bikrams teacher, it was more about the liability of letting them inside of a Studio I didn't own. What if someone slipped in the bathroom, or some other crazy accidient? It wasn't my place to let anyone inside of the business, not so much about letting them practice.



So here we are, finally, to the point of this blogpost. Is it fun, or easy, to do a workout on your own, especially when you planned having the energy of a group, or partner to pull you along? It's one thing to plan a workout on your own, but when something happens beyond your control that breaks momentum, how do you react? Well, on depending on the day, it can have a different outcome...or will it?

Here are some other questions. Even if you train on your own, or decide to go ahead and not let anything get in your way of your training, do you still do the hard stuff? the boring stuff? Do you do the stuff you don't like? Do you do the Get-ups, squats, lunges, heavy presses, pull-ups, crunches, swings? Do you shorten the workout? Do you short the rep count? Will you train at the end of the day if you are used to early morning workouts, or the opposite....will you get up early to train when you can't do an evening workout?

I'm proud to say that my self lead Bikrams practice lasted exactly 90 minutes....all directed in my head. I didn't skip any poses, I didn't shorten any poses, not even the savasanas! I completed my practice with the last breathing exercise as I started to hear people arrive for the next classes. I rolled up my mat, set it down in the vinyasa yoga room, changed my clothes and did my second practice of the morning!

The only thing left I have to say is....there better be a teacher there tomorrow morning!

picture above right, me and Mike Mayle at the Reifkind/Whitley/Reifkind Workshop....he's probably going to kill me for writing this post....but I don't think he reads my blog...whew!

Finding Joy Again....get your food right! (part 1)

For the past 2 1/2 weeks I made some adjustments in my diet that were long overdue. Until reading Tim's book, 4HB, I had forgotten some of my own eating and food strategies that gave me the greatest successes. I had forgotten them because my shcedule had changed after quitting my job at a Salon 3 days a week, giving me too many options, and too many choices in my daily life.

I'll get right down to the food facts....and the "why's" I'll explain afterwards.

One of the first things I did was to incorporate back into my eating and food strategy was the cheat day....or as I used to refer to it as a "high calorie day". Well, to be able to do that I had to organize my meals for rest of the 5-6 days of the week into specific parameters....both calorically and nutritionally. Good thing for me the two go hand in hand!

The other thing I did was not part of my original diet, but instead a suggestion from the 4HB...I cut out grains. I cut out barley, farro, crackers, oats, and for sure cookies! I rarely eat rice, bread or tortillas, or pasta, so these things were not things I needed to cut out. And because I cut out crackers, then the cheese went also, and my wine consumption decreased slighty...can't have wine without cheese and crackers, lol!

I made these adjustments without formality in the first week. What I mean about "formality" is that I did not journal my menu or calories, and I did not eat the same foods everyday, I simply changed the types of foods I was eating previously, and was more aware of not "treating" myself everyday to too many goodies, waiting instead until the end of the week. This started to give me more structure and focus.

The second week.....

I came up with an exact menu for M-F. My foods were the same, but I allowed the order to change to accomodate my training and work schedule. For instance, if I was not at home for lunch without a blender then I couldn't make a smoothie, so I may have had my smoothie meal for dinner.

I pre-pared, pre-packaged, and pre-portioned! The 3 "P's"! I did not do this the first week, and let me tell you, it's made a big difference in my life in so many ways...one of which was that I found joy again in my food and eating! That's big!

I kept a food journal! Guess what I found out? I found out that I was just like everybody else that thinks they are NOT eating as much as they ARE! Yep, I was probaly eating over 500 calories more that I thought I was before I made these changes, and after I made these changes I was still consuming more that I thought. I counted my daily calories after these changes at 1900-2200.

Now I'm in my third week and I'll elaborate on all of these changes when I have more time....

first picture above is me at the RKC re-Cert in La Jolla this past weekend eating my preportioned snack. second picture is some of my weeks pre packed and pre portioned foods.