Recently a friend blessed me with a few yoga videos. She may never know how much she has blessed my life now. They are called Yoga Shakti by Shiva Rea and I LOVE them. The scenes are beautiful, the workouts are not difficult but you do feel like you're actually doing something, her voice is very soothing.
Anyways, just wanted to share why I love yoga videos right now as a stay at home mom.
1. I can do them any time. It's usually best during naps because Aria sees me doing some of the poses and thinks I have turned into a person jungle gym. She usually squeals with delight as she starts to crawl on me.
2. I don't have anyone around to judge me. Except maybe Levi sometimes... he did comment the other day, "No mom, that's not how you do it..." Thanks buddy. I have found that I'm just not self-conscious when I get to do yoga on my own. I am less judgmental against myself about my body and my clothing. I have no one to compare to, just me being me.
3. I can do as much or as little as I want to in a day. I like to do 15-20 minutes in the morning and then around 30 minutes in the afternoon. It helps me regain my energy and balance. I've found that I've been more energized after doing yoga than I do a normal workout. This is amazing to me. I think it's the breathing and stretching, and probably just the centered feeling I get from doing something so meditative.
4. I don't have to get out of my house. It's super cold (still! :(!) in Little Rock and so I'm not as apt to go for a walk, but I can do yoga in the warmth of my own house. I just put on my yoga pants, roll out my mat and I'm there. A-ma-zing.
Those are all the reasons I can think of right now.
Something extra special happened this morning. Aria was down for her nap and Levi wanted to make popcorn for a snack and I told him I had to finish this workout first and he could not interrupt until I was done or else we weren't going to have popcorn. So I started the DVD back and began working out. I look over and he is doing the exercises with me. He's in downward dog, upward dog, lunges, warrior poses. It was so cute I could hardly hold my poses because I wanted to laugh. I tried not to of course because I want him to know that he is AWESOME.
Just wanted to share.
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Redemption of My Physical Body: part thirteen
I was talking to my husband about my last post. I ended up reading it to him and then realized all the mistakes in it. I am not an editor. I'm a writer. I hate editing and going back over. So I apologize and ask that you please forgive me in this and other posts.
I don't think I finished everything I wanted to say about exercise. What I have learned is that I need to LISTEN to my body. If I am sick (like I am now) or recovering from surgery (like after Levi was born) or something like that I need to rest. My body needs that energy to repair itself. If I am feeling sluggish and lazy, it probably means I need to get out for a walk. It doesn't have to be hardcore running and P90X and all that jazz, just sometimes needs a little lift. Something just to get my body moving. If I feel like I could get out for a run, then I will run. If I feel like I could have a big huge workout, because I have been faithful with my smaller exercise, then that is okay. But I don't have time or energy to work out for several hours a day, and my body is just not in that place.
Walking has also helped my struggle with depression.
Something about being outside, thinking, talking to God, breathing, going as slow or as fast as I feel like is just good for my soul. My brain needs it, my body needs it. I try to get some kind of exercise at least four days a week. Sometimes it will be six days a week (I rarely exercise on Sundays because of my responsibilities at church). I also count a hard day of housework as exercise. If I am doing loads of laundry and vacuuming, washing dishes, fixing dinner and chasing after Levi, then that is plenty of exercise for that day. This has been especially the case with the winter months when it's just not feasible to go out walking in the weather with a little one. I'm looking forward to the summer and the long walks with Levi. He has been a huge encouragement to me. Last summer every time he saw me getting ready and heading to the door he would squeal with delight. Our walks were his favorite time of day. I feel like God used him in my redemption of my body, and that is just one of the ways.
My encouragement to you, if you are stressed and procrastinating, I want to encourage you to just turn off the TV, put on your tennis shoes (you don't even have to change out of your jeans or skirt or whatever) and go for a walk around the block. I say this because I WISH I HAD DONE THIS. So many times I would procrastinate doing laundry, doing homework or whatever by watching TV or something like that. If you don't feel like you can do it, you can for sure go for a stroll. It doesn't have to be high intensity or anything like that, but you will be burning calories, getting fresh air, exercising your heart, freeing your mind, talking to God (complaining to Him if you must, then asking Him to change your heart) :) It's the best kind of procrastination you will ever do. :)
Another thing, with the summer months approaching and the extreme heat, I would usually leave my house at about 7 in the morning, and I was able to walk pretty much the whole summer. I would come home, put Levi down for his nap and then shower. It was the best way, after my time with the Lord at 6, to start my day.
I hope you all are encouraged! Jess, thanks for asking if I would post. I wouldn't have if you hadn't asked. :) This one is for you.
I don't think I finished everything I wanted to say about exercise. What I have learned is that I need to LISTEN to my body. If I am sick (like I am now) or recovering from surgery (like after Levi was born) or something like that I need to rest. My body needs that energy to repair itself. If I am feeling sluggish and lazy, it probably means I need to get out for a walk. It doesn't have to be hardcore running and P90X and all that jazz, just sometimes needs a little lift. Something just to get my body moving. If I feel like I could get out for a run, then I will run. If I feel like I could have a big huge workout, because I have been faithful with my smaller exercise, then that is okay. But I don't have time or energy to work out for several hours a day, and my body is just not in that place.
Walking has also helped my struggle with depression.
Something about being outside, thinking, talking to God, breathing, going as slow or as fast as I feel like is just good for my soul. My brain needs it, my body needs it. I try to get some kind of exercise at least four days a week. Sometimes it will be six days a week (I rarely exercise on Sundays because of my responsibilities at church). I also count a hard day of housework as exercise. If I am doing loads of laundry and vacuuming, washing dishes, fixing dinner and chasing after Levi, then that is plenty of exercise for that day. This has been especially the case with the winter months when it's just not feasible to go out walking in the weather with a little one. I'm looking forward to the summer and the long walks with Levi. He has been a huge encouragement to me. Last summer every time he saw me getting ready and heading to the door he would squeal with delight. Our walks were his favorite time of day. I feel like God used him in my redemption of my body, and that is just one of the ways.
My encouragement to you, if you are stressed and procrastinating, I want to encourage you to just turn off the TV, put on your tennis shoes (you don't even have to change out of your jeans or skirt or whatever) and go for a walk around the block. I say this because I WISH I HAD DONE THIS. So many times I would procrastinate doing laundry, doing homework or whatever by watching TV or something like that. If you don't feel like you can do it, you can for sure go for a stroll. It doesn't have to be high intensity or anything like that, but you will be burning calories, getting fresh air, exercising your heart, freeing your mind, talking to God (complaining to Him if you must, then asking Him to change your heart) :) It's the best kind of procrastination you will ever do. :)
Another thing, with the summer months approaching and the extreme heat, I would usually leave my house at about 7 in the morning, and I was able to walk pretty much the whole summer. I would come home, put Levi down for his nap and then shower. It was the best way, after my time with the Lord at 6, to start my day.
I hope you all are encouraged! Jess, thanks for asking if I would post. I wouldn't have if you hadn't asked. :) This one is for you.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The Redemption of My Physical Body: part twelve
There's so much that I want to write about and share. Again, I reserve the right to jump around in my story. I think sometimes it's better to cover things by topic, so this post will be about: Exercise.
Learning to exercise the body I was given.
I am not naturally athletic and coordinated. Whatever I do, it is from hard work and practice. I had the privilege of being in sports since a young age because of my older brother. He wanted to play baseball and my parents found it was good to have all three of us in sports. My little brother and I weren't that expensive because we were just added on.
When I was younger I did gymnastics and took a year of dance. I loved it but it was SO expensive, so I had to quit by the time I was about 10 or 11... I think. I played little kid softball and was terrible. My soccer team won absolutely NO games. We tied twice.
Moving up into middle school and high school I began to play basketball. Again, at the influence of my amazingly athletically gifted older brother. We were home schooled, so we pretty much had to start our own sports teams so we could play the other schools. I will take pride in the fact that it's now a whole athletic association. Back then it was just my brother's junior high team. I was put on the girls team. I played basketball for four years and absolutely loved it. Those were my best memories in home schooling. That was my one real regret about going to public school, missing out on the home school sports. The last year or two I also played volleyball and fell in love with that even more. If I had a choice today I would play volleyball over basketball, but I still love them both.
So exercise was sort of naturally a part of my life. When I went on that first diet I mentioned in this post exercise became very easy for me. Running was easier, I was quicker as an athlete, things were looking up. And then with the beginning of public school all of that changed. My eating definitely was what caused me to gain weight, but with no exercise there was nothing to stop my weight from piling on. I remember doing the Atkins Diet for a while in November of that year. I decided I would run early in the morning and do the diet during the day. I was exhausted. I hated running because it was like I had picked up an extra 30 pounds and had to carry that with me. Try it, it's hard. Running has also caused me shinsplints throughout the years. So I would be fighting that off, running through the pain or trying to rest them and struggling throughout the day. The all protein diet didn't work for me because of the constipation. It was ridiculous, and painful. The lack of any kind of carbohydrate would cause me not to be able to function. That was when I realized that God gave us all the food groups for a reason. He provided this wide range of foods that we were meant to partake in. They are good foods with varying tastes, everything in moderation.
Everything in moderation. That has been a difficult phrase for me. I am not a naturally moderate person. I am an extreme person. If I'm going to do something I will do it all the way, if I feel like I can't do something, I give up completely and run the other way. Absolutely run.
I had to learn to be moderate in my exercise. Okay, I am not knocking the marathon runner, triathlete, or whatever. This is simply what I have learned about my body through the years. I abused it for years and now I am learning to respect the creation that God has given to me.
I mentioned earlier that in college I would overeat and then over exercise. I would often spend an hour on the elliptical and then sometimes go over to the stair-master for another 30 minutes. Sometimes I would do stuff for three hours. This was me just trying to lose weight quickly. I remember sitting in a piano lesson and thinking, why are my fingers not working right? They can play this song. Later, I realized that I had been gripping the elliptical machine for an hour and a half and these poor tiny muscles in my hands were fatigued. I would always pour sweat too. I'm a heavy sweater. So as far as water retention, I don't even know. I would try to drink at least 12 glasses of water a day. Sometimes I would drink more like 16 or 20. It was ridiculous. All this, to try to lose weight quickly.
Apparently I didn't learn the lesson of the tortoise and the hair. Slow and steady. Now I know that is the only way to lose weight. It has to be practically unnoticeable. I think that's the struggle with dieters, especially perpetual dieters, we want to see results of these difficult efforts and we want to see them now. I am queen of the perpetual dieting. By the end of the day, two days, maybe even a week, if I haven't lost weight I might as well eat a couple of bowls of ice cream and watch some movies where a skinny girl gets the guy. I'll try it again on Monday.
This is why I threw away my scale.
The scale was killing me. I was defining myself by a number on a machine. I would hope and pray each morning that the number would fall. Most of the time it stayed the same. If I had just eaten something it would go up, duh. If I hadn't eaten anything for a few days it would often go down or stay the same. Duh. Over time it would win either way. If the number went up I would give up on my diet and binge. If the number went down I would "reward" myself, I was okay because I had just lost a pound or two.
I decided that God was the one who knew my weight. It didn't matter what the number was, I wasn't going to live in denial and I wasn't going to be a slave to this little bathroom machine. I would simply listen to Him and ask Him if He was okay with my weight. With no scale to tell me if I was succeeding or not, it required me to live in a place of FAITH. Faith that His way of eating was best for me. Faith that I wouldn't gain massive amounts of weight if I didn't have a little thing in the bathroom pointing out my imperfections. And let me tell you, that faith has led to freedom. I don't care what I weigh anymore. Yes, I have stepped on scales at my parent's house in a moment of weakness, but honestly, it doesn't matter anymore. It's not a part of who I am. The last time I did step on a scale I was shocked because I haven't weighed this little in at least nine years. ... This is the redemption of my body. A process, PROCESS of faith. Which leads to freedom.
This was a lot longer post than I thought it would be. I'll have more to say about exercise and scales and things later. :) Thank you for reading.
Learning to exercise the body I was given.
I am not naturally athletic and coordinated. Whatever I do, it is from hard work and practice. I had the privilege of being in sports since a young age because of my older brother. He wanted to play baseball and my parents found it was good to have all three of us in sports. My little brother and I weren't that expensive because we were just added on.
When I was younger I did gymnastics and took a year of dance. I loved it but it was SO expensive, so I had to quit by the time I was about 10 or 11... I think. I played little kid softball and was terrible. My soccer team won absolutely NO games. We tied twice.
Moving up into middle school and high school I began to play basketball. Again, at the influence of my amazingly athletically gifted older brother. We were home schooled, so we pretty much had to start our own sports teams so we could play the other schools. I will take pride in the fact that it's now a whole athletic association. Back then it was just my brother's junior high team. I was put on the girls team. I played basketball for four years and absolutely loved it. Those were my best memories in home schooling. That was my one real regret about going to public school, missing out on the home school sports. The last year or two I also played volleyball and fell in love with that even more. If I had a choice today I would play volleyball over basketball, but I still love them both.
So exercise was sort of naturally a part of my life. When I went on that first diet I mentioned in this post exercise became very easy for me. Running was easier, I was quicker as an athlete, things were looking up. And then with the beginning of public school all of that changed. My eating definitely was what caused me to gain weight, but with no exercise there was nothing to stop my weight from piling on. I remember doing the Atkins Diet for a while in November of that year. I decided I would run early in the morning and do the diet during the day. I was exhausted. I hated running because it was like I had picked up an extra 30 pounds and had to carry that with me. Try it, it's hard. Running has also caused me shinsplints throughout the years. So I would be fighting that off, running through the pain or trying to rest them and struggling throughout the day. The all protein diet didn't work for me because of the constipation. It was ridiculous, and painful. The lack of any kind of carbohydrate would cause me not to be able to function. That was when I realized that God gave us all the food groups for a reason. He provided this wide range of foods that we were meant to partake in. They are good foods with varying tastes, everything in moderation.
Everything in moderation. That has been a difficult phrase for me. I am not a naturally moderate person. I am an extreme person. If I'm going to do something I will do it all the way, if I feel like I can't do something, I give up completely and run the other way. Absolutely run.
I had to learn to be moderate in my exercise. Okay, I am not knocking the marathon runner, triathlete, or whatever. This is simply what I have learned about my body through the years. I abused it for years and now I am learning to respect the creation that God has given to me.
I mentioned earlier that in college I would overeat and then over exercise. I would often spend an hour on the elliptical and then sometimes go over to the stair-master for another 30 minutes. Sometimes I would do stuff for three hours. This was me just trying to lose weight quickly. I remember sitting in a piano lesson and thinking, why are my fingers not working right? They can play this song. Later, I realized that I had been gripping the elliptical machine for an hour and a half and these poor tiny muscles in my hands were fatigued. I would always pour sweat too. I'm a heavy sweater. So as far as water retention, I don't even know. I would try to drink at least 12 glasses of water a day. Sometimes I would drink more like 16 or 20. It was ridiculous. All this, to try to lose weight quickly.
Apparently I didn't learn the lesson of the tortoise and the hair. Slow and steady. Now I know that is the only way to lose weight. It has to be practically unnoticeable. I think that's the struggle with dieters, especially perpetual dieters, we want to see results of these difficult efforts and we want to see them now. I am queen of the perpetual dieting. By the end of the day, two days, maybe even a week, if I haven't lost weight I might as well eat a couple of bowls of ice cream and watch some movies where a skinny girl gets the guy. I'll try it again on Monday.
This is why I threw away my scale.
The scale was killing me. I was defining myself by a number on a machine. I would hope and pray each morning that the number would fall. Most of the time it stayed the same. If I had just eaten something it would go up, duh. If I hadn't eaten anything for a few days it would often go down or stay the same. Duh. Over time it would win either way. If the number went up I would give up on my diet and binge. If the number went down I would "reward" myself, I was okay because I had just lost a pound or two.
I decided that God was the one who knew my weight. It didn't matter what the number was, I wasn't going to live in denial and I wasn't going to be a slave to this little bathroom machine. I would simply listen to Him and ask Him if He was okay with my weight. With no scale to tell me if I was succeeding or not, it required me to live in a place of FAITH. Faith that His way of eating was best for me. Faith that I wouldn't gain massive amounts of weight if I didn't have a little thing in the bathroom pointing out my imperfections. And let me tell you, that faith has led to freedom. I don't care what I weigh anymore. Yes, I have stepped on scales at my parent's house in a moment of weakness, but honestly, it doesn't matter anymore. It's not a part of who I am. The last time I did step on a scale I was shocked because I haven't weighed this little in at least nine years. ... This is the redemption of my body. A process, PROCESS of faith. Which leads to freedom.
This was a lot longer post than I thought it would be. I'll have more to say about exercise and scales and things later. :) Thank you for reading.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
The Redemption of My Physical Body: part seven
I kind of love rabbit trails. You are talking about one thing and then go around and around and maybe, finally get back to your point. I learned in a personality test in high school that I have an abstract/random way of thinking. It often takes me a while to process things and make a decision. As you can see, I'm on part seven of my story and still haven't gotten to the main point, but maybe you've enjoyed the journey as I have.
To be honest, I used to hate people like me. People who had lost a lot of weight, people who didn't seem to be drawn to food... I think it was because I was so helpless in my state. ... I'll say that with a reservation because I'll be the first to admit that I'm not totally there yet. I struggled with overeating just this afternoon. But I will say that the pull is not nearly as it was years ago.
My junior and senior year I lived in an apartment with three other girls whom I love. I absolutely LOVED living with them. They were all extremely (and I mean extreme in the strongest sense) different. They were girls I didn't expect to be friends with, but God, in His goodness allowed it to happen. I will say that we had our struggles, but I always look back at the good times we had together ... things like Ashleigh's birthday and the cake that we made for her and the princess table cloth that stayed on our wall for most of the year, the cat we named Cosby who thought he was a dog, the way we all spelled our names with an "eigh" at the end and wrote notes to each other on our refrigerator... okay, thanks for letting me travel down memory lane :).
I struggled a lot then with eating. I think living in an apartment made me feel like I could hide it better. I didn't have a set meal-time, didn't have a group of friends I ate with at the cafeteria, so I often ended up winging it. I ate many Ben and Jerry's pints (yes, whole pints) of ice cream for dinner on many occasions. Some people say they have a certain "drug of choice" I would say that was it for me. Going to the C-store on campus, getting that and whatever else struck me. Snack foods mainly. I could eat a whole bag of chips in one sitting, just a whole lot of anything. I worked out almost every day (about an hour or two on the elliptical) and I think that slowed my weight gain.
My junior year I ran a half-marathon with my friend, Alyssa. She was so gracious in all of that. I don't remember any significant weight gain or loss during this time, but I do remember realizing that my body COULD do that. It wasn't the actual half-marathon that was so great, it was the training and leading up to it that was amazing.
After the half marathon I got back on my cycle of binge eating and exercising.
I decided to fast for a few weeks before school let out for summer. There are times when I can twist something that is supposed to be holy and good and make it into a thing about me. So I started to exercise while doing this fast, I think I was drinking juice too or something. I lost some weight pretty quickly, but then my pride shot up and as soon as I went off the fast I went right back to my old ways. Again, I was trying to do things in my own strength.
I was talking about lily pads earlier. I feel like in this time I was on a lily pad of getting a healthy view of food. Learning to feed myself, not even trying to lose weight, but learning to communicate with my body. I had cut off those lines of communication and NOT listened to my body for so long, it took a while for me to reopen those lines. I feel like it took all of college to learn this. I'm praising God for His gentleness with me. He is slow to anger and abounding in love.
Healing takes time. I'm a person who likes microwaves, not so much on the crock pot. I feel like weight/overeating is a slow process. It needs to be a slow process, that's how our bodies were made. I was always looking for that thing that would help me lose 10 pounds fast, then just multiply it by 5 and we get: ... failure. There are no shortcuts, no quick roads.
To be honest, I used to hate people like me. People who had lost a lot of weight, people who didn't seem to be drawn to food... I think it was because I was so helpless in my state. ... I'll say that with a reservation because I'll be the first to admit that I'm not totally there yet. I struggled with overeating just this afternoon. But I will say that the pull is not nearly as it was years ago.
My junior and senior year I lived in an apartment with three other girls whom I love. I absolutely LOVED living with them. They were all extremely (and I mean extreme in the strongest sense) different. They were girls I didn't expect to be friends with, but God, in His goodness allowed it to happen. I will say that we had our struggles, but I always look back at the good times we had together ... things like Ashleigh's birthday and the cake that we made for her and the princess table cloth that stayed on our wall for most of the year, the cat we named Cosby who thought he was a dog, the way we all spelled our names with an "eigh" at the end and wrote notes to each other on our refrigerator... okay, thanks for letting me travel down memory lane :).
I struggled a lot then with eating. I think living in an apartment made me feel like I could hide it better. I didn't have a set meal-time, didn't have a group of friends I ate with at the cafeteria, so I often ended up winging it. I ate many Ben and Jerry's pints (yes, whole pints) of ice cream for dinner on many occasions. Some people say they have a certain "drug of choice" I would say that was it for me. Going to the C-store on campus, getting that and whatever else struck me. Snack foods mainly. I could eat a whole bag of chips in one sitting, just a whole lot of anything. I worked out almost every day (about an hour or two on the elliptical) and I think that slowed my weight gain.
My junior year I ran a half-marathon with my friend, Alyssa. She was so gracious in all of that. I don't remember any significant weight gain or loss during this time, but I do remember realizing that my body COULD do that. It wasn't the actual half-marathon that was so great, it was the training and leading up to it that was amazing.
After the half marathon I got back on my cycle of binge eating and exercising.
I decided to fast for a few weeks before school let out for summer. There are times when I can twist something that is supposed to be holy and good and make it into a thing about me. So I started to exercise while doing this fast, I think I was drinking juice too or something. I lost some weight pretty quickly, but then my pride shot up and as soon as I went off the fast I went right back to my old ways. Again, I was trying to do things in my own strength.
I was talking about lily pads earlier. I feel like in this time I was on a lily pad of getting a healthy view of food. Learning to feed myself, not even trying to lose weight, but learning to communicate with my body. I had cut off those lines of communication and NOT listened to my body for so long, it took a while for me to reopen those lines. I feel like it took all of college to learn this. I'm praising God for His gentleness with me. He is slow to anger and abounding in love.
Healing takes time. I'm a person who likes microwaves, not so much on the crock pot. I feel like weight/overeating is a slow process. It needs to be a slow process, that's how our bodies were made. I was always looking for that thing that would help me lose 10 pounds fast, then just multiply it by 5 and we get: ... failure. There are no shortcuts, no quick roads.
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