Yoga triumphs and musings on metabolic rates

Strike a pose

I’m proud to announce that yesterday in Yoga class I was able to do Pigeon Pose for the first time! Woohoo! I have been struggling and struggling with the flexibility required, as it combines flexibility in hamstrings, lower back, and hip flexors, each of which are particularly stiff areas for me. In eight weeks of Yoga, instead of Pigeon, I have instead laid on my back and stretched my hamstrings against the wall. It felt so, so good to finally be in the pose and feel so happy and grateful that my body is capable and is progressing.

It was almost as awesome as two weeks ago, when I was magically able to do a 90° handstand against the wall — who knew? In that pose, I was upside down looking at myself in the mirror, always a funny sight, with my feet braced on the mirror at hip level. It was also a weird moment because I could literally feel my brain flip-flopping between joy and strength and then insecurity, as I saw myself in the mirror. It was really hard to hold onto that moment of joy when my inner critic came out with ugly words. If I closed my eyes, I could feel joy and awe and giddiness surging through me, and when I opened them, I could feel the pit in the bottom of my stomach that said everyone can see you, be careful. Come on, brain, I’m trying to work on inner peace here!

Puttin’ some science on my intuition

Since last week I’ve dropped another 1.5lbs, which is also a good feeling. I genuinely feel good about the food choices that are getting me here. For the first time, I’m seeing predictable weight loss in response to eating “clean” after a weekend splurge (oh devil Brunch, get thee behind me!). As an added bonus, my husband is totally gung-ho about our meals lately — salads! Grilled chicken! He is truly a master at grilling meats to perfection. He still orders the french toast dripping with caramel-and-cream on the weekends, though :)

Before, I don’t think I had a clue (without obsessively counting calories) what was a “good” food day, the kind that would keep me energetic and full throughout the day and avoid a groaning stomach — I just kind of aimed in the general direction of healthy foods, portions be damned. I could aim for a calorie number, but it didn’t seem to have any correlation with feeling good, other than that hollow “hey, my numbers look good” feeling I get when I’m tracking my food closely. So since I’ve been eating more according to intuition and the constant-snacking method for the last three weeks or so, I’ve been curious what the actual caloric breakdown is, so here we go:

150 cals – Granola bar, 8:00 am

270 cals – Greek yogurt , 10:30 am (sometimes w/ raspberries or granola)

406 cals – Spinach salad w/ cottage cheese and fruit (7 cals spinach, 70 cals cottage cheese, 14 cals strawberries, 15 cals honeydew, 12 cals watermelon, 3 cals cuke slices, 165 cals salted sunflower seeds, 120 thousand island dressing) (This might sound ridiculously healthy but it tastes so decadent and yummy to me!)

130 cals – crackers, 3:30 pm

500 cals – marinated grilled chicken, shrimp, etc., plus salad or grilled veggies

200 cals – chocolate jello pudding with Cool Whip (latest fave dessert to use up stuff in the fridge)

TOTAL: 1,656 calories in an average day. Verrrrrry interesting. I think my intuition is working!

I know that resting/basal metabolic rate (RMR/BMR) calculators are notoriously iffy, because in looking mine up, I was given 2,020 calories by Physics Diet, 1,671 by ShapeUp.org, 1,737 by Discovery Health, and 1,720 by, um, Bodybuilding.com. ShapeUp.org gives a good explanation of how cutting calories below your RMR will slow your metabolism down in order to conserve energy for essential functions (like breathing). It’s hard to know if I’m cutting my calories too low, or hitting at the right spot, without paying someone to run a fancy machine and give me a better answer. But if my body felt too restricted, I wouldn’t be losing weight, so I’m guessing that everything is fine for now.

Since self-esteem is a muscle I have to use every day, I’ll take this opportunity to remind myself that this has been a pretty good week. I’ve felt calm enough not to be ruffled by the heat, and centered enough to have a heart-to-heart with my husband about Important Stuff, and I felt challenged and rewarded by Yoga. Part of self-esteem is taking the time to respect my body, and this week has been great for that. You know what would be pretty awesome? Taking advantage of the cooler weather this weekend to take a nice long bike ride. Let’s do it!

Getting what you need

Dear Self,

So, I guess you’ve been falling a bit short of your exercise goals? You’ve been tired ever since you stayed out late at the Opera last Tuesday, sabotaging your sleep for Wednesday Yoga. A tiny sleep deficit combined with a little run of hot weather toward the end of the week resulted in Crazy! Schedule! Crankiness! No exercise since Yoga six days ago, now that you think about it!

Isn’t it funny how a tiny change can throw you off so easily?

On the plus side, your plan of delegating some meals to your sweetie worked really well — you had some yummy meals that were fairly nutritionally balanced, and you didn’t have to use a single neuron to think them up, since someone else was in charge. Brilliantly executed plan!

What happened with exercise, though? Wow. First off, props for avoiding the sun and painful sunburns, but also, hey, the sun won’t kill you! Sunblock is effective for short periods of time! Here is your complaint summary for the last six days of no exercise:

1. Too hot!
2. No clothes!

Solutions: buy sunscreen, and invest in some new workout gear. I know you would like to believe you don’t need either one, but waiting for your old sunscreen to magically appear from the messy bathroom is not really productive. Also, pretending you like your old ratty workout clothes is not a good way to love yourself!

Here’s the thing: you need to get what you need to get the job done. If you want to exercise every day, you can’t deprive yourself of 2 necessary ingredients (sunblock, clothes) and then whine endlessly about why you’re not exercising! This is going to require a small amount of shopping. Recognize that this is also going to require not feeling comfortable the first time you step outside to walk or bike in your new clothes. It’s okay not to feel comfortable! (Most people don’t care, and the other people are stupid, so ignore them. )

Also, sometimes you’re not going to be able to breeze home from a perfectly productive day of work with a magical burst of energy and waltz out the door for your hour-long walk like a bird on the wing. Sometimes, you’re going to be a bit cranky, but you’ll learn to do it anyway. You’re in it for the feeling you get when you give yourself what you need. You’ll feel better if you take a walk! The television will not explode with interesting content while it waits for you, and dinner can wait another hour.

Get this — you are not a hostage to your routines if your routines aren’t working for you! I know, crazy. You can make your life better by deliberately deciding what you need, and then going out there to get it for yourself.

Okay — now do it!

Love,

Your self.

Moving averages, moving mountains

Some days I feel I am moving mental mountains just to face reality.

Here’s a good example: for the last couple weeks I have being going up and down a pound without any real loss. Just hanging out around 211 or 212, then 211 again, then maybe 213, no big deal.

However! My bodyfat percentage has definitely gone down, from 44% to 42.5% since I started using the Physics Diet tracker last week. That is a loss of 3.28 pounds of fat!

I am having to FORCE myself to accept this as a victory. My instinct is to write it off as a glitch in the inaccurate scale. But hey, wait a damn minute. That’s a fancy scale! I spent $60 on it at Amazon! Not only that, but I have spent the last six weeks dragging my sleepy ass out of bed every morning and doing absurd little exercises for core strength. I have been building muscle, and feeling stronger! (But, but! A tiny voice protests inside my head. I’m only halfway convinced that this body is capable of change!)

Hey, self, you know what? You are doing good stuff and here is a result: measurable lost fat and gained muscle. Voila! You rock. Let’s rock it harder, and go for that walk after work you’ve got planned.

Pep talks aside, I have to point out here how useful Physics Diet really is. This is not just a chart — there is some seriously nerdtastic math hanging out in the background that creates a moving average that you can focus on. As they say, this cuts out the “noise” of otherwise small up-and-down movements over time. Instead of a simple trend, you have the Bigger Picture laid out nice and easy for you to see, in a simple black line that cuts through the noisy jags of change.

I love it and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Without the moving average of the Physics Diet chart, I might think I’m going nowhere fast. But thanks to paying attention to the trend of the numbers, and the important background numbers of bodyfat percentages, I can see change where before I might have seen just a hazy flat line.

The moral of this story is: Never underestimate the power of a visual aid! In my case, it really is moving mountains.