Friday, January 01, 2010
Happy 4th Birthday, Body Tales!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The Dying Season: Some Thoughts on Seasonal Depression

So what I have done for many years now is to try to carve out time for myself to feel some of the inherent sadness of the season; to spend some time in the garden and be with my melancholy that arises from beholding the dead plants that were vibrant and burgeoning with harvest just six weeks before. I spend time in the forest searching for edible wild mushrooms; those strange creatures that blossom like other-worldly flowers right out of the death on the forest floor. I force myself to observe the bugs that are alive and continuing or completing their own life cycles while being nourished by the mushrooms and the humous they are growing from.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
It's All in My Mind
This is my "recovery week" in the P90X program, meaning I get the week off of weights and the more intense strength and cardio programs, but there is still booty kicking yoga, core work, cardio and stretching; something every day with the seventh day as an optional stretch or rest day. . Tony Horton is a good trainer. He motivates me and keeps me safe. I work as hard as I can and after three complete weeks injury free, I'm trusting this guy; this guy on a series of DVDs. He's playful and goofy. He's my age. And he's ripped crazy fit. If he can do this, then so can I. And holding that thought of success is all in my mind. And then it's in my body.

Monday, September 14, 2009
12 Pears in Every Jar
It was going to be Caramel Spiced Pear Butter.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Finding My Inner Athlete Part 1: She is a Big White Horse

Having a regular exercise program is the cup with which to drink from The Fountain of Youth. I have learned that I would never find the Fountain of Youth from taking a pill, a supplement or from my diet. But I would find it and continue to find it through exercise. I now have the empirical knowledge that a regular cardio vascular program will regulate my blood sugar, blood pressure, promote digestive health, lower my resting heart rate, strengthen my cardio-vascular system, pulmonary system, my reflexes and balance. A regular strength training program (yoga, pilates, weights) strengthens my muscle body and bones, makes me more agile and has given me the core of my dreams. Both cardio and strength training contribute to better mental health and deepen the connections between my head and my body. A regular exercise program has helped me both lose weight and inches and maintain those losses.
If we could all believed this is true, have it empirically and scientifically proven to us and that anyone can have it, why wouldn't we all make it the highest priority in our lives? For myself, I "knew" these things were true, but just didn't believe that I could have them. Why? Because of the poisonous messages rooted into my young psyche. After years of telling myself I was deserving of a happy body to live inside of and doing the work step by sometimes painful step, I finally did make it my highest priority and now I'm younger at 49 than I was at 32. I can run up mountains, do 2 hours of yoga, dance all night and I have the body of my dreams; the body that was waiting for me all this time.
But how did I get here?
I realized early on in the game on Weight Watchers that the more I exercised, the more I could eat. And since I love to eat, that was a powerful motivator! I never liked gyms much and walking or running on treadmills wasn't fun for me, so I started hiking the hills and trails in my neighborhood. At first, I stoically conquered those hills, hating every second of "up" and feeling relieved when it was finally over. There was a sense of accomplishment insofar as I knew that the activity points I had "earned" meant I could eat more that day without sabotaging my weight loss program. That was the reward. As my body got used to being hoisted up big hills and I started getting more fit, an interesting thing began happening.
So one day, early on during my beginnings of becoming A Person Who Exercises, I began to feel that "inner horse" rise in me when I was hiking, and the next thing I knew I was that horse trotting and cantering down the trail. With much joy and no small surprise, I was accessing that very same marriage of the physical and the mental bodies as I imagined my lower body being a white horse and my upper body being me, the rider. Why was she a white horse? I'll leave that to the psychologists. This is the imagery that has consistently come to me in my athletic renaissance. She's a muscular, yet graceful white horse. I suspect she is a Lipizzaner, the horses of the Royal School of Vienna, old enough to have turned from dark grey to white. When she rises inside of me I can feel the muscles in her rump bunching and working to trot down the rocky, slippery trail. I could see the her white neck arched, head perpendicular to the ground as she uses her body to maintain her balance coming down the mountain. In no time, I am at the bottom of the 1.3 mile trail, happily sweating and breathing deeply, literally tingling all over from the endorphins of trotting my horse down the mountain.
When did I lose the connection between my imagination and my body? I suspect that the lack of infrastructure to nurture this connection is responsible. When I watch children play, from the youngest ages it is there; this fusion of imagination and physical play. And then the children we were got older and if we were lucky, there was a physical education program in school that offered team sports, or there was a program in our community through which we could play softball, baseball, football, basketball or soccer. The common thread in all these offerings was competition. Being the best team, the best player, winning, getting a higher score. It’s all very linear and it is completely divorced from imagination.
Because I was never even close to the best at any of these offerings like I was with my grades and my creativity, I started internalizing that this was not me. I was not a competitive kid and I did not find a sense of fun in beating another kid or team at an activity. It was an alien landscape that did not feed my spirit. And I never thought about this in words, rather, I saw it that being “athletic” meant being competitive and since I didn’t like being competitive, I couldn’t possibly be an athlete.
But now I am an athlete. And I didn’t find my way here through running races or any other outward type of competition. I became an athlete by regaining the connection between my imagination and my physical body. I found my way here by re-membering what it was like to be a child at play. For me, exercise is almost never a chore. Rather it is something I do that is fun, that pulls a little of my rich inner landscape out into the physical world. And I have a big white horse to thank for helping me find her and by doing so re-member a vital missing piece of myself.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Recipe Time! Butternut Squash Enchiladas With Rice and Beans
It's been a long time since I've shared a recipe. There's a great backstory to this one and I am prompted to share the recipe because the backstory is such a vegan victory; the victory of growing my own protein.
To look at shelling beans in the market, you might say, "Oh, those beans look terrible, with those shriveled, damp looking pods." But that's what the Phaseolus cognoscenti look for. The shriveled pod indicates that the bean inside is swollen and plump, full of rich bean flavor, and the dampness indicates the bean is still tender and ready to eat.
A shelling bean is any bean that is grown primarily for the edible seed inside. The pod is not eaten, because it is tough and stringy, unlike snap beans, which are eaten for the pod, with the bean inside barely developed, and sometimes not even visible, as in the meaty haricot vert.
Most of the shelling bean crops are harvested when the pods and beans inside are dry, just before the pod shatters. After harvest, they are stored and sold throughout the year as dry beans. However, in late summer, some of these beans make it to the market in their fresh state — that is, when the edible seed is still moist, and can easily be bitten through. At this point the beans take only minutes to cook, not the hour or more needed for dried beans.
There are hundreds of varieties of shelling beans, many of them heirlooms that have been dropped from the large-scale commercial market. Their names, which are wonderfully romantic, often reflect their place of origin, history or historical event — 'Jacob's Cattle,' 'Hopi Yellow,' 'Seafarer, ' 'Nez Perce,' 'Soissons,' 'Cranberry' and 'Soldier.'
Almost any bean destined to be eaten dried can also be eaten fresh, but usually only five or six shelling bean varieties make it to the fresh market, and they are not always easy to find. The best sources for fresh shelling beans are local farmers' markets and markets that focus on local vegetables and fruits.
Fava beans, English peas, garbanzos, black-eyed peas and crowder peas, are, like shelling beans, eaten for the edible pea or bean inside, not the pod, and can also be used fresh in salads and soups, or to simply saute with herbs. Fresh garbanzos, black-eyed peas and crowder peas have a short window, and that is now.
If you haven't tried cooking fresh shelling beans and their kin, this forthcoming month is the time to get started. As a friend in the produce business said the other day, "What's funny about these shelling beans is that they're so simple to make taste good — all the work is in getting them out of their shell!"
The shelling process, however, is an ideal time to keep your family and friends in the kitchen, sipping a glass of wine, and all shelling together. It goes quickly that way.
Varieties:
Black-eyed peas. Pale green- to buff-colored beans, with a black eye at the helix. Pods are green to pale yellow. The flavor is earthy.
Butter beans. Round, plump beans in a pale yellow pod. Dense with a rich bean flavor.
Cannellini beans. White kidney-shaped beans, with a pale green to pale yellow pod that may be moist. Delicate bean flavor, not too dense.
Cranberry beans. Buff with dark red or magenta striping. Pods are pale yellow, with striping ranging from scarlet to burgundy, depending upon variety, and may be slightly moist. Dense, meaty bean flavor. Beans turn beige to brown on cooking.
Garbanzo beans. Pale green- to pale buff-colored beans. Pods pale green and hairy to buff. For best results fresh, choose the pale green pods. Slightly waxy, crunchy and nutty tasting.
Lima beans. Plump, flat, pale-green kidney-shaped beans. Pods green to buff, and should show bumps indicating the beans are formed inside. For best results fresh, choose the pale green pods.
How to select: Look for bright, fresh-looking pods, avoiding yellowing or withered ones. Gently squeeze the pods to make sure the beans inside are plump and good-sized. A pound of beans in the pod equals approximately 1 cup of shelled beans.
How to store: Refrigerate pods and use within a few days. Once shelled, wrap beans in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to two days before cooking.
How to cook: You will need to judge the time needed to cook the beans based on how mature they are. To do this, bite one of the shelled beans. If it is already quite tender, it will need only about 5 minutes of cooking. If it offers resistance, you may need up to 20-25 minutes of cooking.
There was more information that I had even thought of. So two days ago, I went to check the pods and found enough that were dried out that once shelled, I had about 1/2 a cup. I know: That's a very modest amount, but there are still many more out there. I doubt I'll fill a gallon jar, but since this was an experiment, I am happy with how well they did.
When shelled, the beans are white with little pinkish brown speckles all over them. Because they are fresh, the needed no soaking. I employed Donna Klein's "Beans in a Bottle" method to cook them.
Butternut Squash Enchiladas with Rice and Beans
Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked and mashed butternut squash
3/4 cup cooked pinto beans, seasoned with salt, garlic and tomatoes
1/2 cup Spanish rice (from a mix or homemade)
16 large black olives, 12 chopped, 4 kept whole
1/4 cup corn kernels, fresh, frozen (thawed) or canned
1 tsp cumin
4 one oz corn tortillas
1/2 cup tomato sauce, any kind mixed with
1/4 cup Salsa Verde, fresh or from a jar (Trader Jose's makes a nice one in a jar)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 oz shredded vegan cheese (optional)
Directions
Have at hand:
beans
rice mixed with corn and chopped olives
butternut squash mashed with cumin and cilantro
4 corn tortillas, heated in microwave, wrapped in a damp paper towel
tomato sauce mixed with Salsa Verde
To Assemble:
In a small casserole dish, ladle a little bit of sauce to cover the bottom.
Put 1/4 of the beans, rice mixture, squash mixture on a tortilla and roll up, placing seam side down in the baking dish.
Repeat until you've made four enchiladas.
Generously ladle sauce over the enchiladas. If you are using vegan cheese, sprinkle it on top. Garnish each enchilada with one whole black olive.
Cover and bake for 30 minutes or until hot and bubbly all the way through.
Serve with Guacamole, salsa and extra chopped cilantro.
- Servings Per Recipe: 4
- Amount Per Serving
- Calories: 210.1
- Total Fat: 5.1 g
- Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
- Sodium: 355.3 mg
- Total Carbs: 31.6 g
- Dietary Fiber: 6.4 g
- Protein: 6.3 g
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Julie and Julia
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
The Runners To Whom I Give Great Gratitude
Friday, July 17, 2009
Stop Hating the Way You Look RIGHT NOW!
I'm grief-stricken because I was one of those girls who became a woman who hated my body.
I didn't have the classic WASP body. (And how could I? I was a Jew of Eastern European descent.) I had a big butt and thick ankles, small breasts and big thighs.I was mercilessly teased about these parts of my body. I was stalked over these parts of my body. I was told by my obese mother as a child that I was fat. My slender grandmother called me a "Skinny Minnie". I was confused to say the least.
When I was 20 my measurements were (about) 33-24-36. I was fucking gorgeous and I HATED my body.
I had long, curly, lustrous hair. I had perfect skin and big blue eyes. I wore normal sized clothes, I had a perfect hourglass shape and a flat belly. I could do so many things, all my parts worked and I HATED MY BODY.
Was it programmed in?
Was it learned from never seeing myself on billboards or TV or magazines?
Was it because I was as sucked into the machine with all the other teenaged girls that I'd get the right boy or be prettier if I used this or that product or wore this or that brand in this or that size?
And at the age of 42 1/2 when I started this Weight Watcher journey, I finally started listening to my body and giving her the respect that she deserved. I have cried rivers over all those years, the most vibrant years of my life that were wasted because I hated my body so much. My dear, beautiful, wise, strong, healthy body.
I am crying right now over the waste of it all to see that young women are still going through this.
Your body is how you get to be alive.
Your body is how your spirit and intellect and heart get to have a vehicle to experience all that you experience.
Your body does millions of things every day that you don't even have to know about or pay attention to.
Your body is a miracle.
No matter what you look like or what you THINK you look like, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!
YOU ARE A MIRACLE!
So do it for the next generation if you can't yet do it for yourself.
STOP HATING THE WAY YOU LOOK.
It will maybe be a long journey, but it is so worth it to get to the other side. And I'm here to tell you that losing weight isn't going to get you there. It's deeper than that. Remember? So many of us hated the way we looked when we were young and dewy and thin, or at least thinner than we became. Losing the weight is good for you on so many levels, but it isn't going to fix or completely fix this broken place. There is some old, arcing wiring that has to be cut and a new pathway has to be wired in its place.
Don't waste the most vibrant years of your life!
For the sake of your one precious life, for the sake of the next generation of women and all the generations of women to follow, I dearly hope so.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Was it All a Dream?
Thursday, July 09, 2009
I Seem to Have Some 'Splainin' To Do
- I got up every morning between 6:00-7:00 and was outside or in some quiet classroom by 7:30 doing 45-60 minutes of yoga, using an audio recording or podcast on my iPhone. This was to counteract all the sitting on hard plastic chairs in the classes and benches in the dining hall.
- Breakfast
- I went to 1 or both of the morning classes on Friday/Saturday, the full days and took a hike during the first session on Sunday then went to the second session class.
- Lunch
- During the afternoon session, I either took the session (on Saturday) or went for a hike (on Friday) to move my body, sweat a little and recharge myself from all the interactions of being at camp and around so many people.
- This year there was a "Free Time" session during which I took a short nap or rest of some kind
- Dinner
- Evening events: Each evening had 2 things happening. This is where my body was so very clear about her needs and I did what I said I would do which was honor those needs without regrets. Each of the three nights I did the first evening event, but skipped the second one to go to bed. This meant that I missed the drum jam on the first night, the Healing Drum Circle with Vickie Noble on the second night and the 2nd set of the teachers' performances which went until 2:30 am.
- I took a total of 7 out of 10 class offerings. The reason I didn't take the three sessions that I skipped was more about there not being an offering I was interested in than anything else. I took 4 Afro-Cuban classes, 1 West African, 1 Venezuelan and one Ghanaian class. The four Afro-Cuban conga classes were taught by my own teacher and another teacher I love who is from NY. This is the kind of drumming I do most and what I teach. I did play my conga drum in the Venezuelan and the Ghanaian class and played an African Dundun during the West African class.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
I Have Bad Days and Times Too
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Maddy's Obsessive/Compulsive Parts Speak: On Counting Calories Burned and Fitness Minutes
I count both fitness minutes and calories burned and have a weekly goal for both. My exercise week resets on Sunday. I've completed this week with 610 fitness minutes. (My SparkPeople goal is 525). Regarding calories burned, I set that goal based on how much I like to eat vs how much I want to stay right here at this weight. My goal is 3400 calories burned per week.
290 minutes of yoga
115 minutes of Core Fusion (Pilates based strength training)
total: 405 minutes of strength and flexibility work
205 minutes of cardio
Total calories burned: 3175, leaving me 225 calories short of my calories burned goal.
Prior week:
135 minutes yoga
45 minutes Core Fusion
total strength training 180 minutes
415 minutes of cardio
total: 590 Fitness minutes
Total calories burned 3750, exceeding goal by 350 calories burned.
Both weeks I exceeded my minutes goal. Both weeks I exercised every day, a couple of days doing two different things, usually one thing in the morning and another in the afternoon.
If I only looked at calories burned, I'd probably be much slacker on my strength training because it doesn't burn nearly as many calories as cardio. But the truth is, I need the strength training to stay strong and flexible and actually undo the "damage" I do by running. These are two extreme weeks in terms of the balance between the cardio and the strength training. But just like you don't need to eat all your essential nutrients in one day, more like over one week, you can mix and match what you do for exercise. The place where my o/c tendencies get sent to the back of the bus is when my body clearly wants to follow a different path than my head's agenda. Then all bets are off and I follow my wise body's lead. I believe that it's good to follow what you feel up to, or feel like doing and in the end, it is all good.
I wanted to share this with people newer to the wide and vast world of exercise and I hope my ridiculous numbers don't put you off. It has taken me over five years to get here. I think of my prioritization of my fitness program as a crucial part of the mission to "save my own life". It is just as crucial and deserving of high priority to me as journaling my food and eating a healthy diet.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Taking a Moment to Record Being Happy (or) "The Simple Ecstasy of Breathing"
Sunday, March 22, 2009
And the Truth Will Set Me Free
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Welcome Spring!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Recipe Time! Creamy Sweet Potato, Red Lentil Soup
I'm getting over my first cold in about a million years. I must say it's been rather a relief to be five days in and realize that this is a "cold" and not bronchitis or pneumonia. I've been staying down and doing a fair amount of soup and tea making and consuming. This soup was born of my desire for Vegan Penicillin. In my mind, miso based soups and lentil based soups are good for what ails me. This is, of course, a lentil version.
Creamy Sweet Potato, Red Lentil Soup
This is a creamy, filling, spicy, beautifully colored, comfort soup.Ingredients
| 2 tsp olive oil 2 tsp cumin seed one large onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 Tbsp ginger micro-planed or very finely minced 1 small jalepeno pepper, minced (optional) 1 tsp turmeric 3 cups peeled, cubed sweet potatoes (garnet is the best for this because of its dark color) 1 cup red lentils 6 cups water with 3 cubes no-salt-added vegetable boullion or 6 cups vegetable broth juice of 1 large or 2 small lemons chopped cilantro for garnish (optional) |
Directions
| Heat the olive oil in a heavy bottomed 2 qt or larger saucepan. Add cumin seeds and saute until they start popping. Add onion, garlic and jalapeno pepper. Saute for about 5 minutes, stirring often over medium heat. Sprinkle turmeric over the onions and saute another minute to thoroughly coat everything. Add broth, ginger, sweet potatoes and lentils, stirring occasionally until it reaches a boil to keep lentils from clumping. When it reaches a boil, reduce heat to simmer and simmer partially covered until sweet potatoes and lentils are very tender, about 30 minutes. Stand an immersion blender straight up and down in the pot so bottom of blender is flush with the pot and blend soup until it is thick and creamy. There should still be some chunks of sweet potatoes and pieces of onion that you can see. If you don't have a stick/immersion blender, then puree 3/4 of the soup in a blender and stir back into the pot with remaining 1/4 of soup. Stir in lemon juice to taste Garnish with cilantro if desired. Nutritional Info
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Sunday, February 08, 2009
Something Food Related That I Was Thinking About While Cooking Last Night
It was a quick, cheater's broth: a cup of water with a packet of Trader Joe's vegetable broth concentrate diluted into it. First I cut the squash the long way, cut off the ends and scooped out the seeds and minimal pulp. Then I cut the squash halves in half again the long way, then cross cut in 1/4" thick slices. I simmered the squash in the broth for about 10 minutes, then added thinly sliced carrot, my own frozen green beans and a few ounces of light coconut milk. The green beans got me thinking: I remembered the work of picking, prepping, blanching and freezing. It's not a lot of work. Green beans are one of my favorite things to grow and if the harvest is good, I will usually have beans in my freezer until the next summer. This was not to be this last year, as the very short growing season and the fires in June/July conspired to create a rather scanty harvest of many things in the garden this last year. And so, as I portioned out a cup of beans from the last bag in the freezer, I got to thinking about eating locally.
The price of gas is rising again and I don't trust anything about or connected to the price of gas. The prices of everything went soaring when gas went up to $4.50 a gallon last spring and summer and those prices haven't really come down. For a person like me who is committed to eating organic, it can get very expensive to buy organic green beans (probably from Mexico) in February. Right now I have chard in my garden. The ubiquitous chard that happily grows through heat and frost, downpourings in winter and scanty watering in the summer. I have chard. I have some onion greens. That is what "eating local in season" would look like if I were to rely on what was growing right now in February. And if I needed to rely on my own garden, the chard would be all eaten up pretty quickly. But I do have electricity and a freezer. I do know how to dry or can things and preserve them in clean glass jars, so it is possible to have "summer in a jar" around our house.
I haven't bought tomato sauce or canned tomatoes in years. We do the work and very little goes to waste with the tomatoes. I braided up all the garlic last summer and ate my own garlic all the way through to the end of December. There are about 14 spaghetti squashes in the garage and I have a freezer full of completely prepped fava beans. And one bag of green beans. The last one. The one I used a cup out of last night. And while I was cooking, I thought about what the flow would have looked like if I had used fresh beans. Not much different, but I would have had to take the time to prep them and they would have gone into the pan to simmer much sooner than was needed for the prepped, blanched, frozen green beans.
The word "convenient" flitted across the screen of my mind. And I had to smile. At the back end of all this planning, digging, planting, watering, feeding, protecting from raccoons, harvesting, prepping, blanching and freezing, it was a pretty simple thing to measure out a cup of beans and scatter them into a simmering saute pan. It was convenient. Just like deciding that last night would be the night to eat the second of three delicata squash that I was able to harvest from a plant that started late, was uprooted again and again by the damn raccoons that plagued my garden last year and survived to give me three squash that landed in the large ceramic bowl that has been sitting on the penninsula, filled with one bounty or another since about August. There it was; a perfect two serving sized squash that only needed to be cut, deseeded, peeled and sliced to be turned into a componant of a delicious curry.
Gardening is not convenient. Sometimes it's downright frustrating and heartbreaking. But something in me has me face the challenges and the work and grow food. And then harvest and preserve food. As the price of gas follows its strange, incomprehensible path and we as a country fall further and further into a recession/depression, I'm glad for the space that we've nurtured and built to grow food. I'm glad for the things I've learned along the way about how to grow it. I was glad to eat my curry last night and know for sure that two of the ingredients in it required no gasoline to get to me and onto my plate. And that the luxury of fresh tomatoes in January may become a thing of the past, replaced by what I put in a jar or dried in September. But not yet. Right now, the convenience of just driving to town for chocolate, for coffee, for coconut milk, for vanilla beans, for agave syrup, for vital wheat gluten, for all the other things that come to me with the price tag of the true cost of gasoline, are still an option. And maybe I'm just an alarmist and they always will be an option.
But I can't help but try to think of what our lives would look like, what our table and pantry would look like if it wasn't.
Working Out at Home: How Much Space Do You Think You Need?
Behold the odd, diagonal space that I use to burn at least 1/3 of my weekly calories: My house is not very big, total square footage is less than 1100, and when we remodeled three years ago, we sacrificed many square feet of "living room" to create a larger, workable kitchen. What you see in the picture is:On the right: the end of my couch.
On the left: the penninsula of the kitchen.
Space between the short, flattened corner of penninsula and couch: 6'
Our TV is on a cart with wheels. It sits flush against the wall when not in use and is swung around at about a 45 degree angle for exercise and a full 90 degrees to be facing the couch when we want to watch TV, vs interact with TV for exercise.
Space from the bottom of the picture frame (end of yoga mat), to the edge of the rolled up carpet: 9'
What I have to do to exercise with the TV in the living room:
I have to take the coffee table and turn it perpendicular to the couch and push it flush with the wood stove hearth. I then roll up the carpet. Then I sweep the floor; basically the entire field of the photo and all the way off the bottom and bottom left of the photo field.
Once I've done that, I'm good to go. In terms of "free wall space" for yoga or Core Fusion Body Sculpting, I don't have any that is standing height. I have the office door. On the occasions when I want to do inversions like handstands or headstands, I go totally out of the picture field and use the closed office door. For Core Fusion abdominal work, I use the long side of the penninsula that you see in the photo, as it only needs to be as high as I am while sitting on the floor and putting my feet and legs up into a V shape.
It's a small space. I hear people talk on the message boards about having a very small living space and not being able to make the room to exercise. And I know from doing this for several years now, that the 6' spot in my own space is sometimes restricting. Sometimes it forces me to turn my mat and orient 90 degrees away from the DVD I'm using, so as to not hit the penninsula or edge of the couch, usually with my feet when I'm doing some yoga thing that has me fully extended. With my arms over my head and feet fully extended, I'm well over 6' in length.
Yet the fact of the matter is that a space that is an oddly shaped 6' x 9' at its narrowest is far larger than my yoga mat, which measures in at 2'x70", or 2' x 5'10". Unless I'm dancing or doing some creative, flowy Shiva Rea lying down something, my mat is the world upon which my calories are getting burned and my body is getting stronger and more toned.
Perspective is everything: When I was doing a combination of yoga classes in the big studio at the gym and doing DVDs at home, my home space felt very small and somewhat restrictive. Now, not only do I not go to classes at the gym, but the entire gym is closing at the end of the month. This makes my sixish by ninish foot space seem quite adequate, for it is surely larger than no space at all. Also, I've adapted: I know when I have to turn that 90 degrees on my mat to avoid kicking the penninsula or the couch or hit the rolled up portion of the carpet. I've learned in an empirical way that my space is adequate. In fact the area of my yoga mat is adequate for doing most of what I do for exercise here in my living room. I've been exploring a dance DVD called Soul Sweat. I don't use a mat for that. I'm moving around the space dancing and even with two steps forward and four steps back, my space is adequate. I've learned to move "on a bias". I've learned to utilize what I have.
I think it all comes down to what motivates you. Times are tricky for many people right now and when the money gets scarce, things like gym memberships seem to float to the top of the list of the slash budget. If you do things like yoga, body sculpting, free weight lifting or other exercise that requires the minimal space of a yoga mat, do you have that 2' x 6'? Can you make it with a little rearranging? Yes. It's a pain in the ass to have to move furniture, roll up carpets and sweep the floor every time I want to exercise at home. But it's about priorities. I want to be fit. I want to be strong. I want the "feel good" that yoga, weight training, body sculpting, etc gives me and I've organized it all in my head that the housecleaning and furniture moving are worthy prices to pay to have those things. And the end result is that that modest yoga mat; that modest 6' x 9' space has become an entire universe in which transformation continues to happen.
Friday, January 30, 2009
"Gotta Have it Now": An Idea Whose Time is Over

Getting back to Tara's horror at all the waste that has been a matter of corporate policy: Once I was finished with following my threads of the why of it all, I came back around to the waste issue and realized that I as an individual can do my best to make a smaller footprint. There is a (somewhat flawed) test you can take here that shows you, based on the results of a quiz you take, that if everyone in the world lived like you do, it would take X number of planets to support us all living that way. By the sheer virtue of driving a car and living in a single family house with electricity and running water, I can't seem to get below 2+ planets on this test. I lower my footprint by being vegan, by working at home, by driving less than 1000 miles a month and by recycling, but it is a sobering thought to think that most of America lives in a way that would use up over 5 planets if everyone lived that way. (Flying on airplanes and eating meat were two of the bigger markers for needing more planets.) Yet in the light of my footprint, vs corporate footprints, there is no comparison.
Friday, January 23, 2009
What is a "Day of Rest"?
Now, what it means to me is determined by a qualitative feeling I have during and after moving. I may have walked for an hour, but the operative word was "walk". Usually I "hike" or "run". To walk implies moving relatively gently through space and maybe somewhat elevating my heart rate, but in no way feel like I'm stressing my body, pushing her edges. The same is true with yoga: I can do a 60 minute practice that is more about stretching and releasing than strengthening. Strengthening means that I'm tearing and rebuilding muscle, stressing my muscles so they grow stronger. I can do the lunar type of a yoga practice and that feels, to me in the qualitative feeling of it like restore-ation, and I would include that in what I call a day of rest.
Something I've learned is that a fit body likes to move, loves to move, craves it, gets cranky without it. And my first 1-2 years exercising, when I started my Weight Watchers journey in March of 2004, I did it because I "had to" to attain my goals of weight loss and health. I endured months of muscles talking to me for the rest of the day and night for what I'd asked of them during exercise. Soon, it felt good after I stopped and that was a nice reward for the efforting. And eventually, in not really a very long time, it started feeling good through all the phases of doing it. Except maybe the first five minutes. The first five minutes of running don't feel so great, but after that....flying! Joy! Centered, breathing, Maddy-in-harmony-with-the-Earth...I happily endure those first minutes for what comes after.
I find it near miraculous to me that I am this person. And that a 50 minute ior a 90 minute walk can constitute part of a rest day. Pat had this to add to this discussion, "Fitness gurus describe lighter movement not geared toward defined increases in muscle strength/endurance or cardiovascular fitness as Active Recovery. Active Recovery is especially important for helping newbies and those sore from trying a new routine. I find it especially valuable for retaining an attitude of joy in movement, not always pressing, pushing, striving. Kick back a little and find happiness in movement from time to time. "
Mavis referred to it as "active rest" and I really like that phrase. It captures this newish Way of Maddy just right.
Monday, January 12, 2009
In Search of The Sweet Spot
The first is The Universe, who says, "Thoughts become things... choose the good ones! ®". In my quest to be the happiest person I can be, I really hang my hat on this one. I have gotten, over the past 5 years, more and more comfortable with noticing my thoughts and how they affect my outcomes, my body, my spirit. And I know that my mind is a very powerful entity; shaping the way I see and interact with the world.
So with that as my alluring introduction to this process, I'd like to step back a little bit and look over the past 4 3/4 years. My 5 year Weight Watcher anniversary is March 7th. I followed the program, became a person who exercises, lost the weight I wanted to lose and began maintenance. I've admitted here that it has taken me a long time to feel like I was succeeding at maintaining my weight. It took the turnings of two years; of coming to my goal weight anniversary date of March 1st for the second time in 2008, and actually still being at or under my goal weight before I believed that I was succeeding at maintaining.
Why did it take me 2 years to believe it? I think this was partly due to knowing that only 5% of people who lose a significant amount of weight keep it off for more than 2 years. I think I still had some demons flitting around in my head that said I wasn't worthy, wasn't working hard enough, didn't deserve to succeed. But the truth is that I've worked harder at this than just about anything I've ever done and I deserve my continued success.
And a curious thing in all of this for me is that I've actually gotten pretty relaxed about the food intake part of this grand equation. I still track just about everything I eat every day. I use Sparkpeople's food journal program and recipe building program with great success. Doing this has become a normal part of my day. I make the time for it. It is, for the most part, a non-negotiable for me. If I'm going out of town and not cooking any of my own food and not really having good internet access, I'll take a few days off, like I did for drum camp. And I've even gotten comfortable taking those occasional days off from tracking. But my mind (this very strong creater of my reality) really believes that tracking and food journaling is a major cornerstone of how I maintain. So I happily comply with my mind's equation and so far so good.
And then there is exercise. Another part of my mind's equation for success is my exercise program. The Sparkpeople calorie allowance is based on what you weigh, what you'd like to lose and how quickly you'd like to do that, mathematically transmogrified by the number of calories you burn exercising each week. I am still doing the SparkAmerica, count your fitness minutes challenge and the monthly Fitness Challenge on the Weight Watcher's message board. So I do set a minutes goal for the month, for the week. And in order to be able to eat more, I set a pretty stiff exercise goal. I commit each week to burning between 3,200 and 3,400 calories in exercise; right now mostly a combination of hiking, running, treadmill and yoga. My mind's equation says, "If I track all my food, exercise every day my body says YES (which is most every day) and burn those 3,200-3,400 calories a week, I will maintain this happy weight of right over/under 150 lbs."
I believe the Universe is full of love and compassion and really wants to accomodate my visions; my versions of how the world is, so I continue to spend hours every day tracking, journaling and exercising. And lo and behold! I am coming up on my 3 year Maintenance anniversary and I'm still right around where I want to be with my weight, with my physical health, my strength, my cardio/pulminary fitness. And yet, I see the obsessive/compulsive aspects of myself and worry about all this focus making me a boring person, obscuring beauty and magic that I would possibly see if I weren't so deeply focused on my "program". And as The Universe (A.K.A. Mike Dooley) reminds me daily that Thoughts become things...choose the good ones, I've recently gotten two other messages.
The first is from my own body. About a month or so ago, I started getting a debilitating pain upon certain movments in my right arm where the deltoid and the tricep meet. Many trips to the osteopath have not resolved this issue and I've been referred to physical therapy which starts this week. This has greatly impinged on my yoga practice. I've modified or omitted all weight bearing asanas on my arms, which is a lot of what I do. I completely stopped lifting free weights. For the past week, my neck on the same side has been out and again, two trips to the osteopath have not resolved the issue. I go again tomorrow to see the wife of the couple. I think her treatments are better for me than her husband's, but for something that is moving from acute to chronic, we shall see. I hope for the best and am prepared to try other options.
It seems clear to me that my body is trying to give me a message. It's confusing because the parts of my body that are healthy are so in love with all the activities that I do and they don't want to stop or change or modify anything. And yet, I see this injury as being a huge, as well as compassionate teacher because it is holding up the mirror for me to see how my O/C tendency of adding up my minutes and my calories burned are possibly not serving me here. So why don't I just take a break? Why don't I take a week off where all I do is walk? I don't do it because I'm uncovering that that O/C drive to keep accruing minutes and calories burned is being generated from fear: Fear of losing my momentum and starting down the slippery slope of gaining all my weight back as I reacquaint myself with my old habits of overeating and not exercising.
So right when I'm facing, with compassion and love, but facing this uncomfortable personal truth, Mavis, one of my Weight Watcher friends posts this on the Fitness Challenge thread:
"Physical movement is a form of creative expression for me. I truly [find] vitality and connection through it."
That's why I like to create my own routines. It's a way to do a "live journal" of how I'm feeling on any given day. That's why it's so important to move beyond the mechanics (calories burned, specific routines, time frames, etc.) Those are measurements, which are fine in their place. But for me, true power came when I integrated fitness as part of how I live. I can accept fluctuations, setbacks, bumps, whatever, because I know it's always available, and I don't need one specific situation or circumstance to keep my momentum."
I no longer require perfection or certainty in my practice. I've done 20-minute ad hoc yoga practices on a towel in a hotel room, took month-long hiatuses in 2007 when I was in a car accident and my Dad was terminally ill, and I'm still here. My routines may change, but I know I'll do something. I trust that there are seasons for everything. It's a wonderful thing indeed! "
May you all find your expression and fitness 'sweet spot.'"
Indeed. And so I expose to the light my iron grip on all of this and with a large exhale, loosen my fingers. Just enough to care for my injury. Just enough to take a deep inhale. Just enough to step out into the void. Just enough to feel the grand expanse of self, within which lies today's "sweet spot".
Friday, January 02, 2009
Happy Three Year Anniversary, Body Tales!
(This is why I love my life: Just as I wrote those last words, this post came through on my online bulletin board. Since I'm the list owner, I am the one who approves new posts and here's what just came through:
DATE: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:56:56 -0000
SUBJECT: Creative Writing Class
Do you like to write, feel you have something important to share and would enjoy having a forum to express your ideas and experiences? Consider joining the Journalism 180 class, Writing for Publication, at the Mendocino College--Willits Center for the Spring 2009 semester. The class is taught by journalist and fiction writer Steven Hellman and is suitable for adults and teens, and all genres. The class meets Mondays, 5:30 - 8:30 p.m.. For info, 459-6224.
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It seems that I might want to call that number and see what happens. It couldn't get any easier to do than to have a college extension class here in Willits, as the main campus is in Ukiah, 25 miles away. )
This is also posting number 201. I am amazed anew at my stick-to-itiveness at keeping this writing thing going for three whole years. My number of postings have definitely slowed from that first year when I was having so many epiphanies and healings, but they still come and I still try to write them down and post them here. For that, I am grateful to have this format to archive my life as I'm living it.
Blessings to us all in 2009. May our new president make large and crucial inroads towards a better direction that we can all follow for our collective and individual good. May we find the sweetness in our lives moment by moment. May we heal parts of both self and our own world that are broken. May our courage and our joy always rise to the top.
Happy New Year
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
32,160 Fitness Minutes: A Reflection on Goal Setting
On a personal note, I blew my goal totally out of the water. I had committed to something that felt challenging but doable: 27,000 minutes. That was 75 minutes a day, 360 days of the year. I had never set a long-range goal like this before in quite this way. I've set sales goals before. I actually had to when I worked for the corporate winery, but this was personal. It was uncoerced and it was all mine.
It would have been empowering to make my goal of 27,000 minutes, but to end the year with a total number of fitness minutes of 32,160 is more empowering that I can even express. That is very close to 90 minutes a day for 360 days. And I'm sure I only took about 6 (remember, this was a leap year) days off with no focused activity all year. My qualitative goal was to exercise every day my body said "Yes" and that was most every day. To realize how few days I did no exercise is a testament to how healthy and strong and happy this dear body is and for that I am profoundly grateful, as I still remember those years of illness and body suffering. To realize that a "day of rest" now means an hour of a gentle yoga practice is immensely gratifying. To look at the most recent yoga pictures that Tara took of me today and see my strength showing through from top to bottom is a manifestation of all this hard and loving work.
And I took this idea from SparkAmerica and created it in a slightly different form on the Weight Watchers Veggie Board. We call it the 30/31 Days of (whatever month) Fitness Challenge and we count our fitness minutes and track them day by day. We cheer each other on and I am a witness to constant greatness and success. And the success of others, the enthusiasm of others feeds my own. Sometimes I think about what it would take to create something like this in real life: a weekly meeting to talk about health/fitness/weightloss topics, inspire each other and know that you will have something to report the next week....sort of like a Weight Watcher meeting but without the corporate crap or the junk food. I wonder what it would take.....I think I'll write my book first.
So to name them in public, here are my short term goals:
- 2250 fitness minutes for the month of January
- Back under 150 lbs
- Get the recipe section of the book edited and dispersed to testers
- Continue to gather, transcribe and edit the posts from this blog that want to be in the book
So may it be. And so it is.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Scatter Your Seeds and Let Go
I had a series of thoughts that I want to plant right here. If you can get on board with the premise that when we put love and care out in the world, we are casting metaphorical seeds, then follow me here: These seeds, blown on the winds, carried by streams and rivers, transported on the coats of animals or our own socks, sometimes burned in fires that remove their outer casings which allows them to grow, need fertile or welcoming or just the right kind of soil to take hold, root and sprout.
I think one of the Great Mysteries is that we don't always or even often get to know where our seeds of love, hope, inspiration and care go, or if they sprout or not. Maybe they rest deep in the heart of someone for years and when the magic of alchemy of Divine Right Timing happens and that seed sprouts, they might not even know where it came from, just that they are inspired to change, to grow, to heal.
I have faith that as I walk my life in all the layers of my being, that these seeds I scatter on the winds, that stick on my socks, burn in the fire, or drift downstream on the river will go where they are needed when their time is ripe. I don't get to say when and I don't always get to know how. What I do know is that I have faith that scattering the seeds matters.
And that is what I wanted to share: We are all Good Right and Beautiful and sometimes we just have to scatter our seeds and let go.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Rest In Peace, Christy Molnar
She was also a morbidly obese chain smoker. And this was in the 80's. From what I've learned from mutual friends, she maintained her obesity and her smoking habit all the way until the end. About a year or so ago, a mutual friend said she had become nonabulatory. She died alone in her home on Monday night. Her housekeeper found her Tuesday morning.
On Christmas Day she would have been 59.
Rest in Peace, Christy. May you be free of suffering, free of pain.
And yes. This is a cautionary tale.
The Wheel Of The Year Turns to Solstice and The Peak of The Dream Time
I have to gently laugh at myself for all the obstacles my brain throws up around leaving town for overnights. I call it mild agoraphobia and I am sorry that I have to go through this every time I want or need to go out of town, but I am also grateful it isn't worse than it is. I can push through it. Usually I feel like I'm getting sick a few days or the day before I'm supposed to leave. This time, the Universe threw me a real sickness as I've witnessed Tara come down with and suffer from and still be recovering from a nasty respiratory illness that had her down from last Thursday night through yesterday, Tuesday morning. She went to work yesterday, but came home totally exhausted and went to bed at 10:00. I have been taking immunity boosters several times a day and so far, so good. I had felt invaded by this virus right around the same time as Tara had, but my rock solid immune system seems to have fended it off. I'm still on yellow alert, but I'm not feeling invaded any more. This is good, as while the RV has heat, it is too noisy to run it while sleeping, and the very scanty insulation lets all the heat leach out pretty quickly.
Last year it was very cold at the springs; down in the teens and 20s at night. I slept in double layers, under a quilt and 2 sleeping bags, wearing a hat. I would get up in the morning to about 35 degrees in the RV, jump down from the bed, flip on the heater and the stove to make my coffee, leap back up into the bed and wait. By the time my kaffe maker was done making my coffee, it would be an almost civilized 50 degrees in there: warm enough to get up and start my day.
It's totally dry/self-contained camping at Harbin, but not too far away from the RV parking is a second overflow lot that is available for RV and car camping if there is nothing happening in the workshop space next to this lot. The reason I'm bringing this up is that there is an outside electrical outlet on the side of this building. This is where I would charge my cell phone and laptop last year. I did this on the sly. No one used this workshop space the entire time I was there and if that is true again this year, I am going to bring a 100' heavy guage extension cord and see about plugging in at night so I can use my electric heater for warmth, as well as charge my electronics. I'll have to unplug early in the morning and only plug back in after dark. I'll probably get my hand slapped if I get caught, but I'm willing to take the chance for my comfort and ease. If it doesn't work out, I know what it will look like and that is fine.
So this is what the agoraphobe (me) has to do before feeling safe enough to leave town: I have to visualize my possibilities, make contingency plans and visualize what each plan might look like. The rough sketch view is that I will be there for six nights. I will follow my own bliss path like I did last year: eat, sleep, hike, do yoga, soak, write, read, be internal, be external all on my own time, following my own desires and rhythms. I want to work on my book and get a big hunk done. Last year I mostly worked on the How I Did The Work To Lose The Weight part and this time I want to begin with starting to create subsections for the cookbook and see where the big holes are. I also want to put some major effort in what I feel is the crux of the book: How I Keep the Weight Off Year After Year. I have a couple of books to read including the last remaining unread Kay Kenyon book that I bought from Amazon last spring and have been saving for this trip. I'm going to do a bunch of cooking today so I can bring food that is already made and not have to spend a whole lot of time cooking dinners. I didn't do this last year. I'm going to make seitan this morning. Later I think I'll make a batch of my black bean, sweet potato chili, some salad dressing and a batch of a new lentil soup that I created while Tara was sick.
The waters at Harbin are so wonderful and sometimes, especially when I'm there for a few days or more, just being around them is enough and I only go in the pools maybe 1 or 2 times a day. The hot pool is less hot in the deep cold; probably only 110 degrees. The cold plunge is almost heart stoppingly cold at about 55-60 degrees. It takes fortitude and courage to do rounds of that. Mostly I stay in the warm pool, a pretty tepid 102 degrees, except where the hot pool feeds into the warm pool at the far end where there is a hole in the concrete. I call it the hot hole. The water right in the vicinity of the hole is more to my liking: about 104 degrees. I always feel deeply healed by these waters, even if my soaking sessions are short.
In the year that has transpired, much has happened, much has changed. I saw Tara through a cancer scare and a total hysterectomy, followed by a 4 month MRSA infection in one of the surgery sites and the total hormone crash of the surgical menopause. Her forced menopause and the stress that ensued from the health scare, the surgery, the MRSA infection, the hormone crash pushed me into the next level of my own menopause journey. Over the past nine months I've seen huge changes in my own workings. Without going into the gory minutae of all of it, suffice it to say that my symptoms have been enough for me to start getting regular blood tests for hormone levels and to start doing bioidentical hormones under my osteopath's care.
It was hard at first and I didn't like the way the progesterone was making me feel. I was edgy and didn't feel like myself. The thing it did do for me was give me better sleep than I've had in years. The DHEA was useful too to alleviate many of my uncomfortable symptoms. I have started and stopped and started again. My doctor has been saying to me that my thyroid levels are very low and in following them, I am witnessing them slowly but steadily falling. What is true in "the real world" is that my energy levels have dropped as well. For a long while there, I kept accelerating my workouts: running further and faster, doing harder and harder things in my yoga practice. I called it "Personal Best" and the finding how far this beautiful and nearing-50-year-old body could go was exciting and gratifying. At some point, not knowing exactly when, I stopped trying to to do more and was pretty much staying where I was. And then, a couple of months ago, I noticed that the levels I had attained were becoming harder to do. Whereas the outer edges of my limits were, say, 1 1/2 hours running up the mountain and back, now only an hour of running and hiking would leave me more tired later in the day than the 1 1/2 hours did just a couple of months ago. The same was happening with my yoga practice. I found myself less willing to do the harder flows and felt challenged by flows that had been much easier just a couple of months ago.
My osteopath had been suggesting that if I took just a little bit of thyroid, I'd probably feel a whole lot better. I came home and told Tara this and she said, "You know Maddy, thyroid is one of those things that once you start taking it, you don't get to stop." That was alarming to me and from that place of being alarmed, I refused the offer of a prescription. My doctor, who is a great person and a fine doctor that doesn't make me bad or wrong or blame me for being out of whack because I won't do what he says, suggested that I do homeopathic thyroid and adrenal support instead. I agreed. But after 6 weeks of these very expensive remedies, I not only felt no better, I felt a little worse. My last blood test showed that my thyroid levels are scraping the bottom of normal and have one foot in hypothyroidville. So two days ago I asked him, "If I take thyroid and the end of oil happens and I can't get my meds or any other thing comes up and I have to stop taking it, what will happen?" (I love that he didn't even roll his eyes energetically at my question.) He replied, "You'll crash and then rebalance to about where you are now." And that was good enough for me. I told him to write the prescription.
Yesterday was my first day taking 15 mg of thyroid. (OK. Laugh at me. I'm very sensitive to medications.) For the first four hours I felt nothing and then I had an uncomfortable hour or two of feeling like I was on speed. My heart was beating faster and I was having a hard time focusing on anything. Then that leveled out and I felt, er, GREAT. As in, I felt at 5:00 teaching my drum class, as good as I feel first thing in the morning when I am at my best. It was a great class. I felt happy and inspired and inspiring. I had the juice to teach the class. And I realized that I have been struggling more and more to teach this class at a time of day that during other days of the week, I am doing nothing more complicated than starting dinner. I realized yesterday that I've been doing less and less in the "after tea time" part of the day because I don't have the brain power or the juice to do it. That is a lot of hours in my waking day to be doing little to nothing of any intrinsic value. And yesterday I got to see how much I've changed, how much function I had lost or was losing. And to think that I may be getting it back or forward or something is frankly, rather thrilling.
So in bringing this rambling posting full circle, I am not the grrl I was one year ago....not to say that I have ever been the grrl I was one year before whenever "now" was....but it is a good reckoning to see how my body has changed as I dance the menopause dance; the aging dance. For 4 years I was all about losing weight, becoming a person who exercises, acquiring a fit and muscled body, becoming a vegan, maintaining that weight loss and now in year 5, I've come into this "new" body and am finally seeing the aging process in action. My doctor called this hormone and thyroid adventure "a youth treatment" and I protest that phrase. My veggieboard friend Ruth rephrased it as "balance treatment" and I've amended that to "balance therapy". Because when I sift through all the minutae of my feelings and wonderings about, am I doing this for my health or for my vanity? And does it really matter which? What I come up with, and thanks to my ROARS Yahoo group where I posed this dilemma about health or vanity and got pages of wonderful insight, reflection and support, is a balance of both health and vanity. It is a balancing act for this dear body that loves this life so much and I want to feel good inside of her. I want to have these "do over" years; these years of making up for all those years of living like I didn't have a body, living in a vibrantly alive feeling body. I do the work to have that and if I feel I need to use a medication and hormones to help me, I am coming to peace with that decision.
And so the grrl I Am Now will leave on retreat. If I can't get out tomorrow, I'll leave the next day or the day after that. It doesn't matter. What will be will be. And I will be the person I am now, having my little Winter Solstice adventure, honoring the Dream Time, honoring the fertile, quiet places within myself that need alone time, space and being away to speak to me; to guide me as I see this year to a close and step onto the new wheel, to honor the return of the sun, keep the fire burning in my heart in faith that spring will return and I will once again plant many wonderful things in the garden of my being.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
A Pep Talk To Others, But Essentially, I Think, To Myself
My menopause journey has amped up a lot. After some starting and stopping, I have resumed taking bioidentical hormones. DHEA and Progesterone to be specific. I know that some of this weight is from taking hormones and the water I can feel that I am retaining. And I know that the body is wise to hold weight to ease the transition to menopause because there is estrogen in that fat. And there is clearly a little more of me around my middle. This is cause for concern and for action, but I have to stop, breathe, and say that I'm not panicking. Nor am I feeling nonchalant about it. I've upped my cardio exercise and am working on my total calorie input for the day. My body is protesting, both crafitly and blatantly, yet being mean or punishing to myself is not an option. This is how I've changed. Constantly redefining what something is by seeing what it looks like is another way I've changed on this journey. And these are good things.
Following, is what I wrote yesterday. I guess in the end, I wrote it for myself. )
12/8/08
I've been witnessing quite a few frustrated Weight Watchers on the Vegetarian Message Board posting lately about plateaus or gains. I have some things to share as a person who was on the losing plan for 2 years and is now coming around the wheel for my 3rd time as a maintainer.
1) We are in the time of year I call the Food Orgy Season. From Halloween through New Year's Day, the world around us is pushing sweets, potlucks, lunches and dinners out on us. Often it is impossible to decline these invitations either because it would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or bad politics. So we attempt to eat lightly the rest of that day, maybe we get a little extra exercise, we try to be careful in our choices. And it is damn hard to do! People not trying to lose weight really have NO IDEA how fraught with peril a Christmas party or company lunch can be for a weight watcher! But we go and we do our best.
Finally, the first of the year comes and the Food Orgy season becomes the Season of Repentance. This is the season where gym and Weight Watcher memberships soar. It seems like the whole world "goes on a diet" or embarks upon a fitness regime. If this looks like the world around you and you are plateauing or have gained a couple of pounds, you are DOING GREAT! Given the pressures and the minefields you have to walk through, staying the same or going up a little is FANTASTIC! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! The Season of Repentance starts in just 3 1/2 weeks!
2) You were losing steadily and then the colder weather came, the summer fruits and veggies were done, the heavier vegetables/starches of winter appeared in the stores so your meals got a little or a lot denser, and it became much harder to get out of bed in the dark. You may have what I call Bear Getting Ready to Hibernate Syndrome. Your body is wise. She is gathering her fat and holding it tight because fat keeps us warmer! We may feel more sluggish or not as inclined to get ourselves out to the gym or in front of our work out DVDs or to the Wii, or outside for a hike, a run, a bike ride. For me, I have found that if I just adjust the how and the when of my exercise program, I can still burn the same number of calories or close to it that I was burning in the summer. My pattern of running or hiking in the early morning isn't very attractive when it's dark and freezing out. So I do my yoga and weights in the early morning still because I always do that in my living room, but I have cut myself the deal of doing my cardio in the early/mid afternoons, OR doing it at the gym where it's warm.
You can accomodate that bearish feeling to some degree, but you can't totally give into it, or you'll just find yourself sleeping for 4 months. Give and take. Stay in bed later means that you have to w/o in the afternoon or evening. That's the deal. Keep your agreements with yourself.
Regarding the food mine fields: I have found that getting a good cardio workout on either side of a relatively large meal, usually a holiday or celebration meal, meaning that day and the next day, as well as eating lightly and even doing just roasted veggies all day the next day and then resuming normal eating at dinner will usually allow me to "get away with" a large, caloric meal.
3) Watch your self-talk. Be aware of how you are relating to yourself as you deal with your food and activity challenges. Being mean to yourself and calling yourself a failure doesn't further the cause AT ALL. In fact, it can lead you down the rocky road to giving up. NEVER GIVE UP! Nothing ever stays the same and your plateau will break. The couple/few coming-into-winter pounds you gained will come off again. Just stay on program or get back on program, do the work and one day you will step on that scale and be at goal. I promise. It took me 2 years to lose 45 lbs. That was an average of .43 lbs a week. I had two long "fall stall" plateaus both those years and have gained up to 5 lbs each fall since then. And as of today I have those five pounds more than when I hit goal almost 3 years ago and I declare those 5 lbs as my "bear weight" that I expect to have gone by the time I hit my 3 year maintenance anniversary on March 1st, 2009.
4) Getting through the fall is tough for so many of us for reasons that are other than food. Many of us are compelled to spend time with our families around the holidays...people who seem to live in a different universe than we do. They push our buttons, bring up very old feelings, but we travel to see them or have them come travel to see us. If you have a hard family dynamic but do this every year, first: Ask yourself why? Is the world going to end if you take yourself out of the passion play? If you absolutely have to and do it anyway and come home or send them home and are still in one piece, you are an Iron Person! Pat yourself on the back and move on.
Getting through the fall-into-New Year is, for many of us, the toughest time of year for all these reasons and more that I'm not thinking of. We are almost there! 3 1/2 weeks from now it will be January 1, 2009. If you've made it this far with your sense of humor somewhat intact and your commitment to your weight loss, fitness and health still close to your heart then you are your own hero. Embrace that. You are a HERO.
Next Thursday I leave for the hot springs for my annual retreat. Instead of seeking out people, family, friends, I retreat. I'll take Phiona again and maybe stay this time for six days. That will be six days of really getting reconnected with as many aspects of myself as I can handle. And then maybe a couple more. Part of following my pleasure and bliss path on my personal retreat includes caring tenderly and with much awareness for this body and all she holds. I will work on this book some more. I will hike, run, bathe, steam, do yoga, think, love myself, feed myself, follow my pleasure path and see where it leads. Find the dream seeds I want to plant in my garden in the new year. And I will come out on the other side of this fall into darkness, Fall into Winter season and I will witness and feel the sun start to return. And I will be my own hero.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
A Weight Watcher's Thanksgiving
This year, he came bearing my Celebration Field Roast and the turkey thighs/legs that he, Tara and our friend Debbie would eat. He was my hero, as the closest Celebration Roast was down in Sonoma County where Daniel lives: 90 miles south. I'm sure I could have made my own seitan-something, but I was already planning a pretty extensive menu for the whole dinner and was grateful for being able to "cheat" with an already prepared roast.(Back to Thanksgiving) I started the cool, foggy day with an 80 minute excursion in the woods. I ran most of it, only hiking the biggest hills on the route and burned 650 calories. That, I figured, would give me a good jump on the day. Have I mentioned my menopause journey? Well, suffice it to say, we've amped it up a notch and I have been going longer and longer between periods. Now I'm up in the 40-something days in between and after about the 30th day, I've been retaining water like crazy. I know I've gained some weight, but I hadn't weighed in a couple of weeks, so I thought it would be a good motivational tool to get on the scale after my run. I was stunned and sobered by the number: 153.8. This is up 2.2 lbs from just two weeks prior. At 4 lbs over my redline, I realized that I have to turn the ship around and I have to do it now, foodie holy day or no foodie holy day.
So OK. Feedback is good. I'd burned a fair number of calories and in my view, earned my not WW friendly slice of pecan pie as well as my slice of far more friendly pumpkin pie.
After the run, I made breakfast for Daniel and myself. It was one of my typical breakfasts: tofu, veggies, hashbrowns with nutritional yeast and gomasio. Pretty big, filling breakfast. We ate at about 10:30. Soon after, the cooking began. I had made the pies the day before as well as the wild rice for the stuffing. Daniel and Tara collaberated on the turky related parts of the dinner. I sauted onions and celery for the dressings, as there would be two: One vegan one for me and one for them. When everything was cooking or done cooking, we went for about a half hour tromp through the woods looking for mushrooms. No one wanted to do much hiking so we went to a pretty well-combed patch of woods right up from the house. We didn't find any edibles, but had fun tromping around. We came home and I picked a bunch of carrots from the garden. Daniel and I munched carrots through the rest of the early afternoon.
Our friend Debbie came over at about 3:00 and we sat down to dinner at 4:00.
This was the total menu:
Celebration Roast for me (2 slices, total 3.2 oz)
Turkey for them
Vegan mushroom gravy
Turkey gravy
Vegan bread and wild rice stuffing
Not vegan bread and wild rice stuffing
Green beans from the garden simmered with garlic and vegetable bouillion
A giant salad with
Miso Balsamic Dressing
Potatoes mashed with Earth Balance and homemade veg broth, salt and pepper
Cranberry sauce (out of the can due to the perverse tastes of my wife and son)
Pumpkin pie (scroll downdowndown Bryanna's page and you'll find it)
Pecan pie (this came out OK, but not great, so I'm not going to share the recipe)
Soyatoo
Whipped Cream
Really really good red wine
Total calories for the day were about 1650. Total points for the day were about 33. Not bad for a feast day!
Here's something I've learned about feasts and weight watching: There was so much food, but I didn't have everything. In this case, I passed over the mashed potatoes for stuffing which is such a once-a-year thing. I had less than one cup of stuffing and less than one full serving (4 oz) of Celebration roast. I used about 1/4 cup of gravy and about 1 Tbsp of salad dressing. Yet look at my plate: It's full. And after eating everything on it, so was I. Comfortably full. Not stuffed. Not distended. Somewhere over the line of satisfied, as after all it was a feast, but comfortably full. I think this is important. Now let's dovetail this with my weighing myself in the morning: I have gained a few pounds. Some of it is due to menopause-ish bloat, but some of it is due to the overeating I've been doing these past couple of months. I was 149.8 on September 27th. On November 27th I was four pound heavier. This is significant; definitely a yellow alert situation. But I think it is important to say here that I didn't punish myself for gaining a few pounds, beat myself about the head and shoulders and do some kind of pennance for it, nor deny myself a feast on a feast day.
What I did instead was this:
~ I ran for over an hour and burned 650 calories
~ I had a hearty late breakfast
~ I noshed on carrots in lieu of lunch
~ I had a full plate, but reasonable feast dinner and dessert, savoring it all
~ The next day, Friday, I ate only fruit in the morning and only roasted vegetable for the rest of the day until dinner, which was a normal dinner. I had pie for dessert that night.
~ Also on Friday, I did 1 1/2 hours of vigorous yoga and went to the gym in the afternoon for 50 minutes of steep incline on the treadmill. Total calories burned on Friday were 700.
Yesterday I went for a mushroom hike for a couple of hours and got on the scale upon my return. I was down to 152.8. Net loss 1 lb.
The purpose of all of this detailed sharing is to illustrate that I, we, you can have it "all". I, we, you can indulge occasionally or even often, as long as there is balance. The key, as I see it, to maintaining a fairly large weighloss is to find where that balance points are for myself and make the necessary course corrections when my projection of that balance is off, which is reflected to me on the scale.
Monday, November 24, 2008
The Wheel of the Year Has Turned: It's Mushroom Season!
When we got back to the court after the return trip up part 2 of the trail, I thought of Walter and Barbara, a great older couple that live in the first house down this steep street. Walter and I have traded produce over the years. His eco-climate is different than mine. He grows wicked huge onions and I grow wicked huge winter squash. His dog Scooter was out and ran up the street to greet us. I remembered the Lion's Mane mushroom tree. This is an ordinary young tan oak tree that happens to host the mycillium of the mighty Lion's Mane. Just one tree; and every year it produces one to three giant Lion's Mane mushrooms. It's a little early in the season, but with apparent climate changes, 'normal' seems to be constantly changing.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Recipe Time! The Perfect Vegan Omelette
I have been adjusting this recipe for a long time. Funny thing is that it took doing the counter-intutitive thing to get the right texture. By adding More liquid instead of less, this set up beautifully and didn't fall apart when I folded it over. It was golden brown on the outside, creamy on the inside and just delicious. The blended tofu, etc should be thin enough to pour into the omelette pan, with a rubber spatula only needed to scrape the last bits out of the blender/processor. This is a bit of a messy production to make, but if you are vegan and miss the whole dynamic of eggs folded over filling, I think you will find it worth the work.
Ingredients
4 oz firm silken tofu
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp onion powder
salt and pepper to taste
5-6 Tbsp water or broth
1/2 - 1 cup veggies of your choice, sauted. (I used 1/4 cup leeks, 1 jalapeno pepper, 1 cup fresh mushrooms and 2 cups fresh spinach)
1/2 oz vegan cheese sub (optional) I used Cheezly Mozzerella style
Directions
In a small blender or mini food processor combine tofu, water or broth, onion powder, salt, pepper, nutritional yeast, flour and cornstarch. Blend until very smooth.
Have veggies for the omelette cooked and ready.
Heat a non stick pan with some oil spray. Pour in the "omelette" mixture and gently spread to the edges of the pan. Let cook for a few minutes on medium until bubble holes appear from outer edges and have moved in about 2".
Spread cheese sub and veggies over 1/2 the surface. Check bottom. It should be nicely browned to golden. Gently fold over omelette style. Cook another minute, and press gently down on surface. If the inside is liquidy at all, then carfully flip over and cook another minute or two on the other side.
Omelette should slide onto plate and be ready to enjoy.
If you'd rather do it fritatta style, have broiler preheated before you start. This must be cooked in a cast iron or other broiler-safe pan. Start on stovetop and cook until bottom is set, then slide under the broiler for about 2 minutes until top is hot and bubbly but not burning.
This is such a nutritional powerhouse that I'm posting the "long version"
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1 serving
Amount Per Serving
Calories 262.5
Total Fat 9.0 g
Saturated Fat 3.1 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 2.6 g
Monounsaturated Fat 0.9 g
Cholesterol 0.0 mg
Sodium 323.5 mg
Potassium 1,234.6 mg
Total Carbohydrate 28.2 g
Dietary Fiber 6.7 g
Sugars 5.7 g
Protein 22.0 g
Vitamin A 122.3 % Vitamin B-12 100.2 % Vitamin B-6 379.2 % Vitamin C 46.2 % Vitamin D 13.3 % Vitamin E 9.0 % Calcium 25.5 % Copper 36.6 % Folate 42.5 % Iron 27.5 % Magnesium 33.2 % Manganese 45.7 % Niacin 229.5 % Pantothenic Acid 12.4 % Phosphorus 36.3 % Riboflavin 454.8 % Selenium 34.8 % Thiamin 499.8 % Zinc 27.0 %
Monday, November 17, 2008
From Pundits to Puppies
Without getting into the relief and joy of the Presidential Election literally cancelled out by the kick in the guts by the Rovian-like campaign that passed CA Propostition 8, I have been feeling many things including overwhelm and no small degree of depression. That has been lifting and I am almost embarassed to say that Puppy Cam has been my favorite depression-lifting tool this last week. MSNBC broke the story about the live webcam that watches six 5 week old Shiba Inu pups while their people aren't home. (Here's the video of the story.)
(from the homepage) The six Shiba Inu pups (3 boys and 3 girls) turned 5 weeks old on November 11th. This is the first litter from their mom, Kika.
Girls:
-Autumn (Purple collar) - 3 lbs 5.8 oz (as of Nov 11th)
-Ayumi (Yellow collar) - 3 lbs 3.4 oz (as of Nov 11th)
-Amaya (Red collar) - 3 lbs 6.6 oz (as of Nov 11th)
Boys:
-Aki (Green collar) - 4 lbs 0.4 oz (as of Nov 11th)
-Akoni (Black collar) - 3 lbs 12.6 oz (as of Nov 11th)
-Ando (Blue collar) - 4 lbs 1.2 oz (as of Nov 11th)
What started as a great idea to use the Internet and newer technology to keep an eye on their puppies, has become a worldwide phenomenon, or in the current vernacular, it's gone viral. The MSNBC report claimed that over 4 million people have been watching the puppies. I can say that I've been keeping a browser window open throughout the day and between 9:00 am and 9:00 pm, I've seen no fewer than 10,000 viewers on the site and as many as over 30,000. And this is at one time.
But over and above how many other people are watching the puppies, this has been a weird and comforting antidote to all the msnbc.msn.com videos, Keith O and Rachel M videos, youtube campaign videos, more pundits, more campaign videos even more pundits, more campaign woofwoof, opinions, polls and creepy, nerdy Nate Silver in his elongated fifteen minutes of fame with his fivethirtyeight.com savant-i-ness at creating eerily accurate polling outcomes. In answer to all that led up to and beyond November 4th, 2008, there came, into my home a view from a camera, volume on and sometimes off, focused on six adorable, rough and tumble puppies.
When I hear yipping or growling coming from the office and I'm in another room, I hurry in to see what they are up to. I watch them wrestle, play with their variety of toys, twitch in their dreams, pee, visit with their humans and sleep. They sleep a lot and it obvious how much they've grown in just a week. Sometimes their people come in. You never see either of their faces and they have remained anonymous to the world. Some lucky people have seen Kika, their mother come into their pen to nurse. I'm not one of those people.
I found out about Puppy Cam on the veggieboard, that seemingly endless fount of love, friendship, support and magic in my life. I never have to read another online 'zine to know what is going on of any import in the world. I just have to go to my Weight Watchers online group and it's all there. And that was how Puppy Cam has come into my life.
When I told an in-real-life friend about this phenomenon and how attached I've become and how it makes me a little befuddled to have gotten attached to these babies, she replied, "They're babies! Full of love and innocence. And love and innocence make people feel good."
Word to that.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Off Topic: Keith Olbermann Was an American Hero Last Night
Thank you Keith. Last night you were a hero.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Totally Off Topic: Is It Just Me?
The other thing: I watched CSPAN today for hours while the Senate made their pitches and finally voted on the new bailout bill...not that they're daring to call it that anymore....and then I watched them all congratulating themselves at coming to this monumental decision, on our behalves of course, crossing party lines and working together and what a historic day this has been.
John McCain has been talking like a benevolent patriarch grandpa to an adoring audience for about half an hour his tone of voice as he talked about drilling into the body of the Earth and building more nuclear power plants like he's telling a bedtime story, and then tooting his own horn...the level of self-congratulations of all of them makes me feel sort of ill.
I'm not MainfuckingStreet. And I don't trust or believe you. I'm with Bernie.
You Senators all played nice. Woohoo for you. It's a learned skill. Maybe you learned something?
John McCain scares the shit out of me
Over and out.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
What a Difference a Mountain Makes
I know I've mentioned my O/C tendencies and how having a Polar F4 Heart Rate Monitor helps me channel my obsessive/compulsiveness in a good way. I'm constantly gauging time:distance ratios, creating new personal bests, etc. Lately, I have been starting my HRM at the trail head and not right out of the door when I start. Without that 1/4 mile walk down to the trail head in the mix, I realized this morning that my route had four clear sections of 1.3 miles each. That is 5.2 miles, my (so far) personal best. I only do this particular route about once every 1o days or so because this route not only includes about an 800 ft elevation climb, but also, running 5.2 miles, while exhilirating, is hard on my hips and knees and I want to be able to do it for a long time to come. So I take pains to protect my 48 year old body from overdoing injuries.
I usually run every other day. In the dry season, this is the piece of woods I run in. I can't go all the way to the end in a high water year, as there are 3 creek crossings; the first I can creatively get around, the second has an alternate way alongside it instead of over it which is passable in all but the highest water month, but the third is pretty impossible to cross without getting one's feet and lower legs pretty wet which is not very pleasant when the outside temps are only in the 40's. So going all the way to the end of the 1.3, creekside leg is a privilege of the dry season and I do it often. At the end of the 1.3 mile creekside trail are two trails; one in either direction. The one to the left is aptly called Last Chance and goes up a steady, steep incline up to Ridge Road.
I find it a minor miracle that I can run up the whole thing period. And maybe I'm loosely using the word "running" as in I'm using the motions of running, but the grade is so steep for most of the trail that the word that comes to mind when I'm doing it is "shuffling". But today, I wanted to see how long it took me to run each leg as each leg has its challenges.
Leg 1: I'm warming up. I'm breaking through my resisitance to the very act of running for the first few minutes until the endorphins kick in. And they always kick in. It's just a matter of when. Usually, right after they kick in, I've reached the one hill on the trail: a 2/10's of a mile hill that's about a 5% grade.
Leg 2: As I said, about an 800 ft elevation climb over 1.3 miles, grade going as steep as 12% or so.
Leg 3: Just because it's downhill, doesn't mean it's easy. A steep downhill on a rocky trail requires really fit quads, constant vigilance to watch where I put my feet so as not to trip and fall. When you trip going downhill, you're far more likely to go all the way down instead of recover.
Leg 4: I'm entering or somewhere in my 5th mile, the steep downhill is over, I'm on relatively flat ground with the exception of one small hill in the middle and I'm tiring.
And the results today were:
Leg 1: 16 minutes
Leg 2: 26 minutes(!)
Leg 3: 13 minutes
Leg 4: 15 minutes
Total: 70 minutes to run 5.2 miles.
I admit this is very slow running time. Some runners would call it jogging. Snobby ones might call it shuffling. But a year ago I couldn't do this and now I can. Without stopping. And today when I finished getting back up the huge hill to the house my Polar F4 said I had burned 825 calories in 85 minutes: just under 10 per minute including my cool down. Not bad for an aging broad. I'll probably never be a fast runner. And that is just fine. But I can run up a mountain. And I sure like the way that sounds.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
On Being a Role Model and a Hero
Today on the Maintainers thread someone posted this, "I am in a bit of a slump. I have gained in 6 out of the last 7 weigh-ins (net gain of 5.6 pounds). While I am still under goal, this trend is becoming alarming. The only difference lately has been that I am trying to use more of my WPA (weekly Points Allowance: the extra 35 points per week you can use or not at your own discretion.) I have never had much luck with them - a handful here and there has been fine but when I continuously use most of them I gain. This is frustrating because I had been hoping to increase my intake a bit as I am starting to feel like I am dieting again - that I am restricting too much. I kinda hoped that once I maintained for a while I could start to 'live a little' - within moderation. To add insult to injury in my meeting someone kept calling me her 'hero' - I know, it does not sound so bad but I just got the news of another gain and I was not feeling very heroic. She kept asking for advice but I did not feel like my advice was very valuable. Then my leader used me as a 'successful' example in the meeting and I wanted to cry.
"Having lost the weight, do you ever find yourself being looked up to as a role-model? How do you handle it when you are not feeling very inspirational?"
I found I had a lot to say about this and realized this is a blog entry. This is something I want to keep instead of just putting it out there on a message board thread where it will disappear into the annals of time. So here is my reply.
I think I've got a lot to say about all of this. First of all, it doesn't matter how much or little you've lost. If you have lost to goal, you are a role model. Amounts don't matter. That's like saying that the only women worthy of being called beautiful are the photoshopped fakes on billboards and magazines. We are such a culture of extremists. Why is someone who has lost 100 lbs more of a role model than a smaller person who has lost 20? In my mind, the person who turned their ship around before they had 100 lbs to lose is a role model of that which is just as important and valid as the person who did the long, sloggy, hard work to lose the 100. The person who turns their ship around before they are morbidly obese is rolemodeling awareness that they are not OK where they are (20 lbs overweight) and doing the hard work of changing that reality.
I am a role model. And happy to be one. Not just for my successes but for my struggles to stay here, to keep this body. People who think that maintenance is easy are in for a total mindfuck once they get here because it's not easy. It's different from losing, but not easy. Yes, I eat more. I eat a lot more than when I was losing. I'm maintaining around 150 lbs and I eat about 1550-1800 calories a day, which translates upward of 30 pts a day. How do I do that? I am fit. I am really fit. I exercise 1-2 hours just about every day. I do hard cardio and balls-to-the-wall strength training. It has built me a muscle body that burns those calories up. If I were 150 lbs without this tone, I wouldn't be able to eat as much as I do. And yet I struggle with a body that is always pushing for more food, more treats and a head that's always pushing for more intensity and for Pete's sake! I'm 48! I bump up against those 48 year old joints every day. I'm always finding how far I can go without injury.
It's a weird kind of roulette I play. Mostly I win. Sometimes I lose and hurt myself. And the panic and discomfort I experience when I have to stay down! It's high drama, I tell you! But my struggles to stay here are real and they are daily. When a body is "used to" a certain amount of input (calories) and it has gained and has to be dialed in to relose those pounds, it's hardhardhard. But hard almost never stops me from trying and rarely stops me from succeeding. Why? Because it matters to me more than anything. I am fierce about it. And that's what I perceive I need to succeed.
A tool for maintaining that works for me: I have an upper redline and a lower redline. Whatever those numbers are, if I go above the upper, (I've never gone below the lower) then I have to dial in my eating behavior: eat less (which usually translates to snack less/exercise more until I get back in my happy zone or (if it ever came up) eat more so I'd gain back into my happy zone.
I don't feel like I'm on a diet. Why? Because I eat within these new patterns I established for myself over 2 years of losing and 2 1/2 years of maintaining. I really took the "lifestyle" concept to heart all that time ago. I am down with having to journal for life and be O/C about it all. I figure that no one taught this to me as a child: How to have and maintain habits for a healthy relationship with food. I really didn't know how to have a healthy relationship with any of my parts no less my food for so many years. So all of this is only 4 1/2 years old behavior for an old dog trying to learn and set a new trick. I need the structure.
As a maintainer, not only do we have to learn and implement these new behaviors, but we are doing that at the same time we are constantly uprooting the bramble-like tendrils of roots from however we were patterened as children. That's double jeopardy! And we're doing that! And that alone makes every one of us a role model and a hero. If we were perfect, we would demotivate people. It is our struggles and human condition that makes us role models, that others who are far from where we are can look and say, "She's a falliable human being. So am I. That must mean that when I get to goal, I'll be able to keep my weight off too."
Monday, September 08, 2008
I Keep Finding Photos on My Camera that Were Once Integral
Friday, August 29, 2008
Oh These Interesting Times We Live In, or, "In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check." MLK, August 28, 1963
Laura is a mixed race women whose great grandparents on one side were slaves. Below is a promo from her website about her recording NeGrass:
"NeGrass is an acoustic collection of traditional and original field hollers, Negro spirituals and folk songs[.] There is a personal and historic theme to NeGrass. It is something of a family history – Laura takes what she knows of her great grandparents’ lives and imagines how it might have been for them around the end of the Civil War as they were being freed from slavery and embarking into an unfamiliar world. NeGrass is a lovely, heartbreaking and joyful piece of work."
So this past week, I've been listening to NeGrass and thinking about the profound reality that in the 145 years since the Emancipation Proclamation was written into law, we have come to this place today, right here where a black man is running for President of the United States. I found this article today on Truthout.org "So Many Miles From Selma", that speaks to the changes we've come through as a country since the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. There are some great pictures of that historic event here.
My father, Ted Salzman, who was a civil rights activist teaching junior high school math in Harlem, NY at the time, asked me (age 3) if I wanted to go with him to the March on Washington and hear Martin Luther King Jr speak. I remember him explaining who MLK was and why he was going. I also remember him cautioning me that many people didn't want Negro people to have the same rights as white people and that the people marching might have things thrown at them or angry people yelling at them while they were marching. He scared me (I remember this) and I declined to go. To this day I regret that he didn't just take me. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech on that day, 45 years ago, yesterday.
As a woman, I too have a dream. I have a dream that someday I will be represented in the White House by a president who is either a person of color or a woman, preferably both at the same time or one of each. (If I am allowed to get really specific, I have a dream that someday I will be represented by a Progressive, Visionary, Diplomatic, Earth-loving, Vegan, Peace worker, Queer person.) I have a dream that someday I will be represented in Washington and California and in my county of Mendocino by women and people of color. At least 55% so we can be a majority. Surely the day cannot be far off. The reign of the affluent and priveleged white man is over. In my lifetime, may it be so. And ironically enough, with John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate, barring unforseen chaos, I will get my wish. "Be careful what you wish for." Alaskan Governer Palin is one scary woman. When I think of being represented by a woman, I think of Senator Clinton or my personal favorite, CA Congresswoman Barbara Lee who bravely said "NO!" to war after 9/11; the only Congressperson to do so.
Yet, if I come out of the issues and the parties and the positions and into the symbolism of it all, we as a nation have come to the brink of our third Presidential election of the this century, this new Millennium, with an election that will give us either a Black man as a president or a Woman as a vice president. For the first time in our history. In this symbolic context, we are, as Martin Luther King Jr said 45 years ago, "In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check."
May the cashing of this check be for the true good of
women,
people of color,
the poor,
the shrinking middle class,
the dispossesed,
all those at home and abroad suffering due to 8 long, horrific years of the Bush Administration,
the Earth,
choice,
the animals,
the last wild places,
our children
and most of all for Hope, the thing that remained at the bottom of Pandora's box after all the horrors were released into the world.
After the 2004 election, the second stolen election, I packed my Hope away. I was resigned to just be a deep witness to the fall of so much of what I hold sacred. It's feeling like it's now time to pull Hope out of the box.
Uh huh.
Friday, August 15, 2008
An Article I Came Across on Sparkpeople.com Today
I've been sort of stunned at how much I've been eating this summer, actually more stunned by actually losing those pesky 2-3 extra pounds I put on last winter. I'm 148flat and holding steady there while eating between 1550-1800 calories a day. In Weight Watcher points, that's about 30-37 pts a day. When I was in my first year of maintenance, I was eating between 24-28 pts a day, or roughly 1200-1400 calories. So what's up with that? Why am I eating so much more and losing, albeit very slowly? I happened across this article by Coach Dean on Sparkpeople this morning when I went to log my 5 mile run. This is actually two articles. Today's was Part 2, so I'll post the links to both parts, plus copy it here for those who found my blog, but don't want to navigate Sparkpeople.
Part 1
Part 2
High Performance Nutrition - Part 1
The Big Picture: Food as Fuel
-- By Dean Anderson, Fitness & Behavior Expert
Good nutrition provides the foundation for your goals, whether you want to lose weight the healthy way or fuel high-level physical activities. Unless you eat “the right stuff” at the right times, you aren’t going to get very far in either direction.
Unfortunately, what counts as the right stuff often depends on the situation. Your body can’t do everything at once. Restricting your calorie intake to promote weight and fat loss can make it very difficult to build muscle mass or train for endurance events. If you’re trying to combine any or all of these goals, things can get pretty complicated. This article will help you understand the role that carbohydrates play in fueling exercise and recovery and how both the timing and nutritional makeup of your meals and snacks can help you achieve your performance goals.
Fact #1: The more you exercise the more carbohydrates you will need for fuel.
With all the emphasis placed on exercising to lose weight, many people are surprised to hear that exercise itself doesn’t actually burn much fat as fuel. Exercise uses up the calories you've eaten, but most "fat burning" occurs when your body then has to turn to fat stores to fuel basic bodily functions.
To fuel moderate and high intensity exercise, your body relies primarily on carbohydrates (glucose), which are broken down quickly to fuel muscle cells. (Your body can't turn fats and proteins into usable energy quickly enough to meet the demands of exercising muscles.) Therefore, higher intensity cardio and strength training activities will burn more glucose as fuel, and more calories overall. Learn more about the myth of the "fat burning zone" by reading this Ask the Expert Q & A .
Action Step: Don’t limit your carbohydrates.
Most people need about 100-150 grams (400-600 calories) of carbohydrates every day just to fuel their brains and central nervous systems. On top of that, you need additional carbs to replace the energy stores you used when exercising. If you’re trying to lose weight, research shows that a diet where 55-60% of total calories come from carbohydrate is ideal for most physically active people
Fact #2: The fuel you use during exercise doesn't come from your most recent meal.
It takes time to digest your food and turn it into glycogen, which is the primary fuel your muscle cells actually use during exercise. Glycogen is made out of glucose (which comes from carbohydrates) and is stored in both your muscle cells and liver. As long as you're eating enough nutrients to meet your activity needs, your body can store enough glycogen to handle about 2000 calories worth of high-intensity activity or 4000 calories worth of lower-intensity activity—even if you haven’t eaten in a while.
If you’re highly active, you should plan your meals and snacks so that you don’t run out of muscle glycogen at the wrong time (like in the middle of an exercise session). A marathon runner can deplete her glycogen stores before the end of a single race (called “bonking” or “hitting the wall”). A more casual exerciser can run out of glycogen after a few days of not eating enough carbohydrates and total calories to replace it.
Action Step: Eat enough total calories to support your activity level.
The combination of a low-calorie diet and a high level of exercise will force your body to breakdown muscle tissue to meet your immediate energy needs. Total calorie deficits of more than 500-1000 calories per day will actually inhibit exercise performance—even for moderate exercisers.
Fact #3: Planning nutritious meals will help you recover from exercise.
The most important window for replenishing glycogen is the four to five hours immediately after a vigorous exercise session. During this time, the enzymes responsible for this process are more active and effective.
Most healthy people don’t really need to eat immediately before exercise. But eating a small snack or meal 20-60 minutes before an exercise session will trigger an insulin response that helps glucose enter your muscle cells, making it easier to exercise without discomforts like dizziness, faintness, or a general lack of energy. But if you or your stomach prefers not to eat before a workout, you should have plenty of muscle glycogen to fuel one to two hours of moderate to vigorous exercise before eating. To learn more about exercising in the morning or on an empty stomach, read this Ask the Expert Q & A.
Action Step: Eat a good post-exercise meal.
Sports nutritionists recommend that active people eat about 250-300 calories (with a 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein) within 90 minutes after exercising. This breaks down to about 50-60 grams of carbs and 12-15 grams of protein.
Putting It All TogetherWhen you put these facts together into one big picture, you can see that keeping your glycogen tanks topped off is the key factor to maintaining your ability to perform at a high level while losing weight; the Action Steps outlined above will help you do just that.
Article created on: 8/16/2006
Putting It All Together
When you put these facts together into one big picture, you can see that keeping your glycogen tanks topped off is the key factor to maintaining your ability to perform at a high level while losing weight; the Action Steps outlined above will help you do just that.
High Performance Nutrition - Part 2
Recommendations for Very Active People
-- By Dean Anderson, Fitness & Behavior Expert
Trying to lose weight while eating enough to support vigorous endurance or strength training can be a very tricky business. Cutting too many calories can cause the body to breakdown muscle tissue to meet its energy needs, and make it impossible to replenish energy reserves in time for your next workout. In turn, both of these consequences can lower your metabolism, making it much more difficult to shed body fat and improve body composition.
Most people who consistently exercise more than 60 minutes per day at high intensity levels need to adjust their nutrition plans in one or more of the following ways:
*Adjusting carbohydrate, protein, and fat intake so that the amount of each nutrient is appropriate for your individual body size and the type, intensity, duration, and frequency of your physical activity
*Timing meals and snacks in relation to exercise so that the right amount of fuel is available when needed
*Using appropriate fluid and energy replacement strategies during long and intense exercise sessions
Below, you’ll find some general recommendations in each of these three areas that you can use as a starting point for finding the right combination for yourself. These recommendations are based on a recent survey of studies, presented in the American Dietetics Association’s Position Statement on Nutrition and Athletic Performance (2004). You can access the full statement at the ADA’s website, http://www.eatright.org/.
Nutrient Recommendations for Very Active People
The following chart shows how active and very active people can adjust their intake of the three macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein and fat).
Active is defined as taking part in planned, continuous exercise that is equivalent to walking 6-10 miles per day (a calorie expenditure of 600-1000 calories/day).
Very active is defined as taking part in planned, continuous exercise that is equivalent to walking more than 10 miles per day (a calorie expenditure of 1000+ calories/day).
Although aerobic exercise typically burns more calories per training session, most individuals whose major form of training is strength training should consider themselves to be in the “very active” category, due to the nutritional needs associated with larger amounts of lean body mass and the glycogen-depleting effects of extensive, anaerobic strength training.
Nutrient Needs Based on Activity Level and Body Weight
Carbs:
Active: 2.3-3.2 grams/lb of body weight
Very Active: 3.2-5.5 grams/lb of body weight
Protein:
Active: 0.6-0.7 grams/lb of body weight
Very Active: 0.7-1.0 grams/lb of body weight
Fat:
Balance of total calories after meeting above requirements
Note: To avoid performance delcine, people attempting to lose weight while engaging in demanding athletic training should not reduce their calorie intakes by more than 10-20% (or by more than 500-1000 calories per day). For good health, total fat intake should not fall below 15% of total calories.
Meal Contents & Timing for Very Active People
The Pre-Exercise Meal: Your individual reaction should be the primary factor that determines what, when and how much you eat prior to exercise. For many, eating before exercise enhances performance—especially during long exercise sessions that can exhaust glycogen reserves. Since most people find it difficult to exercise with a full stomach, you should allow plenty of time for digestion (about 3-4 hours before exercise) in order to get the energy benefits of a pre-exercise meal.
For long bouts of higher intensity exercise, studies show that eating 200-300 grams of carbohydrates during the pre-exercise meal results in an endurance boost. This meal should be relatively low in fat and fiber, and moderate in protein (a 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein), to promote stomach emptying and reduce the potential for gastric distress.
The Post-Exercise Meal: Most people can replace the glycogen used during an intense exercise session within 24 hours without a special eating schedule (provided that overall nutrition is adequate). However, the best time to replenish your glycogen and nutrients is within the first 4-5 hours (and especially the first 90 minutes). If you participate in more than one exercise session per day, you'll need to pay close attention to your post-exercise meals.
Research indicates that eating a high-carbohydrate meal (about 0.7 grams per pound of body weight or 1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight) immediately after exercise is the best way to replenish glycogen.
Various types of carbohydrates will affect glycogen replenishment rates. Eating simple sugars and high GI (glycemic index) foods results in slightly faster storage rates during the immediate post-exercise period. This is important when immediate glycogen replenishment is needed, such as taking part in both an intense training session and athletic event in the same day. Whole foods containing higher proportions of fat, fiber, and protein result in slower replenishment rates, but overall, these foods should make up the bulk of most people's diets.
Including protein in your post-exercise meal does not seem to affect glycogen replenishment rates. In fact, eating plenty of amino acids is important for muscle recovery after each workout (especially after strength training). The general recommendation is to include a 4:1 carbohydrate-protein ratio when eating after a workout.
Fluid and Energy Replacement during Extended Exercise
Optimal performance during extended exercise sessions occurs when the rate of fluid taken in equals the rate of fluid lost through sweating. For most people, this means drinking about 20 ounces of water before exercising; 6-12 ounces of fluid for every 15-20 minutes of high intensity exercise; and 16-24 ounces for every pound lost during exercise. This post-exercise drinking can be spread over time, as dictated by your thirst.
If you exercise intensely for more than 60-90 minutes, experts recommend that you drink a beverage containing carbohydrates and sodium (such as a sports drink) to meet part of your fluid needs. Sodium isn't typically needed for electrolyte replacement during exercise, but it can make it easier to stay well hydrated by increasing your desire to drink. Endurance exercisers such as marathoners often eat carbohydrates in the form of gels during events to maintain blood glucose levels and hold off glycogen depletion for as long as possible.
You may need to experiment with these general recommendations to find a combination that works well for you. Although it is possible to lose weight and maintain a very high level of athletic performance, keep in mind that these are two competing priorities, with no simple solution. Success at both depends on a balanced nutritional approach that does not sacrifice your long-term goals for an immediate benefit.
(end)
I found these articles interesting, but not really how I eat my post exercise meal. As a Weight Watcher, I learned long ago that I need lots of protein for breakfast to keep me going for at least 4 hours before I feel hungry again. Since I'm such a nighttime eater, it is imperative for me to eat basically just my three meals during the day with maybe a small snack between my relatively small lunch and large dinner. Over the course of a 24 hour day I eat close to Coach Dean's recommended ratios, but my way seems to be working for me. At the end of the day, my carb to protein ratio is about 3.75:1, rather than 4, but I do think we are all very different and have different needs. And 3.75:1 isn't grossly different from 4:1.
What's true: I feel great. I look great. I can run for 5 miles, albeit not fast, but it's the endurance I'm more interested in. And so it goes. Now I'm off to eat one of my huge breakfasts so I can replace my glycogen stores for later :-)
My Big Fat Breakfast:
Tofu Veggie Hash
3 oz Wildwood Super firm High Protein Tofu, 1/2 cup sliced leeks, 1 cup sliced mushrooms, 3 cups baby spinach, 2 tsp gomasio (sesame salt), 1/2 jalapeno pepper, 1 1/2 Tbsp nutritional yeast all sauted together with 1 cup fat free frozen hash browns added at the end.
Nutritional Info
Servings Per Recipe: 1
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 294.3
Total Fat: 8.2 g
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
Sodium: 270.6 mg
Total Carbs: 34.4 g
Dietary Fiber: 8.1 g
Protein: 26.8 g
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
148.8 and Some Musings About Yin and Yang and the Past
I remember taking him as a baby to Anderson Hall in Camp Meeker where I did an aerobics class. I can't remember how many times a week I went, just that I did and that he wasn't the only baby. If I was lucky, he'd be asleep and sleep through the class. Otherwise, I'd have to run to the sidelines and nurse him while all sweaty and breathing hard. I remember wanting my body back, but just in a matter-of-fact way. And it was so easy to do. I remember that in my 20's, although I was this size, I was dissatisfied with my shape and size for the most part. But I remember going to the women's gym in Sebastopol in the mid 80's before the liabilitiy insurance crisis that wiped so many small businesses, including The Spa right off the map. I went to yoga classes at the new gym Coaches' Corner, tried an aerobic class or two, but I'm so spatially dyslexic that the more fussy, dance-steppy aerobic class format that grew into being in the late 80's/early 90's left me tripping over my feet and spending way too much energy trying to get the steps right rather than get much exercise. Instead, I would go running before work at the Junior College's track. I never ran far or fast, but I would go to the track for about an hour a few days a week, sneak into the poolhouse showers, shower and change and then go start my work day.
But I did make an effort to exercise in my 2o's. Nowhere near as focused as now, but I did seek it out and I held my weight right about where it is now. It was The Bad Boyfriend years; 1989-1992 where things shifted for the worse for me in just about everyway with the outward manifestation being my slow, but steady weight gain and my growing disconnect from living in my body as I drifted into my 30's, a drug habit, smoking cigarettes (again) and found myself completely entangled in an emotionally abusive relationship. My 30's were surely the Big Life Lessons Decade for me in so many ways. Fortunately, I think I actually learned a lot of my lessons that the Universe was giving me and I've lived to tell the tales.
So here I am: 48 years old and feeling better in my skin than I did at 32. Feeling better in my spirit and my heart than I did at 32. Feeling better in my inner eye's view of myself than I ever have. And there is this curious thing that I really haven't put much into words yet: As my muscle body has gotten more and more established and visible, as my hair has gone from long to relatively short, as I've gone from my "breeder" years into peri-menopause, as I've gone from trying to live a heterosexual life into a queer one, I've taken on more of my own yang nature. I have found, to some degree, my inner butch. As the years have passed, my closet has completely changed from the femmy, silky flowy things of my younger years into tee shirts with the sleeves cut off (thanks, Tara!) $125 trail running shoes, low cut long shorts, boy's jeans and even chinos. I still have 2 dresses. They are both tie-dyes in purple shades: One a tank short dress, one a tank long dress, both for those hothothot summer days where clothes are required, but I've just got to have bare legs. Tara is always so greatful and wolfy when I wear them because I was a feminine grrl when we got together. But my muscle body carries a far more yang energy and I have taken much delight in exploring this aspect of self.And as a feminist that came out queer so late in life and now lives a far more separatist reality than most of my lesbian peers, accepting this male aspect of self is good. I feel it is healing places in my that carry a lifetime of damage. I never felt that male = bad and wrong, but oh, the damge done to me by that sector and the many, many years of healing necessary to come to where I am. So this is good. Another musing: I realized the other day that when I'm checking out my muscles or how flat my belly is in profile, I prefer looking at my right side. This is the yang side of the body. When I do yoga in my livingroom, I face north/east. The window with the morning sun illuminated the right side of my body. The left side is always more in shadow. And since I use a mirror when I do yoga, my right side is brighter and easier to see. And for some reason, maybe the light issue, my left side doesn't look as good to me; muscles less defined, belly not quite as flat. And I know this isn't true. I confessed this to Tara yesterday and she agreed that it wasn't true. But there it is: not a rejection of the feminine side of myself, but a preference for looking at the male side. Speaking to this is a vulnerable thing because it's not all neatly wrapped up, analyzed and packaged to present to the world. But this is my blog and the recording of my life, thoughts, deeds, processes so here it is, like a sentence without a period.
So here I am at 7:00 am feeling the pull of what awaits me this morning. I have a nice space right now for at least a 60 minute yoga practice, so I'm going to sign off and do that. I am thankful for this beautiful life and this beautiful body in all her processes. I am so keenly aware that my time to dance on the Earth is not infinite. And as I've said before, I feel like I am making up for so many years of living like I didn't even have a body. It's a curious process, but I'm grateful for all the awarenesses that have been offered to me. And I'm grateful to Louisa, someone I don't even know, who left such a kind comment on my prior post early this morning which inspired me to write more today.
So 148.8. The expression "You've come a long way, baby," rings in my head: To be so happy with this number, to feel like I am successful because I can maintain here feels like a state of grace after all the years and miles of wanting a different body size, a different body shape. My shape is beautiful and my size is just right. And that is my ongoing soul mantra. And the best part is that I believe it.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
And Time Keeps Drifting
After lunch on Saturday, I picked up Mar and went to Wright's Beach. I had been very fortunate in speaking to my friend Bill the day before and lamenting that every campsite at every Sonoma Coast beach was booked every weekend night through the rest of the summer and he told me about the overflow parking at Wright's beach. Mar and I had a reservation next to the Spud Point Marina in Bodega Bay, but I really didn't want to be RVing in what was essentially a park for people who go out on boats fishing, no ocean beach because it was the bay, close, but not quite, but that was all I could procure from my computer and phone in Willits in the days beforehand.
So back to my long, winding excuse as to why I haven't blogged in a month: The next weekend, just a few days later on Thursday had us leaving for Born To Drum Women's Drum Camp, being held this year at the beautiful Walker Creek Ranch in West Marin County. Thursday night we camped in the RV in my friend Randi's driveway in the Oakland Hills as there was to be a concert of all the drum teachers at La Pena in Berkeley. The show was fabulous, we got little sleep and got up in the morning and motored off to camp where we spent the next three days and two nights drumming and being in a blessedly beautiful multicultural group with about 200 women. There were women from Ghana, the Congo, Venezuela, Cuba and many more places. There were Latina women, Black women, Indian women, white women, all there to drum, to learn, to fill our wells up and bring this joy, these rhythms back into our lives to maybe share with our friends, or in my case, my students. I took no pictures. I did no focused exercises. I schlepped my heavy oak conga (albeit in a bag with wheels) from one classroom to another for Afro-Cuban style classes and my big Dun-Dun (also in a bag with wheels) to my 2 classes with Mabiba, Congolese Drum and Dance Master from The Congo. I tried (and miserably failed at) an African Dance class too. We were going going going all day long into the wee hours of the night. I probably drummed, cumulatively about 6+ hours every day. Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Things I See Out My Living Room Window
And today, nearing the end of drum class, I looked up and out the sliding glass door to see these two tom turkeys locked in fierce battle. We all stopped drumming to watch. The battle went on for a long time; about 10 minutes. One turkey looked like his entire beak was down the throat of the other turkey.
PS: All the while the hen turkey was totally focused on her not-so-young-anymore brood and off in the brush about 50 yards away. We didn't think she was very impressed.
And these are my neighbors; the beings I share this air, this water, this little piece of Earth with.
(I wonder what they think when they see me through my livingroom window doing yoga? "She's strange, but she throws lots of veggie trimmings out into the field, so she couldn't be all bad.")
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
We're Married! (Again) And Some Wedding Photos
I am so happy to once again be a part of history in the making.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Time is a Drifter: What I've Been Doing

I started weight training. I am doing the workout in this book: Weight Training Made Easy by Joyce L. Vedral, Ph.D. I didn't start here. I started with Jillian Michaels' Shred DVD. Jillian is one of the trainers on that (popular, but don't ask me why) show The Biggest Loser. She's a real bootcamp style instructor and what I discovered is the purpose of the Shred DVD is to maximize a very small amount of time to burn the maximum amount of calories while doing Jillian's 3,2,1 method of strength training, cardio and abdominal work. The pace is very fast and she repeats over and over that in a 20 minute workout (it's really 27 from start to finish) it's really important to just keep going to maximize your workout.
Now I know that many people idolize Jillian Michaels and her tough love approach, but I must say that I am not one of them. On my third day of Shred, I injured my bicep. I have never worked out with weights before and between the fast pace and the boot camp style of the workout, I probably moved incorrectly and injured myself. (Let me just add that for people who can only carve out 30 minutes a day for exercise, Shred might be the perfect thing for them. I, however, have prioritized my exercise program and have crafted a life that allows me to have all the time I want for my fitness program.)
When I mentioned my Shred injury on one of my support groups on the Weight Watchers message boards, Celeste recommended Joyce Vedral Ph.D.'s, Weight Training Made Easy. I took it out of my library to see if I would 1) relate to it 2) like it 3) actually do it. And I think I do. And the program is easy to learn. There is an upper body workout that you do on Day 1 and a lower body workout that you do on Day 2. So far, I've done upper body 3x and lower body 2x. As my schedule would have it, and this is the same awkwardness I found with the Shred workout: Where do I put it in my day? I don't seem to have this problem with yoga and cadio. I do yoga to stretch and warm and tone and then I go hike or run. If I'm going to do both in the same time period, I do one hour of yoga and about an hour of cardio. I have not found the same ease of transition between weight training and cardio. They feel to me like they need to be in two different sessions. And since yoga is strength training in a different way, I don't feel the need to do both in one day. Yet, I don't want to sacrifice either a yoga practice or a cardio workout for free weights. So I'm still muddling my way through. What that has looked like is I did the upper body workout by itself the first time, then have done the upper and lower together as one long session two times. I'm still learning how to do it, so I've taken 90 minutes to do both. She says in the book that once you get really familiar with it and start pyramid training, you do your upper body in 15-20 minutes. Right now it's taking me 50. Maybe it's because I reread the instructions and study the photographs over and over to make sure I'm doing it right. Today was an upper and lower body day. Now it is 100 degrees out and I doubt I'll get any hard cardio in, but I may walk or run in the woods later in the day. Tara says my arms look more buff in just 2 sessions. I'm feeling pretty good about that!
I've asked myself why am I doing this? Yoga tones and strengthens me as well as feeds my heart and spirit. Running and hiking in the woods has helped me build the best cardio vascular health of my life. So why this? I think the answer is, "Because it is new and different." I realize that I am putting a whole lot of focus on what I'm calling "personal best" in my fitness routines. I'm doing more yoga and doing things that are more challenging than what I had been doing just a few short months ago. I'm running farther and somewhat faster, but most importantly exciting to me is that I'm running up hills. Not just the downs and short distances of flat ground, but uphill too. I am feeling that same sexy feeling I had when I was losing weight and my body was changing. My body is changing, learning, growing stronger and that, to me, is the best physical feeling in the world.
And now I want to explore free weight training. To tell the truth, this whole intensified focus on fitness feels like some kind of "do over". I lived like I didn't even have a body for much of my adult life. I have over 15 years of a sedentary lifestyle to "make up for", or as I said, "do over". Of course, I can't go back and actually do it over, but I can take that childlike glee in my strength, that teenaged crush that I have on my body, that young adult drive for bigger, better, faster, more (of course tempered with middle aged reality checks), and have at it. I don't want to race, body build or compete with another person in any way shape or form. I just want to keep finding my edge, glory in rubbing on that edge for a while and then push past it to find the next edge. I'm going to turn 48 in just a few days and I want to be a very fit woman for the rest of my life, however long I get.
The truth, as I see it, is that our spirits, our souls, our love light and maybe our intellect dwell in the body and maybe are eternal and maybe not....we really don't know. What we do know is that our bodies only have this one turn. And after so many years of blatant disregard I am making up for lost time, if that is even possible. What I feel very deeply is that to be able to move gracefully and easily through space, to not be in the pain of injury and neglect all the time is one of the biggest gifts I've ever given to myself. And my prayer is that I get to keep giving it to myself for the rest of my life.
And that's a whole lot of what I've been doing lately.
Time is a Drifter: Significant Events: Soon to Occur
Homophobia, hate and ignorance could possibly undo the decision that wound its way for almost 4 years through the court system, back to the same court that voided my San Francisco marriage license from February 2004 (as if it had never taken place), which decided on May 16th, 2008 that equality for all Californians included the rights, responsibilities and privileges of marriage. I spoke to my Law Professor friend Craig Smith and he explained that if the ballot measure passes, what was done is done and can't be undone. So I am quite sure that hundreds if not thousands of lesbian and gay couples will be flocking to their County Clerks offices and getting marriage licenses. And goddess forbid, if the measure passes, we will be in this grey area of queers that are legally married in the state of California. Which of course, will bring about another several years of law suits. I really don't know why they are so threatened by us and our desire to have the protections as well as the many responsibilities of marriage.
So I'm a little verklempt. We're getting married, but we're not having a planned wedding, vows we write, the right clothes to wear, a party, a honeymoon. We're basically eloping again, but this time with more than a few hours notice. My son will be there as will Tara's surrogate mother. We have a friend to take pictures and a friend to perform the ceremony. Some of our local friends will be there to witness us. And I'm sure we won't have to stand on line for 4 hours like we did in San Francisco. This license, unlike the other one will have a state file number on it and will be recorded for the history books.
I have to stand up for the history books. And one day our grandkids, or someone else's grandkids will wonder what all the fuss was about. Like love is love is love and who cares what the genetalia of the one you love looks like? As the church lady said to us 4 1/2 years ago after we married the first time, "Jesus loves committed love. How wonderful! Congratulations!"
And June 17th is the first day we have access and I want to marry on the first day. We'll have our real ceremony/party/honeymoon later when we can afford it. June 17th was my parent's wedding anniversary. Since my father is dead, that has become a sad date for my mother. Now it can be a happy one again because it'll be her daughters' anniversary as well as thousands of other lesbian and gay couple's anniversaries. And since my mother doesn't have a homophobic bone in her body, is a progressive who wants her kids to be happy and chafes against oppression of any kind, this will be a good day for her; a happy day again.
And it will certainly be a happy day for us. For me and my fiance, Tara :-) (I am a fiance! I have a fiance.....how odd! How wonderful!) I wonder if anyone will throw rice.....
Time is a Drifter: Significant Events: Anniversary
I had my one year vegan anniversary on Thursday. Back in April 2007 I started this experiment to "have a vegan day today," making it a decision I made every day or not, so there was no failure. It was my second attempt to basically go vegan from omnivore. I had basically been a once in a while fish or poultry eater who had let go of dairy with a rare exception of parmasean or feta cheeses. I was drinking my coffee with soy creamer, and happily so, eggs I could take or leave and it was only those two salty cheeses that still felt like they had a relationship with me.
And yes, I get enough protein, Vitamin B-12, calcium, folate, iron, etc. I'm doing great. I feel no sacrifice in eating this way; rather an expansiveness of spirit that feels in line with the rest of my "program".Thursday, May 22, 2008
Liberty Kisses Justice

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
I've Been Inspired in a Techno Yoga Sort of Way
On May 13, 2008, I, Maddy Avena discovered yoga podcasts. Yes it's true. "Podcast" was a hum I heard on the peripheral edges of my awareness, but I didn't relate to it in my life. Lately, in my home practice I've been prefering taking my now three Shiva Rea CD sets and mixing different flows from them. I like it because I get to situate myself in the choicest spot in the very small area I have to work within and I know the flows, the poses and their names, how to flow into and out of them, as I come up on my 4th anniversary of having a yoga practice. Saturday, May 10, 2008
Pacha Mama's Performance at the Willits Methodist Church
We performed our signature piece Kpatcha (pronounced Pacha), a five bell part using the double bells from Ghana called Gonkogui bells. We started the piece in the entryway and marched up the aisle onto the stage, all playing Part 1, then on my call broke into the five parts.
After playing Kpatcha, my four valient beginners who dared to perform came on stage and we played our favorite 6/8 rhythm called Yan Valu. I admit, we had a "plant" in the audience; the lithesome Melinda Clarke, local dance teacher, got up and started dancing and encouraging others to get up and dance. Many of our friends were in the audience and they immeditately complied. There were 20 or more people dancing in front of the stage and in the aisles. The old school church ladies sat stiffly in varying amounts of horror, but I think they got over it and if not? It wasn't church, it was The Soul Cafe; Bringing the Communinty Together Through the Spirt of Music and that's what we did!
As usual, all the stress of getting ready for our 15 minutes (literally) of fame; which was 2 months of Friday rehearsals was rewarded in an exhilirating experience, I do believe for all involved in the long road leading to the performance.
And True Grit doesn't begin to cover it: Lily sprained her hand two weeks before the performance and played anyway. Tara, who's been battling staph pushed through. Rosie and Linda came to every rehearsal and class from an hour away in two different directions. And the core of Pacha Mama; Starr, Louise, Kimball, Lily, PJ, Kathy, Tara and myself rode again; each time getting more solid; each time growing as a group.
My vision of 1) birthing a drum circle and 2) creating a Willits Women's Conga Conspiracy is coming more and more manifest. And I believe our drumming heals something in the hearts and spirits of all who experience us. Including us. Blessed Be!
Friday, May 02, 2008
What Was (to me) a Sobering Truth About Maintaining
"Exercise Recommendations for Calorie-Burning Activity"
I'm just going to copy and paste the entire article here in my blog and hope the Corporation doesn't sue me for sharing free information. For acknowledgment purposes, the original article can be linked to here.
APRIL, 2006 - People often ask, "How much exercise should I be doing?" While this seems like a straightforward question, the answer is, "It depends on what you're trying to achieve." Exercise recommendations vary depending on the desired benefit. For example, the amount of exercise required for lasting weight loss and cardiovascular benefits is considerably more than the amount needed for general health benefits like lower blood pressure and stress reduction.
Right here the "ahas" started for me. I've been maintaining my goal weight with normal small ups and downs for over two years now. However, the amount and intensity level of the exercise I get has increased steadily over that time. Sometimes I have wondered where my "ceiling" is; meaning, how far can I go? How much can I push? Is it a finite amount? Have I already reached it? Am I working my body towards wearing out knees, elbows, shoulders, ankles? Is the intensity of the cardio I do good for my heart or bad?
While this article doesn't answer those questions, it does give parameters for how much a person has to workout to maintain their weight loss. I think this information is key for me not regaining my weight. I do lots of maintenance care to my joints now so that they can continue to carry me on my fitness journey for a long time to come, because the truth is that I love to eat and I am sure not eating like I did on the weight loss program. How I needed to eat to lose wasn't a set of conditions that I was readily going to choose for how I would relate to food for the rest of my life. I am a person to whom food is a great pleasure, love on a plate, art, communion with the life force and quite frankly, something I think an inordinate amount about. I don't want to change that about how I live my life. I was willing to not eat pasta for 2 years to lose. I was willing to eat huge volumes of vegetables and ration my bread. But I found that willingness with a codicil which was: This is how I get thin. This is not, cannot be how I stay thin! So therein comes my fitness program; this ever evolving, changing, growing part of my daily life. I will confess to sometimes looking at my heart rate monitor as I'm running up a long hill counting off the cookie calories I ate the night before. Burn 81 calories, "There's one cookie," Burn another 81 calories, "There's another cookie," and so on. And so far so good. It's working. I'm holding pretty darned steady at 150+/-. And that's right where I want to be.
(Below, is the article in total with footnotes at the bottom.)
Health Benefits
According to the Surgeon General's Report and the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, adults can derive the general health benefits from doing at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity (e.g. brisk walking, biking) most days of the week.1 For most people, this level of activity translates into burning around 150-200 calories per exercise session.
Weight Management Benefits
For weight loss, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends 200-300 minutes or 2000 calories per week. This translates into 60 minutes of daily activity and burning around 300-400 calories per exercise session.2,3
To prevent weight regain, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans relied on a growing body of research to make the recommendation of 60-90 minutes of daily moderate-intensity activity, burning around 400-500 calories per exercise session. This level of activity was also found among those enrolled in the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR). Participants in the Registry, which includes individuals who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for more than a year, report expending over 2,500 calories per week doing physical activity which also translates into burning around 400-500 calories per exercise session.
To prevent excess weight gain, the International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO) recommends 45-60 minutes of moderate intensity activity each day. The Dietary Guidelines have similar goals, recommending 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous-intensity activity on most days of the week. 4 Not all studies support this high of a goal, however. A 2004 study found that 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity (the equivalent of walking 12 miles per week) was sufficient to prevent weight gain.5
Fitness Benefits
Many people believe that being physically active automatically equates to cardiovascular fitness. To optimize fitness levels, the body must be regularly stressed to reach peak physical condition. To become physically fit, the ACSM recommends a comprehensive activity plan which includes 30-45 minutes of vigorous activity at least three days a week for cardi


