Hoping

As of 1:09 PM

6:30 AM – Bikram (approx. calories burned: 900)
Breakfast: 1/2 Gala Apple, 1 Banana, 1 Mini Banana Bread Cliff Bar (stolen from Nanowrino Wirte-A-Thon)
Lunch: 1/2 Rotisserie Chicken w/ Rice Pilaf & Roasted Asparagus (leftovers in fridge for tomorrow)
Snuck in: 1 small (size of thumb print) piece of chocolate shortbread, 1 Milky Way Mini
Water: 64 oz consumed
Calories consumed: 1,197

I was hoping by the time I was back on blogger there would be better templates. Or at least new templates. I was wrong. With everyone and their mother these days knowing basic html, anyone can customize and switch up their templates right quick.

Oh well.

I’m doing this, mostly for myself.

Ok, I am doing this, 100% for myself. I found that my old personal blog kept me honest to a fault and while this is only going to really be about food/exersize/body image, I need to do the same, keep it real, no smoke screens or white lies about what I put inside nad how I much I exert out. I need real live information.

In talking to my sister last night about the pros and cons of going on a vegitarian, or semi-vegitarian diet, I confessed that I doubt I would be able to do this. My boyfriend working in the meat business aside, going veggie would turn my world upside down.

A future of fruit and veggies alone would not fare well on my psyche.

You see, I am still emotionally scarred from the Low Carb diet. And while I threw that fad away a long time ago, somewhere in the back of my brain a voice is screaming, always screaming, when I pick up a piece of Orrowheat 100% Whole Wheat Bread.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re brown! Put it down!!!”

Carbohydrates are the devil, they will spike your sugar and shrink your jeans. They will ruin your life.

See? See how I do? I take it to a whole new level of fear.

And I say this like eating eggs, bacon and red meat everyday was not, in itself, fearful as well.

One extreme to the next. It’s a hard hard road, that middle ground. I swing just to the left and just to the right, never quite finding the right balance.

I guess that’s why I took such a liking to yoga when I was first dragged to the Yoga Loft by my skinny bff Miranda. Miranda, all 100 lbs of her, was made for yoga. She didn’t have the issue I had in twists and forward bends where I could only go as far as my belly would allow. I’ve manually had to handle my fat parts, moving them behind a leg to twist one way or another.

I’ve seen myself in half moon pose in a mirror and it ain’t a pretty sight, the curves being pulled down by gravity, like my flab was dripping off to the side.

But I kept going to yoga because it was one physical activity I could do without panting, without breathing heavy, without breaking a cankle or two.

While my practice has been on and off, this past year, it has been on in a way that it has never been on. I joined a gym a block from my office because it had it’s own yoga studio that looks like a yoga studio. It even feels like a yoga studio. Hardwood floors, adjustable lighting, mats, straps, blocks and blankets. Perfect.

I was knee deep in Vinyasa flow classes. It was great. I felt strong. I alternated cardio on non-class days. I felt muscles grow. I gained weight.

Yeah. I gained weight.

Muscle weight, yes. But also fat. You see, I also gained a relationship this year, complete with the freshman 10. It’s that love fat. It’s the all I want to do is be with you and eat biscuits kinda love.

So while I was working out like a I was training for a marathon, I was gaining weight, sneaky pounds here and there. I would lose 2 lbs and then gain 3. I couldn’t manage it. I stopped caring. I would do my yoga, I would halfheartedly do 20 minutes on an elpitical, go home and eat a handful of cookies and call it a day. Baaaaaaad.

In the beginning of this month I started doing NaNoWriMo. No time like the present to complete a novel. I had several pages already from my failed 2006 attempt. I already had a head start! I had imagined mornings and evenings at La Boulangerie with a gigantic bowl full of latte and a chocolate hazelnut croissant. I would put my laptop to good use and use it in public for once, as God had intended.

Oh, plans. I love having plans. I make them and then all of a sudden a chocolate hazelnut croissant was no longer enough to entice me to the bakery to write. That and the stupid bakery closed at 7. Wtf? Seriously?

2 weeks into the novel fiasco, I am looking for an out. I want out and I want out baaad. I planned out Sunday, Nov 30th, as my allnighter, like the many I had done at Emerson, because inspiration always strikes when the deadline is like, 4 hours away, right? I wrote a handful of words here and there. I couldn’t get big chunks of the book down like I had planned. And I decided to find distraction in yoga. After the BF and I weighed ourselves one night I internally cringed. I couldn’t believe it. I had gained back 11 lbs I knew I had lost in the beginning of the year.

Out of nowhere last week I decided it would be a good idea to just go to a Bikram class.

So I went Saturday morning. I had an already busy day planned but I got up early and went to the studio, signed up for the $30 for 30 days and stepped into the sauna only to emerge 90 minutes later lightheaded, somewhat broken, but definitely 5 lbs in water weight thinner.

I walked home, drinking my now warm water (heated from being in the room with me for 90 minutes!), eating a banana, basking in the sun.

I had the strength and energy to make it through the rest of my busy day of protesting at City Hall, lunch with the girls, nap with the cat and the writing spree at NaNoWriMo’s Write-A-Thon. I got home from the SOMA arts center around 11:30PM. I made porkchops for the boyfriend for dinner. We ate. Then my roommate with others in tow came home and I managed to make it through our mini houseparty till 4AM. Bikram didn’t drain me, as expected, but kept me fueled through a 20 hour day.

I felt amazing. But then again I knew I was actually using Bikram as a new distraction from writing. Why I dread the book so much so, I would take up physical activity as an excuse to not write, is beyond me.

I’ll be hiding under my yoga mat and avoiding my laptop if you need me.