The World According to Jennyfur

Sometimes I think I am my own worst critic and that I tend to guilt trip myself over minuscule offenses. I guess this is probably a good thing and a bad thing.  I’ve been feeling guilty that I haven’t really either had the time to work out or the impetus to work out very much this week. Its been off and on like this since November.  Its not to say that I’ve been hibernating in a cave by any means. I’ve just wavered from sticking to a 20-90 minute daily workout.

I made it out to an Align & Flow yoga class on Tuesday at Dhyana Yoga in Olde City.  I got my usual daily walking quote in Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. I was under the weather on Thursday so I took a sick day for my yearly internal server maintenance. My body demanded to be taken offline for 24  hours and I obeyed. This week promises to be a little more enterprising. I have the potential to take yoga classes Wednesday and Thursday, in addition to the arm balance clinic I signed up for at the Mainline Dhyana Yoga.

In comparison to my activity levels prior to  January 2009, even at my most epic slacking these days, I am still leaps and bounds more active than I was back then. I just end up feeling guilty when I am not constantly pushing myself. I wasn’t feeling overly energetic this evening, but managed to squeeze out an hour long yin yoga / restorative yoga session at home. I think I needed it more mentally than physically, but that is one of the great thing about yoga — heals the body, mind and spirit and depending on your needs you can focus on the area most deficient.

I guess I wouldn’t feel so bad with the fluctuations in my fitness regime had my weight and appetite not also been in flux. My weight has been fluctuating around for the past few weeks. I’ve gone anywhere from 157 to 165. I weigh myself daily and its up and down and up and down. My appetite has been elevated lately, but I think that is because of the time of year and that it is cold. I’m trying to reign it in a little. I adjusted my Weight Watcher’s maintenance points down to 25 from 26 since I was burning through most of my flex points for the week, at least this will hopefully keep me in line and I will level out back around 160.

Following up to my last blog post about the problems I had been having with my hips… I am happy to report that those issues have seemingly resolved a bit. I found the perfect hip strengthening DVD: Yoga Link: Hip Helpers with Jill Miller. I’m trying to schedule in the practice once or twice a week since it takes time to strengthen the hips. The constant nagging pain has been gone for a couple weeks now.

I’ve started weighing myself daily, more out of curiosity than obsessiveness, to see what my actual weight range is over the course of a week. My average on the high side is 165, while my low is 163. I seem to be skipping over 164 altogether. Its just fascinating to me, I’ve noticed my weight stays around the high for a few weeks then drops to the lower weight and stays there for a few weeks and so on and so forth.

I’ve been having an off week mood and exercise wise since last week. I’ve just been feeling really run down and unmotivated and consequently while I still try to fit in something every day I am not working out as much. I’ve been doing 20 minute yin yoga workouts and a couple other workouts as well. I really need to get back on the proverbial horse. I don’t want to fall into old patterns. I probably should be a little more lenient on myself. I’ve also taken a few more classes at Dhyana Yoga, so I should give myself credit where credit is due there. I took a wonderful Kundalini Yoga class. I think the best way I can describe kundalini yoga is “yoga for the soul”. I’m going to try and check out one of there yin vinyasa classes this week.

Despite my fitness malaise,  I finished up the Abs & Core workshop at Dhyana as well, which was awesome. Well, save for my complete failure at handstands and headstands. I’ve noticed on key thing through doing yoga, since I dropped 35 pounds this year, my center of gravity is off as is my balance and it varies from side to side. Its getting a little better over time, but I still have a way to go. I remember the first few times I did Warrior 1 or Triangle and toppling over or having to hold on to something. Now, I can do those poses without incident. The headstand/handstand scenario perplexes me. I used to do this stuff all the time when I was younger. Heck, I even took a couple of years of gymnastics before I got too tall to do it. I get to a certain point and then my mind and body freak out in the OMG YOU ARE GOING TO DIE if you do this kind of way. On the flipside, no pun intended, I can do backbends just fine, even with having a consistent strain in my lower/middle back.

I managed to drop two pounds this week. I had been hovering in around 167 for awhile and then was steady at 166 all week, then dropped to 165. I find it kind of funny since I am on the Weight Watcher’s maintenance plan that when I lose weight, I get these funny little messages saying things like: on the maintanence plan your weight should at best fluctuate two pounds in either direction of your target weight. If you are continuing to lose weight try using ALL of your daily points, your 35 flex points and activity points.  I actually balked at the idea of having to actually consume all those extra points during a week. I’ve never depleted the full 35 flex points, let alone delve into the 40+ activity points I get per week.

I’m actually quite happy losing  1-2 pounds a month even while on the maintenance plan. I’d like to maybe get down another 10 pounds, which would put me at the mid-range of the healthy weight range for my height (5’9″), which is 135-169. I’d like to be somewhere in the middle. In other news, my BMI (Body Mass Index) dropped from 25 to 24 since I lost an additional few pounds. I’m happy to have purchased and totally rocking out in two medium size t-shirts that fit nicely.

This week has been a little off as far as my exercise routine goes, mostly due to monthly girl problems… but I had the second part of the Abs & Core yoga workshop that I’ve been taking at Dhyana Yoga in West Philly.  I still have no idea how people do hot yoga or bikram. It was 85 degrees in the room and I sweat through every layer of clothing and then some. It has been a challenging class and a lot of fun.

Since I last posted, I am holding steady around 166-167, which is fantastic considering that I have been overindulging a bit, though to be fair, my idea of overindulging has drastically changed. My worst day I rounded out at about 40 points on the Weight Watcher’s method versus my normal 26. Granted, I have an extra 35 points a week for splurging that even at my worst I never burn through let alone the 30-40+ activity points I get through working out. I was playing around with the limits since I had been losing weight while on maintenance, which suggested that something was out of balance. I don’t want to revert to any bad habits, but my appetite has been a little more increased over the past couple of weeks. I think this is probably due to slacking on taking my daily vitamin regiment, which I am trying to get back into the habit of doing. When it comes to vitamins, I do really good for a few months and then slack for a few weeks.

Since my last fitness related post, I am happy to report that I have started taking some yoga classes at Dhyana Yoga (They have locations in Olde City, Center City and West Philly). Much to my own surprise I am really loving the classes. I’ve taken a couple different ones: All Levels Vinyasa, Vinyasa 101, All Levels Kundalini and am taking a 3 week workshop for Abs & Core strengthening. Its funny I think the All Levels Vinyasa was much easier than the Vinyasa 101 class. I still wanna try out their Yin Yoga classes and their Jivamukti ones. The Jivamukti classes are at odd hours that don’t really work well with my schedule, one is on Sunday mornings and one is during the week, but fairly late in the evening.

I’ve also picked up a couple new DVD’s and a book as well. I am so totally loving Shiva Rea’s Yoga Trance Dance DVD. Its so much fun, as it combines free form dance, some kundalini yoga exercises and some more fluid dance like yoga asanas. I always laugh when I’m doing dance workouts because I turn everything into variations of good ole’ goth dances, either swishy or stompy. I guess old habits do really die hard. The segments are much shorter than the Liquid Flow DVD I have of hers and much more suitable for beginners. I really like her DVDs alot. I got an Abs & Core one in the mail from Netflix that I am looking forwards to checking out.

I’ve been exploring the Jivamukti Yoga method created by David Life and Sharon Gannon. I picked up the book and their DVD Transform Yourself with Jivamukti Yoga. The workout is challenging as it includes some amount of backbends, shoulder stands and headstands. I can do backbends pretty well, but my lower/middle back has been hurting for the past couple of weeks so I can’t sustain it too long. It only really hurts when I do things like wheel, cobra or upward facing dog, so I have to modify them a little bit. I’m not a fan of shoulder stands for two reasons, one I end up drowning in my own boobs and two I have a lot of loose skin on my abdomen from losing weight (hence the abs & core focusing lately). I did learn a modification at one of the vinyasa classes I took recently, which helps immensely, by putting a yoga block under the base of your spine. When it comes to headstands, I have to get over the fear of breaking my neck and also the same issues from the shoulder stands apply. There are a couple modifications that I am comfortable doing in the mean time. In any case, I really like Jivamukti Yoga. I’m still reading the book, so far its been focusing on some historic yoga information as well as spiritual, karmic and ethical focuses in ones path towards enlightenment.