No intention

When practicing yoga, it's good to start with an intention. You can pray for a more forgiving heart, wish for a more flexible pelvis, or just request an enemy have a bad day. You choose how to start your practice. 

Today, I chose to start without an intention. I didn't prepare a sequence, and I didn't even complete five sun salutations to warm up. I just winged it. Surprisingly, my body told me what I needed. My quads were crying for attention. So, I ran through a few poses until i culminated the practice into a reclining cobblers pose. OUCH! I couldn't hold it for even a minute. It was that painful. 

That's exactly how life is. When you don't prepare, ask, demand or even hope, it will tell you what you need. Thankfully, I was able to arrange a sequence that tailored to my quads, but had i started the way I normally do, I'm positive I would have run down my usual practice. 

I've finally finished my training. It was a long year and a half, but It's finally done. I am so extremely happy, and i'm just relishing in all of my books by slowly reading the fine print in every one. I've started to write down sutras from the Yoga Sutra's of Patanjali on my bathroom mirror. I have one on there for weeks, because I have such a thick head some of the words don't want to stick.

Here is this mornings sporadic sequence:

Sun salutation A

Sun salutation B

vinyasa

table top

alternate leg and arm lift and tuck 5x

extend, then bring adjacent to body.

return leg to starting position and drop toe to floor

trace floor to opposite side of body and look towards leg

repeat on other side

cat and cow

vinyasa

warrior one

traingle

reverse warrior

half moon with extended leg

vinyasa

repeat on other side

dancers pose both sides

grip toe and extend leg in front of body

both sides

vinyasa

superman

vinyasa

kneww to center, left elbow, right elbow

tthen step leg through into lizard

cresent moon while crabbing back leg

repeat on other side

camel

cobblers pose

pigeon

happy baby 

shavasana.

  

  

Almost Done

I"m almost done with  my 200hr yoga training. I've just turned in my 14 book reviews, and I'm just so ecstatic!

The books I read changed my perspective on life. I've read books on philosophy, psychology, history, but they never prepared me for what these books expressed. I think the reason that it had such a great impact was because of the repetition. Kindness, kindness, kindness. Let your ego GO.
Adding the physical aspect to it also helped. The asana's were what had originally lead me to complete this training. I only expected to learn about anatomy. I didn't know I was going to be introduced and emerged into the eight limbs of yoga.

I'm so relieved and excited, I dont know what I should do to celebrate. I tried waking my husband up in the middle of the night. That wasn't very yogi of me. In the end he did wake up to help me with a google problem. I'm computer savvy, but I've just started using Google. It's growing on me. I love all of the different capabilities and format.

I'm going to relish the completion of the reviews for as long as I can.  I still feel that I need to read the books ten times over. I just won't feel as rushed. I have a lot of highlighted parts I want to review and memorize. I"m excited.

Contest winner-right here!!

Contests have always drawn my attention because I believe in luck!

The first contest I ever won was in fifth grade. At my elementary, when you were good you would earn a gold card. You could put those gold cards into raffles and choose a prize. I think i just got one and still ended up winning. I chose a toy car. My friends didn't make fun of me, but some little boys were jealous! 

Later on, after high school, I won tickets to concerts after calling KROQ a hundred times. I went to the warped tour, saw Incubus, and also attended Oz Fest because of it. 

This week, I won a yoga mat. The Joyne Yoga mat. I just received it in the mail today. I replied to their contest on facebook, and won a few days later! It was a miracle. I've been wanting a yoga mat for my little girl and for my husband, but I havent had the extra $$ to buy them a new one. 

While this yoga mat does not compare to my manduka, the company gifts one to people in need and the material is exceptional, good for the planet and toxin free. I've been enjoying it since i got it. I had it parked right next to my manduka, which didnt help the poor mat. My husband calls the manduka "the rolls royce" of yoga mats. It is. It's thick and sturdy. So much so, that I use it on a rug. It feels as if though i'm on a cloud when doing surya namaskara B. 

The Joyne mat is very soft and indents my prints on the cushion, it also moves when I use it on the carpet. I have not tried it on a hard surface, yet. I can't wait to take it to the studio and leave an amazing comment on their amazon page. It's a lot lighter than the manduka, so, it'll be good to carry around and because it's so thich, I know i'll be able to do a ton of yoga tricks soon. I'll post a picture of my crow soon. 

Now, I'm going to buy a lottery ticket.

Two pounds at a time

I've lost another two pounds for a total of four pounds. YAY!

This is all because I've been assisting and taking yoga classes like crazy. My little sister is on spring break, and she is watching my toddler while I take and assist. Somedays I take two to three yoga classes. It's marvelous. I wish I could take yoga classes every day. The teachers are so brilliant and fun.

When I was instructing at LA Fitness, I would teach about ten classes a week and I would take an additional four classes of yoga, zumba, or any other class I was interested in. I would also swim, and visit the sauna when I was done. Sometimes I miss that, especially after a day like today when I was able to swim for about fifteen minutes while my toddler slept. I have not had  a good swim in about a year. I've just done water aerobics with my baby. Taking that time was very fulfilling, but it's not the anaerobic exercise I get from swimming.

Well, I've finally kept up with my weight loss goal! I even cleaned up my pantry a little and got rid of a few magazines. I gave my magazines to my little sister, and I made hummus with the canned garbanzo beans I had in the pantry. The hummus was a fail, but, it was still good.

This is the recipe I used:

1 can of Garbanzo beans
1 tablespoon of Tahini
5 cloves of garlic
lemon
4 tablespoons of olive oil
 salt to taste.


I blended it in my nutri bullet and walla instant hummus.

This week I made some from scratch. I Just soaked the garbanzo beans over night and then cooked them for an hour with a few garlic cloves and salt. It's nothing complicated. I can't wait to learn how to make pani puri with them. Pani puri is an indian dish. It's so delicious. You buy these small orbs of fried flour and then place the garbanzo beans with flavoring inside and pour this delectable water inside and then pop them in. The taste is like nothing you can imagine. There are so many different textures and tastes that your instantly taken to heaven with just one bite.

Pani Puri

When I make it I'll type out the recipe as well. We will see how well it comes out. 

The big hike was planned for this weekend. I dont know if i'm ready for it, but i'll let you know how bad it goes on the next blog.

Body Composition Analysis

The receptionist at the clinic called my evaluator the human. She had to categorize Sergio, the physical therapist, for my chart and because he used an impedance machine called the Inbody they had to log him in as a human.

Standing on that machine and holding the handles felt a little odd. I only stood on the machine for about a minute. After that minute a printer released the data so that Sergio and I could discuss the results. 

My fat percentage is over the roof! I'm at 47.6% That is extreme. Women have to be within 18-28 percent. My muscle mass is also higher on my arms then on my legs.  

These numbers mean that I am obese. I did lose two pounds before going to the appointment. My plan to lose some weight before the evaluation was a success! If the cost was cheaper I would schedule one each week, to help with my weight loss. 

A deadline always causes urgency in the blood, mind and body.  Something like a wedding or any other special event catalyzes a major goal. If there was a way to harness that energy to reach your desired objective, there would be more content people in this world. Creating imaginary milestones might help, but that would be trickery. While tricking your mind into following a healthy habit can be a good thing, will it be permanent? Or will it just help you reach the top of the hill and then roll you back down to where you were originally? I think that's up to the individual. 

What do you need? What do I need? Planning and concocting ideas to help with weight loss have not helped at all. The only time I had a deadline for weight loss was today. This might be the reason why people sign up for marathons, bowling leagues, or baseball leagues. 

My husband and I were talking about our routine. The best way to accomplish anything is to set a good routine and follow it through.  We started to walk together nightly for less than thirty minutes. We just walk around our complex before or after dinner. Not too late. We no longer set weekend hiking trips, instead we visit family members or relax at home. 

I'm going to have my partner help me out with this obesity. Countless blogs have been written trying to help me attain my pre baby weight. This time I'm making sure I have a partner to help me be accountable. At the end of the month we will set up a hiking trip, throughout the month lunges, squats, yoga routines, and weight training will be scheduled to improve the outcome of the hike. 

Obesity causes many serious diseases. I definitely do not want to be another diabetic Mexican in my family. It's still early so at the end of this month we will hike up a small mountain and I'll make sure to take pictures. 

Completing this assessment has been the best thing I've done in a long while.   

Neck Hump

As I was searching through my Pinterest account for a good self massage, I realized that there was such a think as a neck hump. I've had this since I was in middle school. I thought it was a dowagers hump. My mom has one as well. She told me that her doctor said it was nerves.

Reading books and typing on a computer has caused this forward head posture to worsen. The pin I found sent me to this video. I also watched this video.  Now I follow the video daily. I have my husband doing the exercises as well. At first I used my yoga blanket, but that was much too high. Because I exercise and do yoga frequently, I started the practice at longer intervals and I will move to a pool tube next week.  

Let's hope it works.  

Here are my updates:

This week I've made sugar cookies. I've have loved to bake since I was a teenager. I would memorize recipes and repeat them as often as I could. Now I've memorized this sugar cookie recipe, thankfully I have not added the frosting!  Instead of replacing a meal with a smoothie i've been eating what I want. That whole sick week really ruined my schedule. 

The meal plans that have been hurting. Instead of planning out smoothies and salads, I've been planning burgers and pizza's. My husband and I used to order pizza every friday night and watch television. I make my own pop corn with non-gmo canola oil and organic non-gmo corn kernels. We watch a movie and snuggle as we eat our junk food. Now I just buy a frozen pizza and we eat that on friday's instead of spending those extra $25. 

This week I'm planning on making my own salads again, and I've also planned on making coctel de camaron, which is a mexican shrimp cocktail. It's not like your usual cocktail:

Instead it's like this:

Oh, yeah. No beer though. It's got veggies and avocado. It's so delicious. My mother is from Ensenada. Ensenada is in Baja California. There is a port there with a ton of seafood restaurants. They are lined up, so when you walk by them the owners and waiters try to lure you in with a towel letting you know they have the best cocktails. I'm sure they all have great cocktails. 

Breakfast has been quiche lately. This week I'm going to try to make overnight oatmeal, then have some coctel de camaron for lunch and a smoothie for dinner. I can probably pull that off until wednesday, then it'll have to be smoothies for breakfast, chicken beet salad, and some single bun turkey burgers for dinner. 

My husband got a chromecast for christmas, so I've been playing youtube video's on the big screen and I've been doing my zumba video's to help me workout. I've stopped running, which is a big mistake. I can feel my breathing become heavy again because of it. I'm also going to purchase a scale. I never thought I needed a scale because it's not about weight it's all about inches and muscle. But, nothing is working so far. 

My yoga mat is in the car, so it's easier to abandon that for the day. Because I donated a few mats to the YMCA I only have one. It's the heavy manduka one, so it's a pain to bring in and out because I'm also still carrying my toddler around and all of the other extra's I need. It's so easy to find excuses to keep this weight on. 

Today is my body composition meeting. I'm really excited! I have to fast for three hours before the appointment. Oh, well. 

I'm going to try to write daily for a while. Let's see how that works. 

Spring Cleaning

Erika Badu's song: "bag lady" is always on my mind when I feel that I've just got too many things stored in my closet, my purse, my car, and my head. It's always the same story: I need it all!

It's not true. I don't need all of those magazines. If I didn't make time to read them when I got them, why do I feel that I will, some how miraculously, read them when they are all in a stack stuffed onto my night stand? It's not going to happen. Giving up on those small things is not the end of the world. Especially, since it free's up my nightstand, car and life. It's always there in the back of my mind: " I have to read that magazine." I subscribe to amazing magazines by the way: wired, woman's health, fitness, psychology today, yoga journal to name a few. 

Now, I have to figure out what else i keep stacked away in my life that's creating a mess all over my world:

1. Facebook- Haha. I can waste thirty minutes on facebook without even trying. I love to read. I do, I am currently reading three books at the moment. I can't seem to finish them, because I find myself reading Time, or Daily dot articles when I'm scrolling down on my facebook. 
2. Battle Camp- It's a game my husband got me addicted to. It's very easy to play that game longer then I should.
3. Tea- I do not drink all of the tea I have. Now, I did find a box that I had useful during my sick period last week, but that was only one box. I own many. I definitely need to go through those boxes and clear out a ton of tea. 
4. Cans of beans- yes, i have a ton of these. I alway's wonder if i'll regret this during a natural disaster. I'll just pray this will never be the case. 
5. Old clothes- I still have my old high school clothes, and hair. That just needs to go. 
6. Negative thoughts- I don't need ice cream, i dont need candy, I am not fat. 

I know it's not yet spring, but I might as well start before the 20th. These few things are only the ones I can think of now. I will let go of my magazines someday. I will take the time to look through them and throw them before the 19th. It has to be done, it's a fire hazard. 

My yoga practice has been on a stand still since I fell ill a few weeks back. I'm missing it more than anything, and will return to it today. 

The resistance training is taking a while to find itself into my life again. Not that I don't love it. I just did a few exercises and my deltoids were killing me. I hate having shoulder pain. I have to remind myself that it's only a few minutes a day.

The Body composition meeting was pushed back to next week. I'll make sure to blog about that after I have my first evaluation. I'm really excited about it. Let's see what they say. 

Habits

The yoga training I am currently enrolled in requires 60 hours of assisting. It's actually a total of 120 hours, because you have to take a class and then assist. This sounds easy, but it's not. With a child it's hard due to child care issues and lack of sleep. I attempted to assist and take every day for the week, but my body was so out of shape I was starting to get a little sick.

I'm never sick. I get sick maybe once a year, if that. I think all of the sugar that I consume keeps the bacteria distracted in my visceral region. That's probably why it's so large. It's from swelling, not fat.

There are only thirty more assists, or sixty more classes, that I need before I can finish my training. I love it. I don't love leaving my child to a day care of a caregiver other than myself, but it' only for a few hours a day, and I really need to finish this training before the end of the year or else it will be obsolete.

My personal yoga practice has improved greatly, while my teaching has suffered. The original flow and command I had for my class was affected by the new influences of yoga that were introduced. Finding my flow is not as easy as it was when I didnt know as much. Now I do yoga daily, not as long as I'd like, but I do it. I'm trying to increase the 15 minutes to 30. The sequence is faster, and requires more poses. This is my planned thirty minute Yoga sequence:

 Surya namaskara A 5x

1. Tadasana
2. forward fold
3. half forward fold
4. forward fold
5. chaturanga
6. updog
7. downdowg

Surya namaskara B 5x

1. tadasana
2. chair
3. forward fold
4. half forward fold
5. chaturanga
6. up dog
7. downdog
8. warrior one
9. chaturanga
10. updog
11. downdog
12. warrior one other leg
13. chaturanga
14. updog
15. downdog
16. half forward fold
17. forward fold
18. chair
19. tadasana

vinyasa

Warrior one

warrior two

reverse warrior

warrior two

triangle

warrior one

high lunge

vinyasa

repeat other side

vinyasa to standing

chair

eagle

chair

tadasana

dancers pose both sides

squat

crow

vinyasa

table top

half bow pose right leg/left hand

cat cow

half bow pose left leg/righthand

cat cow

come down to seated

marichi pose both sides

butterfly

forward fold

fish

five minutes of savahsana

I will attempt this daily and see how it goes. It's a little different from the shorter sequence but it includes more arms. 

The assessment has been scheduled for next month. Lets hope I lose a little fat before then. Crossing my fingers!

Body Composition Assessment

Running every day is impossible! I don't really want to run in place in my apartment, either. Having a sick toddler doesn't help with these simple goals. 

One of my friends just let me know that there is a clinic that gives you a body evaluation. They assess your lean body mass and body fat percentage. I know I should run to the clinic especially since my body fat has increased by 100%. But, I'm going to take my time first and try to lose as much fat as I can before I'm evaluated. HEHEHE. 

I've started to make myself protein shakes. I still consume too much sugar even in the shakes, but I will decrease it after a week. The daily sugar intake a woman should consume a day is only 25 grams! WHY DID I READ THIS?  It used to be 72 grams! I go over this limit every hour! The shakes are primarily composed of fruit, yogurt, chia seeds, almond milk or coconut water and protein powder. The protein powder I'm using is:

It's very helpful. I didn't find myself looking for food after

four or five hours. I've also started using the application 

"Lose It!" It's very helpful, It keeps track of my sugar, protein and fat intake. It set me up on a 1200 calorie a day diet.  I'm not sure I can keep with the low calorie intake due to the fact that I'm still breastfeeding. But, since I have been eating over my allowed intake, I'm sure it's fine for right now. I'm just making sure that my protein intake is maintained.

After this week, I will sign up for the Body Composition Assessment, and let you know how it went. 

Reiki

A year ago, I was trained by a monk to be a Reiki practitioner.

Reiki is a practice that heals using universal energy. A practitioner uses their hands or learned characters to heal a person. The learned characters will heal a person in a distant location.

The monk had to recalibrate my energy using water and his own enlightened energy. I was able to feel the heat from his palms even from a few inches away. It was remarkable. Never in my life had i experienced anything like that. The more you practice the more healing power you possess.

Because I was an avid massage client in the past, I believe in the power of touch. So when he mentioned that he could cure with his hands, I did not second guess him. I was very reluctant to believe that Reiki would work from far away, though. Can a person feel your healing touch or presence with out you knowing them from miles away?

This article explains how a certain kind of touch therapy is effective. Distant healing was studied and found to be effective 57 percent of the time. Now, these are only two articles that found touch healing and distant healing to be effective, primarily touch healing. I'm still skeptical of the distant healing but continue to believe that touch and love can cure a close relative or neighbor.

Reiki is a wonderful practice that is not invasive. My practice has to continue so that the energy in my hands can become as strong as the monks! I'm glad to know that I don't need to shave my hair or wear a robe to increase my universal energy.

New Year

 bvvvvvvvqza    k[;[[]\

k8778i888

   

ckccc

                        √vcv√çvçc   fffff,          \ jxjxn b  x  bcdd s3jae4jrtf    wn              jmbiu      

jjkjjdrhhyutgtgy  yhh

                 wdds

Those jumble of letters were not typed by me, I swear. I had a little toddler visitor. 

fvcc     jjjjffftcgt  vc

,e3 c v

c  v bgnm l.,l,llllkk   

b mn/ 

One of the key's on this keyboard is missing due to my toddler's fascination with this notebook. Now that I have the laptop to myself:

The Big Switch

This year I switched from an iPhone to a Samsung. It's proving to be a fruitful switch. I chose the new note 4. It's a huge phone. I chose it because it has a stylus. I've been using the application papyrus without stop now. I bought all the features and do not regret it. Instead of keeping my notes written in folders and cute notepads, I've successfully created an organized jumble of electronic notes in numerous notebooks. I love it.  

The yoga sequence I created for the daily routine is also on papyrus. It's a very short routine. Which makes it easy to complete daily. It's only 11 minutes without the meditation. I have had a chance to practice daily. I do it either in the morning or at night. I am already set to add an arm sequence. I find myself rushing through the short practice and running to the couch when I'm done. The meditation seems to short. I only meditate for five minutes. The next sequence will have a longer meditation.

Starting a daily running habit is a lot trickier than I had originally thought. I started using the application Runkeeper again. It's helpful because my family is also on the application. They offer challenges, motivational blogs, and it monitors your distance, time and frequency of runs. Even with that app. it's not easy to make time for a short run. I don't know if this is a joke or if it's true, but there is supposed to be a walking/running home video somewhere out there. Let me take a moment to search... :P.  It's true: Walk at home! They have three mile walks! Incredible! You can walk at home for three miles in front of the television. I wonder if they make you take laps around the couch?  Coffee table? I might have to resort to this. I'm giving myself another week. If I fail, I'll walk around the dinning table a million times if i have to. 

I'll be working on this for the next few weeks and also completing my Reiki training. More on Reiki later.