I am totally doing a HAPPY DANCE TODAY: I did it Naked!!!!! Wanna See?

So I jumped on the scale and it is official I am down 25 pounds!!!! I resisted the gummy bears and stayed strong and broke through my plateau. Tomorrow is binge day and I am going to binge with gusto! Well probably not, more like eat two good meals and binge on one meal and then go to a movie with my bag of gummy bears. I am not sure what movie to see.

Last night I saw ‘The Fighter’ and at 12:01 I saw ‘The Eagle’, both were good films, ‘The Fighter’ rocked. Christian Bale played a great crack addict!

It looks like I will probably get below 200 pounds before my birthday in March…let’s plan on it!

Day 42 of 60 Day Challenge (weight update): Why is this so damn hard and why do I want to give up?

 

This is my Eagle Pose, as you can see I am grabbing my shoulders. I did it this way for years and only a week ago I started being able to catch my hands in the first part. See below!

Total Weight Loss: 23 Pounds as of last Saturday!  

Last week was a real difficult week. Have you ever been to that place where the desire to just surrender seems overwhelming and that bag of gummy bears or chocolate ice cream screams out…..just eat me!

Well that is where I am at! But I made a commitment. I committed to 60 Day Bikram Yoga Challenge and I feel so much better as a result. Not just physically better, but mentally better, so why would I begin to even question my resolve in light of such positive improvements?

You see how my arms are crossed and I caught my thumb.....that is a major accomplishment for me! I am so tight that I have not been able to do this in 4-5 years of practice, but after 30 something days in a row, my shoulders released enough to do it!

I’ll tell you why. We are lazy! Humans seek the path of least resistance and it takes a formidable commitment to overcome that inherent laziness. When I committed to eat better in December I was so miserable that it would have been more difficult to continue eating and resisting exercise than it would be to change.

However almost two months later, my health issues have begun to resolve, my body feels and look a lot better, and I am no longer miserable. So my mind starts telling me to let up just a little, enjoy life. That bag of gummy bears is only 500 calories, it is not going to add 23 pounds, but would I be able to stop at one bag? That is the question? Which is why I am glad to have a binge day once a week!

So with all these emotions running around and a deep feeling of insecurity and doubt, I have to remind myself of the commitments I made to change my life. I can’t give up yet!

Here you can see Kate doing it right and me looking like THE FAT YOGI! My leg won't bend all the way around and I am struggling. The point is that I am at least trying and my body is changing slowly going in the right direction. That is how it starts! You simply can't be afraid to go to yoga. You just have to go and watch your body change. I never once believed I would be able to catch my thumb in this pose, now I believe I can eventually get to where Kate is. Though I never will if I don't go!

 

I made a commitment to do a 60 Day Challenge. In the beginning I was ready to make a 30 day commitment and I increased it to 60 Days on a lark. Surely, I can do it, I thought. During the initial days it seemed like I could quit and start over because I was not very far into the committment, now at day 42, there is no way in hell that I would quit and start over when the goal is within my reach. In fact I have been playing with adding an additional 30 days. 

But what accounts for my doubts? I know that I am going to finish the 60 Day Challenge. But what about getting below 200 pounds and down to 175 pounds or even 155 pounds?

Do I have what it takes to get through this emotional block? Do I really believe I can do it? Why is this so damn hard today?

I don’t always have the answers. Nothing about this life is easy. It is a struggle and I have to believe that I will succeed. It is a must, but that does not mean I am going to breeze through this time of change with ease. It just means I am going to have to be real and accept that self-doubt always creeps in when we are about to achieve something great!

The Fat Yogi Swims and Ramps Up His Metabolism: Including a great link to a swim video demo!

Image via Wikipedia

Add Swimming to your Yoga Practice and watch your body slim down faster!

I absolutely love to swim. I love gliding through the water and covering distance. I fell in love with swimming when I lived in Maui. For almost a year Bill and I spent every morning following the same pattern. We would wake up and walk down to the local coffee hut on the main drag in Kihei. We would order a latte and fruit and yogurt. The weather was so perfect and we would skim the local paper, engage in chit-chat with the other regulars and the head over to Kamaole One. The first thing we did was kick off our flip-flops and walk the length of the beach, on the far side of the beach we would step out of shorts, pull out our goggles and head out into the ocean for our morning swim.

Swimming in the ocean is full of surprises, especially in Maui where you would be swimming along the same route as sea turtles, the occasional eel, or an eagle ray. Not to mention the colorful fish that swam in and out of your line of sight. Those were the days. Maui has a constant tropical temperature and endless days of sun.

Of course there were days when the surf was to wild or the occasional shark that would close the beach and we would head over to the Kihei Aquatic Center to swim. The Kihei Aquatic Center is free to everyone and you simply sign your name and walk in! What a great benefit for those who live in Maui or those who are visiting.

This week I added 45 minute swims five times per week to my 90 minutes a day of Bikram Yoga. I go from Hot Yoga to a brisk chilling swim and my metabolism is getting put through the paces. There will be more on the fat burning benefits of swimming in later post, but on a quick note, simply being in the pool lowers your body temperature and kicks on your furnace to heat you up. That along with the swimming burns calories.

Look at professional swimmers, they eat on average 12,000 calories a day and swim for three to four hours a day. If they were simply swimming in a temperature close to their body temperature they would have to swim the butterfly stroke for 10 hours to burn 12,000 calories. Instead they swim in 72°F water which is 26° lower than their body temperature. So they are not only expending calories while swimming they are expending calories warming their body.

Now I think that this same happens in reverse in Hot Yoga. Our body’s work to produce sweat and not only do we burn calories from the exercise we are doing, we burn calories from our bodies working to cool us down. So in both cases swimming and hot yoga we are ramping up our metabolism while keeping our bodies safe from impact injuries.

Swimming is great for your body, but so many of us give up because it is difficult to develop the strength and stamina to swim effectively and efficiently. Partly because we think we have to swim continuously to get better.

When Bill and I started swimming at Kamaole and th Kihei Aquatic Center, we started slowly. We would swim the breast stroke for a number of strokes and then switch to the more difficult freestyle and back to the breast stroke.

At first we could only swim about half the way across the beach and we would walk in waist deep water to the opposite end of the beach and back to the starting point. We took that approach to the pool.

Since I am already in pretty decent shape after doing yoga regularly for two months, I started off with a thirty minute swim. I swim five laps and walk one lap. I do five breast strokes and walk one lap and then do five freestyle laps and walk one.

Last night after three days, I swam 45 minutes, off course I walked a lap after every 5 laps. The goal is to slowly build stamina and endurance while focusing on correct technique. You may find that you only swim two laps before feeling like you are winded and need to walk a lap. Heck you might start out swimming one lap and walking one lap, but each day you will get stronger and more efficient.

Swimming is a great compliment to yoga. They are both low impact exercises which means as we age we can do both of these incredible exercise for the rest of our lives. While yoga is a hugely popular form of exercise, swimming for the most part is not. I swim at my local LA Fitness and I have never had to wait for a lane, even when the place is filled and every piece of cardio equipment is being used.

For those of you interested is adding swimming to your workouts here is a link to a demonstration video of correct freestyle form: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJpFVvho0o4

If you wonder where you can swim in your neighborhood or when you are traveling go to this website: http://www.swimmersguide.com/

I Loved It When Whitney Houston Was Screaming, “Kiss My Ass” On National TV? We have all been there, right?

We Have To Orchestrate Our Own Comeback Story

Whitney was out of control, that girl, America’s Diva, exploded in front of all of us. I shook my head, oh, girl, I have been there. You know what I am talking about, right? A catastrophic meltdown. Remember, when Whitney was on that reality show, Being Bobby Brown, with her drug crazed husband and she was filmed screaming ‘Kiss My Ass’ (click here to watch). That was just one of many public and later drug filled meltdowns.

I know I have had my meltdowns, just ask Bill, he loves to tell the story of when we owned the Bed and Breakfast in Sacramento, CA. I had spent thousands of dollars on a  whole house music system. At the time, I was loving my Phentermine weight loss diet, popping those pills like they were candy and the weight just fell off. I only ate Skittles and Gummy Bears and drank mass quantities of water. I had energy galore and yes my emotions were tinged with a little rage, nothing I could not handle.

Until, after painstaking shopping for 30 or so CD’s of zen like music to accompany the urban hip feel of our Inn and Spa, our employees were carelessly stacking the CD’s on top of the player and not filing them back in their correct case. Time after time I would go into the office and organize the music and they would be strewn all over the place the next day.

It all culminated in a screaming match with Bill, where I really was irrational and raged at Bill as I grabbed the stack of 30 ZEN CD’s and sent them crashing to the ground. I wanted the offending employees fired. The moment was an epiphany of calm and karma as the most recent version of Buddha Lounge flew across the floor!

I am sugar-coating my Phentermine meltdown, it wasn’t just this one incident, it was a few months worth of crazy, but damn, I looked good and I could work for hours and the only by-product was rage. Hell I could live with that. The problem is, no one else could!

I imagine that living on crack is a lot like living on Phentermine and watching Whitney self-destruct is fascinating, because we all have the ability to self-destruct. We are frail and insecure and we all fail and make mistakes.

Last night I watched with wonder as Whitney sang, “I look to You” with Kim Burrel, of course Bill was his typical hard ass on her judging her a fraud, but I saw a come back and it warmed my soul. Whitney’s public performance last year in Korea had revealed a voice that had been shattered and lost. Her hard partying life appeared to have destroyed a London that attracted boos.

Whitney’s voiced has been restored and the girl is making a mighty fine comeback. Comebacks are not easy, in fact my Phentermine meltdown was easy to get over. I simply had to stop taking the pill, of course existing on a diet of Skittles and Gummy Bears had to go, but my emotions calmed down and I return to the normal big personality that I usually have minus the rage and flights of fantasy.

We all deserve a come back! I mean look at me last summer, that was actually a meltdown that was way worse than my diet pill popping days. It seemed the only place I could find happiness was through food. The more my life felt like it was spinning out of my control, the more I ate. I would wake-up driving through McDonald’s getting a breakfast burrito and go to sleep after eating three dinners.

This is my comeback! I have orchestrated it for myself, to get my life back under control and to take it away from food. Last night I added a 30 minute swim to my 90 minutes of Bikram Yoga and it felt great!

Of course I did not wear a Speedo, at the gym, which is my preference for swimming laps. I simply do not like the drag of board shorts, but at my size wearing a Speedo is even more uncomfortable than wearing yoga shorts. At the yoga studio we all wear yoga clothes, at the gym, them manly men are to shy to wear them and so was I, but give me 10 pounds and I will strap one on.

So yes, we all love a comeback story, why not write one of our own! Be the star in our own life that comes back and inspires others!

I am going to tell you that writing your own comeback story is going to be HARD!!!!!

There are no easy road maps to follow and we all have to find what works for us. For me it is simple, I needed to develop a daily regimen to follow. Something that would be easy to follow and some thing I could commit to.

Today is going to be day 37 of my 60 Day Challenge at the local Bikram Yoga Studio in Minneapolis, MN. When I started the 60 Day Challenge I did not think I would be able to do 60 days in a row, in fact I played with only doing a 30 Day Challenge. But I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I needed to commit to something tough and this is a tough commitment.

My comeback started with the following steps:

1. Recognition of the problem: I knew I was a fat ass and that my body was falling apart with every bite I took and every step seemed more difficult.

2. Get Moving: I believed that I needed to start moving before I could start eating correctly, so I started doing yoga! I was moving with no impact but was moving and that is a place to start.

3. Quit Smoking: Did it cold turkey, it was killing me and stealing my motivation and my breath.

4. Eat Right: I looked for a way to eat that addressed my issues from blood sugar to blood pressure. I needed a meal plan I could follow easily and quickly.

5. Make a Plan: I made a plan to start moving, then start eating, then I added an extreme commitment, one that has a calendar for me to mark off each day I complete.

6. Stick to the plan: No matter what I go to yoga…..NO EXCUSES! I am not flexible, it is hot, it is like HELL! Sometimes I hate it, but I always feel better and get a yoga high after class!

There is something about my ability to commit to this 60 Day Challenge that has changed me. I wish I could explain it. It is like I have been empowered to be the best me I can be and nothing is going to stand in my way! Nothing!!!!!

When you find that commitment in yourself, you will be ready to really live. I was a processed food zombie last month and last year. I am not a zombie anymore. Are you ready to leave ZOMBIE LAND and live?

Hear and watch Whitney’s Solo Comeback of “I Look To You”  I am sure she is singing about God and when you look into her eyes, you can see a gleam of happiness. I hope I have that same gleam. For me, I find my spiritual strength inside me and I hope it is radiating from me. I hope that you find your spiritual strength and the power of your comback and live life in the fullnes of joy!

If you are share with me your plan below in the comments section! I want to hear about it!

Hot and Sexy Hook-Ups at Bikram Yoga? Plus the ERECTION poll- Do they really happen in class?

 

Does Mr. Martin really think that a yogi can even think about sex while doing a pose like this? I know that sex is the last thing on my mind when I am concentrating on following the dialogue to get into the poses of Bikram Yoga!

Hot and Sexy Hook-Ups at Bikram Hot Yoga? Plus the ERECTION poll!

Everyone at my yoga studio has been getting all worked-up about Clancy Martin’s article, ‘The Overheated, Oversexed Cult of Bikram Choudhury’ in this month’s Details magazine. Mr. Martin spent a few days at the San Diego Bikram Teacher Training and he shares his highly sexualized observations with the readers of Details Magazine.

 

Now, I have not been to a Bikram Yoga Teacher Training, so I can’t declare that there are no hook-ups happening, but it appears that Mr. Martin may be living in his own fantasy world. What is more likely is that he spent a few days with some of the most fit men and women on the Earth and was soundly rejected or he had an agenda of writing a sexy story and took a lot of artistic license. Either way his description of Bikram Yoga and hot sweaty hook-up sex has not been my experience or the experience of any of the hundreds of yogis and Bikram Yoga teacher’s I met met over the years.

He launched into his diatribe by sexually describing the participants as ‘not quite naked’, men with ‘perfect rippling muscles’, and the women he describes as, ‘long and taut, with fatless stomachs curved just enough to be erotic’.  His first two paragraphs are completely titillating, designed to turn on and excite the males readers of Details, but does not portray the realities of Bikram Yoga.

Now, I am not a prude and frankly there are some very sexy bodies that attend Bikram Yoga classes. That much is accurate, but to claim that men are getting erections in their yoga shorts on a regular basis certainly is doing more than stretching the truth. I have practiced Bikram Yoga at studios all around the world, from Maui to London for the last 4 years and I can report that I have never seen a man with an erection during yoga and I have spoken to teachers all across the country and they have never seen a man with an erection in class.

If Mr. Martin was paying attention to the dialogue being taught by Bikram and his teachers during the sessions he attended and not drifting in and out of a sexual coma, he would have heard that the yogi’s are directed to look into the mirror and only look into their own eyes or at their own knee or at a spot on the ground. Yogis who attend Bikram classes have a real sense of respect for their fellow yogis. There is an unwritten law of privacy in the classes. We each are directed to gaze at ourselves and give that privacy to others.

With such a focus on respecting the privacy of others and gazing only at yourself, one wonders when these so-called erections ever surfaced in class. Now I am going to be frank, I have never seen an erection in class and I have never had an erection in class, but that does not mean it does not or has not happened. However, in speaking with the other guys in the locker room at the studio we practice at in Minneapolis and trust me us guys have real locker room talk despite the fact that we are a mixture of straight and gay, none of us copped to getting hard in class or seeing a guy with a hard on in class. So again we have to question Mr. Martin’s sources.

So we have looked at the privacy that is honored and taught in class and at the experiences of the men who attend class and so far there has been a resounding not to the issues of erections in class. But what Mr. Martin fails to realize is that Bikram Yoga is an intense full body workout that really can kick the ass of the yogis who practice it. Seriously it is a tough 90 minutes. Class is literally 90 minutes of heat, sweat and tears. Students are so focused on their own ability to make it through a physically demanding  class that getting turned on and getting laid is the last thing on your mind. I am not sure exactly what was going through Mr. Martin’s mind, but I can tell you that sex is not on the minds of the students in the class. You cannot contort your body into the camel pose and at the same time throw wood!

Hence that is the reason for today’s poll, to see if male erections occur in yoga classes or teacher training and to see if anyone has ever seen one in a yoga class. One would think after reading

Mr. Martin does to yoga what men have done to women since recorded history, he sexualizes the practice and the participants without really delving into the healing benefits of yoga and the life changing experiences many of us who practice Bikram have come to love.

Now I must say that women generally attend yoga more than men do, but there has been a huge increase this month in the number of men coming to our studio here in Minneapolis. Just a few days ago the class had about 15 guys and three ladies. So the top side will be more men will be introduced to Bikram Yoga and many will actually learn that this workout kicks the ass of any other workout they have ever done. This is a tough workout and men will enjoy it.

While Mr. Martin may have sexualized the clothes that yogis wear in hot yoga, he was really missing the point of why we wear so little to class let me enlighten him, “Dude, it is hot and we sweat, duh”! The less we wear in class the less trapped we feel. In reality the men wear the equivalent of a square-cut Speedo and women wear yoga bottoms and what resembles a sport bra. Yes we wear clingy clothes that form to the body, in order to move with freedom in the poses and not constantly have to rearrange shorts and sweat pants. Not to mention that we would be miserably hot wearing traditional gym clothes!

I am sure that there is a certain amount of sexual dalliances that occur at Bikram Teacher Training, but I imagine that most of the Mr. Martin’s experience came from his own imagination!

Can You Imagine Doing Bikram (Hot Yoga) For 31 Days In A Row And Hitting a Brickwall? Plus WEIGHT UPDATE!

This me on December 17, 2010 at over 230 pounds! Like the way my belly hangs over my yoga shorts!

The First Two Photos are Before and During Photos, after that I do Triangle Pose! I say during because, I still have about 50 pounds to lose.

Yes, I have completed 31 days of Bikram Yoga in a row. My goal is to complete a 60 Day Challenge and I am now more than half way there. So let’s look at the numbers:

• On December 17, 2010 my blood pressure was 149/90, yesterday is was 115/75. That apparently it an athlete’s blood pressure.
• On December 17, I weighed more than 230 pounds. I used 230 pounds as my start weight, when I called to get my blood pressure the doctor’s office informed me I was 233 pounds. As of  Saturday I was 209 pounds, bringing my total weight loss to 24 pounds.
• In December I completed at least 20 Bikram classes and on December 27, 2010 I began my 60 Day Challenge. Today will be day 32! Yesterday was day 31!

Here I am getting ready for Triangle Pose. You can see my belly is not as large as the picture above. It surely does not hang as low. Another 50 pounds to go!

So those are the numbers. My blood pressure is down and my weight is down and I feel fabulous. Though last night during my 31st consecutive day of yoga you would have thought it was my first class ever. I hit a brick wall as soon as we began the floor series. My heart rate escalated and I did my best to control my breathing, but alas I ended up fleeing the class for my inhaler, though I was able to calm my self down and did not need to use it.

Once I returned to class, I laid down and waited for the next pose. I did a few of them and by time we got to Camel Pose I could only do one of them. I was done. I hit a brick wall in class and it did not matter what happened next. I was done for the day. I just laid there until the final breathing pose. Of course after 31 straight days I should be kind to myself and realize that my body is going through changes. It seems like my hips are really sore in triangle pose, at least coming out of it. 

Begin Triangle Pose By Bringing Your Amrs Over Your Head.

I spoke with my instructor about how completely impossible it was to move and she said that doing a 60 Day Challenge is tough and that I will hit a few more brick walls before I finish the 60 days.

So I have to ask myself if it is worth it? Hell yes! I go to the fires of hell for 90 minutes each day. I bend, flex and contort my stiff, almost 50-year-old body into positions that I could do when I was 20. The end result is that I move through the rest of the day with ease and with no pain.

Generally you would step to the right, I had to step to the left and bring my arms down due to the space in the class.

Is it worth it? Last Saturday Bill and I were coming home from the gym (him), yoga (me) and I was walking in the house when my pants slipped down to my knees. Yes they are so loose that they fall off. Bill said, “Will, can you please go a size lower, I know you like the feeling of jeans falling off, but really”!

So then I spent the next 20 minutes trying on various sizes of pants. My waist is no longer 38 inches it is 35 inches! I only have one pair of jeans in this size, but in 34 inch jeans I have about six pairs. This morning Bill noted that my 35 inch jeans looked like they were getting to big also.  Cannot complain about that.

Next I bent my right leg down, till it was a letter T. Notice my rigth foot is turned to the right.

So yes, last night I hit a brick wall in yoga. I was emotionally and physically exhausted, today will be day 32 and I am going!

You never know how committed you are to something until you review where you are to where you came from. I am not sure what clicked inside me this time to really focus my attention on this commitment of eating right and exercising everyday. Was it a realistic fear that I was killing myself? Was it a desire to have a rockin-sexy-body, or was it I just wanted to enjoy a life free of pain? Whatever it was I found inspiration to commit to something real and life changing. For that I am grateful.

Here I am in Triangle Pose. You should have seen my belly in this pose before I lost 23 pounds!

Pregancy, Infertility, and Yoga: Includes a Demo of a Pregnant Woman Doing Yoga at the Minnesota Regional Yoga Asana Championships

Being Pregnant in Yoga

What can a Fat Yogi possibly know about pregnancy? Let’s just say that my partner Bill says I look five months pregnant and not like I am nine months and ready to pop one out! Yes there are a lot of similarities in fat people doing yoga and pregnant ladies doing yoga. However before we can get to pregnant yoga, we must get pregnant. No, I am not planning on getting pregnant, I have already followed that path and have four beautiful children. Pregnancy is a beautiful time for women and for men, it is the continuation of human life.

It seems that I know many women in my life who are finding it difficult to get pregnant or are planning to be pregnant in the next few years, plus I have three daughters and who knows what challenges they will face when they decide to get pregnant.

Gluten and The Infertility Connection

Recently through yoga and eating a more slow carb diet, I have become more aware of dietary issues surrounding gluten. Gluten is in almost everything we eat! It is a mixture of plant proteins that occurs in cereal grains, mostly corn and wheat. It is used as an adhesive, filler, and flour substitute. It is in almost 100% of the processed foods we eat. It is so abundantly used that I think it is killing us slowly.

I don’t think we can say that gluten is 100% behind all infertility issues, but there are numerous reports of women getting pregnant when they eliminate gluten from their diet. The question we need to ask ourselves is why would gluten be a factor in pregnancy?

What is not very widely known is that gluten allergies affect 1 in 100 people and are on the rise. I think it is due to gluten overload in our collective diets, as we collectively have begun consuming more processed foods as a nation.

The specific disease related to gluten allergy is called Celiac Disease and it affects the ability of the small intestine to extract nutrients from food so that the body can use those nutrients. Pregnancy and conception is a taxing process on the female body and to have an optimal pregnancy, a woman needs excellent nutrient absorption.

Naturally Getting Pregnant reported on The University of Chicago recent research related to Celiac Disease as follows:

What does Celiac Disease Have to Do with Infertility?
A lot. In fact, the University of Chicago says, “Any individual who has experienced persistent miscarriage or infertility where a medical cause could not be found needs to be tested for celiac disease (2).” And they are not alone in their recommendation: The Wm. K. Warren Medical Research Center for Celiac Disease recommends 16 situations and/or conditions for which celiac should be considered, one of which is: “unexplained infertility or miscarriage” (3).

And although the probability of having celiac disease is around 1% for the average healthy American, the probability increases to 6% for women with unexplained infertility (1).

This connection with gluten and pregnancy seemed to me to be important to share with my readers since so many of them are females and may want to get pregnant in the future. It seems that 6% of all infertile women being gluten intolerant is large enough issue to address when one is trying to get pregnant. Keeping ones body in optimal health through yoga before during and after pregnancy is also a must!

Yoga and Pregnancy

Most women have reservations about doing yoga while they are pregnant. The reality is that yoga is a safe form of low impact exercise to do while pregnant. Women who take yoga classes report feeling calmer and better able to control their breathing during labor. Plus your body goes through physical changes and yoga can help you adapt to these changes. Currently there are three pregnant women at the Bikram studio where I practice.

If you are a woman who is pregnant you should take the following precautions:

• Let your yoga instructor know that you are pregnant and how far along you are
• After the first trimester don’t do poses on your back as this may reduce blood flow to your fetus.
• Don’t do poses that overly stretch the muscles, especially the abdominal muscles. The hormone relaxin is working to soften your uterus wall and it also softens other muscles and could put you at risk of strain or muscle pulls.
• Some yoga professionals recommend that Bikram Yoga or Hot Yoga is bad for the fetus and others think it is the best thing they have ever done. Talk with your doctor and read this testimonial from a Bikram student. Do what you feel is right for you!
• If you need a resource for poses while you are pregnant purchase RAJASHREE’s PREGNANCY YOGA DVD

A Demonstration of a Pregnant Yogi By Gretchen at The Mall of America During the Minnesota Regional Yoga Asan Championships

At the Minnesota Regional Yoga Asana Championships last weekend at the Mall of America, one of the ladies from our studio did a pregnancy yoga demonstration. She is 6 months pregnant. I will get her first name on here soon. She did a great job!

Video of Pregnant Yoga Demonstration, click here!

Videos of The 8th Annual Minnesota Regional Yoga Asana Championships

The Fat Yogi Recommends, ‘Kill It, Cook It, Eat It’ This week vegans on a hog farm!

 

This blog post is not meant to be offensive to vegans or vegetarians. It is intended to educate meat eaters about meat preparation. I only wish I was strong enough to be a vegan or vegetarian.  

Videos to review of the show: 

Ever wonder where your food comes from? In each episode of "Kill It, Cook It, Eat It," a diverse group of participants is challenged to procure their main course the old-fashioned way: by hunting and killing their chosen prey, butchering it in the slaughterhouse, helping to prepare it in the kitchen, and ultimately sampling it at the dinner table. Some may enjoy the process while others recoil, but for each diner it's an intense journey that just may change their perspectives -- and appetites.

A Meat Eaters Review of Kill It, Cook It, Eat It: From Farms to Hunting this show gets down and dirty with meat.

Burgers Part One

Burgers Part Two 

Burgers Part Three 

Burgers Part Four 

Burgers Part Five 

Burgers Part Six

As a yogi you become more aware of the foods you eat and the implications food can have on our bodies. It seems that today’s news report and class action law suit involving Taco Bell, is an indications that consumers want to know what it is that we are actually eating.

In the case of Taco Bell, the beef tacos are apparently less than 60% beef products and more than 40% oatmeal and other fillers. I knew that most fast food beef comes from a company called Beef Products. This company actually takes the organs, intestines, and the most useless scraps of meat to create that fast food hamburger that you so enjoy. To do that they use a substance toxic to the human to kill e-coli from the waste meats. That substance is ammonia and it is toxic to humans.

So from Taco Bell’s misleading advertising on meat filling, to the fast food industry’s reliance on cheap processed meat like products to fill our nations appetite for cheap fast food, consumers are becoming more aware of the food they eat and are wanting to be more informed about the process of raising food.

A few weeks ago I stumbled onto Current TV’s, ‘Kill It, Cook It, Eat It’. This is a British program that has been imported to the USA that I found completely enthralling and worth of sharing with my readers.

So far there have been four episodes and you can read about them Julia Bradbury’s website.

Now I must be honest, I am a meat eater and I do not plan on becoming a vegan or vegetarian anytime soon, but I do think it is good and healthy for us to understand where our meat comes from and how to choose better cuts of meat.

I am a free range poultry eater and a grass-fed beef eater. I generally shop for meats at Whole Foods or at the local co-op. I think that having an understanding about the meat you eat and how to avoid antibiotics and hormones that are fed to animals is an important part of living the yoga lifestyle.

Hope you find the show as enjoyable as I have! Please feel free to comment on the video clips I posted above from You Tube. Really makes you think about how we get our beef!

Videos of The 8th Annual Minnesota Regional Yoga Asana Championships: Vote in the comments for the four winners and tomorrow see if you are right!

Last Saturday at the Mall of America, The 8^th Annual Minnesota Regional Yoga Asana Championships 2011 were held.

Here are links to the competitors and their individual videos:

Jeffrey Aleckson

Thomas Folden

Peter Levy

Patrick Nelson

Mark Norby

Jason Wacker

Rachel Barr

Ginny Campbell

Christy Hunt

Susan Milchman

Abby Olsen

Tracie Radermacher

Jessie Schreier

There were two male winners and two female winners. Tomorrow I will post the winners names, but today lets see how well you would be at judging? Post in the comments who you think were the two males and females that advance to the International Championships!

Tomorrow there will be a Pregnancy Yoga Video demonstration from the Championship.

Jena Blackwood: An Amazingly Fun Yoga Teacher

Jena Blackwood and Will

As part of the Yoga Championships this week, our studio benefited from having teachers come from other studios and teach! Now I must say that I absolutely adore all the teachers at the Minneapolis Studio. Eric and Martha (the owners) do a fabulous job recruiting some of Bikram’s best yoga teachers. With that said I would love to introduce you to Jena Blackwood.

Jena actually has taught here is Minneapolis prior to this and her classes were filled with students who knew how great of a teacher Jena is. She really approaches her class from a position of strength and knowledge, it is know wonder she is a faculty member of Bikram’s Teacher Training.

She informed us that she found Bikram Yoga to recover from an injury. I wanted to interview her more thoroughly, and I will in the future so I can add to this post.

One of the problems I have in the forward bend, the one were we place our hands under our heels with our elbows behind our calves, is getting my chest on my thighs. Seriously, my belly is totally in the way. She was very patient as she helped me find a way to begin getting to that pose. I really wanted to have some one take picture of her helping me before she left, but our schedules did not match up.

Since Bill and I love Broadway and she lives in New York City, it looks like I am going to have to travel there this spring and take a class from her. For those of you who do travel to New York City Here is a link to her website, Jena Blackwood Yoga. Her website is fun and list her schedule, so when you are in NYC, you can find the studio she is teaching at.

Stay Tuned for more on Jenna Blackwood, I will do a phone interview with her and get more images to complete this post!

Thanks Jena for taking the time to teach and inspire all of us at the Minneapolis studio.