Sharing Family Secrets With My Daughters

As I look at all the messages, life lessons, and traditions that I have shared with my children, perhaps one of the most important has been the key to healthy living. My parents were pretty naive about food. The biggest imprint they left on me was to try anything and everything and to clean my plate.

So that got me to thinking about the messages that I send my daughters about food. To be honest I never really shared with them the knowledge I gained from the nutrition courses that were completed as part of my undergraduate education or the many diets that their mother and I had been on over the years as we both yo-yo’d up and down.

But the entire picture had never been as clear as it is to me now or as simple. Yes there is a lot of explanations about what I eat and what I don’t eat, in this blog and on my ever evolving food plan. The simple message I share with my daughters, the secret Sawyer Family tradition to looking great and feeling young as you age is:

“Eat Beans, Meat, and Vegetables Six Days a Week and on the Seventh Day eat whatever you want. On top of that MOVE, I do Yoga!”

That is the entire family secret to a healthy life and longevity. It is brief and to the point. There is no counting calories, though I do pay attention to calories. The is no measuring the quantity of what you eat, you simply eat a series of no-carb, a slow-carb or low carb days, following cheat day. Which series your going to follow depends on how much weight you want to achieve and how often you have been on the stage you are on. You should never go on the no carb stage of the diet for more than three weeks at a time.

But to keep the message simple I always start and end with the same old time tested and true advice from the annals of Sawyer Family legend.

We can be skinny, we can be vibrant, we can be healthy if we “eat our beans meat and vegetables”.

Down 43 Pounds and I Went on a Shopping Spree: Vote your favorite look! PHOTOS!!!!

Here is my birthday last year! I hid in hoodies. I was a mess. I Love the cake my daughter made me for my birthday.

 

I am taking a break from part three of “The Fat Yogi’s Bag of Tricks” to bring you a little fun! Last week while we were in Oklahoma I had to leave behind three pairs of pants because they were falling off. The two pairs I bought to replace them are already falling off and all my large shirts and too large. So I decided to go buy an outfit to wear to out or to work that actually fits. Buying new clothes is so much fun

So vote for the outfit you like the most.

I like how casual and nice this cobination is. Though I am not sure it is dressy enough for a night at the Ordway or the Guthrie.

The Gingham and Paisley look with a three pocket sweater is so "Hipster".

 

I can't believe I am wearing somthing other than a black tent to hide my belly under. I am love wearing color again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 2: “The Fat Yogi’s Bag of Tricks” Before During and After Photos of 41 Pound Weight Loss

From 230 Pounds to 186 Pounds!!!!

Yesterday is was 40 pounds today it is 41 pounds…..woohoo!!! Bill snapped todays photos and he was impatient. I interrupted his birthday eggs to take this picture. Tonight we are going to the Ordway to see the hit new Broadway musical, Next to Normal, to celebrate his big day! Hence the photos are a little blurry.

December 17, 2010 Wow I was FAT!!! 230 Pounds!!! Looking trim at 189.6 Pounds!

 

 

189.6 Pounds!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So how exactly did I lose the 41 pounds? Not only did I start on the Slow Carb Diet, I discovered it weakness after I lost the first 20 pounds and based on my years of studying and real life experience I developed this bag of tricks to actually lose weight and keep it off.

 

The Fat Yogi’s Bag Of Tricks

1. Binge weekly: at least one day per week as noted in my food plan.
2. Weigh Daily: Ignore what the pros say about weighing weekly. There is no research that shows that weighing weekly is better than weighing daily. Daily weights give you a running total of what direction you’re heading.
3. Identify a weight range of six pounds, three pounds each direction and make sure on a Day-to-Day basis you are staying within that 6 pound range.
4. If you are losing weight only record your weight weekly, on the same day, at the same time. This is your official weight. Through the week during this phase you are looking to see if you are staying within the range for that weeks weight loss. If you at anytime during the week you creep to 4 pounds above the range, look at what your eating.
5. It is OK to cheat between cheat days. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you have to open your mouth like and swallow that ball whole and fast. You need to create rules for cheating. These rules are to help you balance your goals with real life actions. Rules for cheating give your permission to start over each and every meal.
6. Allow yourself a bag or two of popcorn, no added butter and a diet coke once or twice a week, it must replace a meal or a snack and if the next day you get on the scale and your out of your safe weight range , double down on the food plan.
7. Once you have gotten the first 20 pounds off it is time to pull back on the beans a bit and focus on lean meats and vegetables. I will eat beans only once a day and many days are sole veggies and protein.
8. Protein bars with zero grams of sugar. I eat Think Thin protein Bars. Buy these by the box full, you will eat them a lot!!!!
9. Get used to feeling hunger. This is an entire post all on its own and it really has a yoga connection. Which is why it is a post all on its own. Let me just tell you there is power in developing a healthy desire for the feeling of hunger. REAL LIFE CHANGING POWER!!!
10. MOVE everyday. Even if I don’t make it to a yoga class everyday, I practice yoga daily! Getting your joints open and moving creates space for fluids to work in your joints. If you’re not opening your joints and moving them they get stiff and stuck and there is no room for joint fluids to move around.

Part 3: Hunger Pain and The Yoga Connection!

 

Want to loose 35 pounds? Eat this!

Seared Pork Roast, served on top Madras Lentils by Tasty Bite at Costco. Just warm, plate, and lay your pork tenderloins on top.

Just a quick inspiration from tonight’s dinner. Bill seared a pork tenderloin after coating it with Montreal Steak Seasoning. He then placed it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Accompanied by steamed broccoli, this meal is tasty and healthy. We had a glass of Pinot Noir. The perfect Slow Carb dinner.

I had a bad week food wise last week and the details are difficult to write about, but this weeks success are what failures are all about! It seems that even when I was not following the plan perfectly last week, I only ate one bad meal or item per day, so I did not allow my food binges to go on and on all day long. It was just a meal here, a snack there. I am sure I am underestimating. But the confessional is shaping up to be a pretty intense post.

One thing I have noticed about yoga is that creates a desire to eat better foods. Your body naturally begins to want more space to do the poses. So you also start eating smaller portions.

BONUS TIP!!

Once you get the diet down, start reducing your portions. There are no portions on this food plan, but we all tend to over eat. We even tend to over eat the good foods. So next meal leave two or three bites behind and work yourself up to 25% of the entire dinner. Once there you can start putting less on your plate.

 

Ellie gets bored by Eggs In Morning: Here are 10 breakfast options to help her stick to it

Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack

Ellie, a Fat Yogi reader, asked the following question

Hey Will!
I was wondering, do you get tired of your meals? I normally have the same breakfast every day (1/2 cup egg whites on half of an english muffin + fruit), and some days because I am just so tired of having eggs, I’ll eat whatever else is available, which is generally unhealthy! Do you have any tricks to prevent that (Ellie posted on http://thefatyogi.com/food-plan/ )

Actually I do get tired of eggs everyday, so here are all the breakfast options I have come up with to deal with breakfast.

1. My standard breakfast is a three organic eggs, scrambled with fresh or frozen spinach topped with salsa.
2. One of my new favorites is Two Egs fried in canola oil or spam, served on top of Amy’s Refried Organic Beans with Salsa. Sometimes I get the two pieces of bacon really crispy and mash all the eggs and bacon and beans together…..yummy!
3. 1 Cup of Full Fat Cottage Cheese with sliced tomatoes. Remember there is a no dairy rule for this diet, due to the glucose load produced in the blood stream two hours after food is consumed that becomes fat if not used for energy. So, yes you can eat cottage cheese since, unlike other dairy is has a lower glucose load.
4. One Think Thin Peanut Butter protein Bar or any other protein bar that is high in protein, low in carbs, no sugar added, no fruit, no gluten, no dairy. They have 20 grams of protien and are sugar-free. There is a lot of controversy over alcohol sugars as an artificial sweetener and whether or not it mimics the insulin response. I personally don’t find the occasional protein bar for breakfast the end of the road.
5. Left over turkey, pork, chicken chili beans from the night before with two fried eggs on top. The beans with the eggs provide good flavor and protein.
6. Guacamole Deviled Eggs for Breakfast. See recipe click here.
7. Two Eggs and two pieces of bacon. No more than two pieces, period.
8. Develop flavor profiles and cook stir fried vegetables with either Italian, Indian, Chinese, or any other flavor profile and top with vegetables.
9. Plus you can always substitute a lunch or dinner option for breakfast
10. Do a simple lunch meat, chicken breast and your favorite veggie. I love sliced red and orange bell peppers with ham…..I know the salt. I do hot Yoga so the slat is helpful due to all the sweating.

I Hope this helps Ellie and others! It sure helps me to have an arsenal for breakfast. 

People really do eat the same few things on a day to day basis. My number one breakfast recommendation is to cheat on your cheat day for breakfast. Sit down breakfast with all the fixings from waffles to potatoes. Last week I had Brisket Hash with Eggs and a Waffle. Now that breakfast on cheat day keeps the rest of the breakfast in line.

Good Luck Ellie!

My First Class With Bikram Choundry

 

Will and Rajashree at the Yoga Championships: More to come tomorrow on my interview with Rajashree and USA Yoga! Plus videos of the Minnesota competitors!

I was able to escape from the harsh winter of Minneapolis, MN to the perfect March in California for 10 days. On my first full day there, I went to the Los Angeles headquarters for Bikram Yoga, to take a yoga class at the world headquarters. I knew that on the following Monday Bikram himself would be teaching but as long as I was in Los Angeles for the Yoga Championships I would practice at the Head quarters. Imagine my surprise when he the teacher that day.

After four months of hard winter in Minnesota, I was surprised at how perfect the weather was on my drive to my morning class. Of course my own winter madness had not thawed as well as I had hoped when I found myself chewing out a fellow yogini for taking a parking space that was rightfully mine. So you can imagine my surprise when I walked into the lobby of the studio that was jammed with students, not just a packed class, but a class so full that our mats and towels overlapped our neighbors mat and towels on all four sides.

Abbey and her husband rescued me by taking my mat and towel. I was so happy to see a familiar face in that sea of people, I hurried into the locker room and changed. Abbey and her hubby had saved me a place next to them.

Bikram made his way into the class and began teaching right from the start. He let us know that his classes were always long because so many people come so far to takes his class that he always gives 100%. This class was no exception it went about two hours.

Bikram is 100% a large personality person and he is a happy person. You can’t help but feel his excitement as he teaches. You actually smile and giggle a lot in his class. Of course the class is so crowded. My head was in the guys feet in front of me and my feet were all over the lady’s face behind me. It was a little disconcerting too not be able to see your knee, your eyes, or anything you wanted to look at to correct in the mirror, all you could see was bodies, but not your own.

When I bent over to do separate leg stretching, on my way down I had to sway to the right so that my chin would not hit the backside of the dude in front me as I went around his leg then ducked under his butt. However I forgotten how I had gotten there when Bikram finally released us from the pose. I raised my head straight up in to the ass of the guy in front of me.

Bikram really explains each and every pose and in a class of 80 or more students he had no end of students to guide into better expressions of the current pose. Of course that means the rest of us are free to remain in the pose until Bikram releases us. Yikes!!! No wonder I forgot how I got down separate leg forward bend and almost knocked the guy ahead of me over.

If you have read either of Bikram’s books or listen to his CD’s, you know that Bikram is a character and a live wire. I don’t really want to tell you everything he said or everything he did that inspired me to be a better yogi, but he was definitely inspiring!

Bikram is a celebrity in the world of yoga and to take a class from a world-class teacher, who has taught presidents and movie stars, is treat that we should all make time to enjoy.

198 Pounds: I am in the Onederful Club!

Last Saturday morning I finally hit 198 Pounds and am under 200 pounds. This week has drug on like the weight is not coming off. The few times I got on the scale I actually weighed more than last weeks low, until this morning, 198 pounds, again! So, hopefully, if I stay off the scale until Saturday, I will be under 198 pounds on ‘weigh-day’.

Even though it seems that I am losing the same week this week that I lost last, my body is visibly thinner, so much so that Bill noticed it while we were watching American Idol last night. Bill is a total American Idol fan, and this year truth be told, so am I. At least none of the Palin kids are on this one, last year when Brandi got sent home, Bill went totally ‘Wisconsin’ at the TV set….back to the point…we’re sitting there watching the show and Bill is looking at me and he goes, “Will, your nose is getting smaller”.

I guess I can add that to his list of of loving observations; “your face is not as large as a globe anymore”, “you arms don’t hang like a gorilla’s any more”, “the house doesn’t shake when you walk around it”,  or “oh look at your jacket, it almost fits”. Of course I made one of those up!

But I have noticed changes this week, my POLO jeans, that I have not had on my ass in several years went on easily. I am so taking those to LA today! During yoga I noticed that I almost have only one chin. The triple chin is long gone and the double chin is half-gone. It may even be 3/4 gone, but it is definitely smaller.

I won’t have my scale to weigh myself for the next 9-10 days, but I am going to be in Los Angeles for the Yoga Asana Championships. From there I will be hotel hopping around California visiting friends and family. This poses a challenge for a person wanting to live a healthier lifestyle. Where am I going to do yoga at? Where am I going to swim at? How am I going to eat? This is where some creative planning come in.

Doing Bikram Yoga while I am gone is simple. I will just go to the Bikram website, click on the World Headquarters Schedule and go to a class. In fact there is one tonight at 7:45 PM that I will be attending. While I am there I will try to take a class with Bikram himself, or even his wife.

There is a great website for swimming locations. It helps you find the best pool, that is closest to you.

As for the diet, you can bet that Chipoltle Burrito will be my friend for dinner. I will consume a large amount of protein bars, which are not perfect, but they will get me through tough spots. I will locate a local store for hard boiled eggs and keep a stock of fresh veggies in my hotel room. It should be pretty easy as long as I am prepared with protein bars.

I will probably eat a higher protein diet similar to Atkins with a heavy dose of vegetables, low on the beans. It is simply easier to eat a high protein diet when you’re on the road when your options are fewer.

So that is my plan. I would like to come home and be around 195 pounds.

Eric the studio owner asked me yesterday if it was all yoga or yoga and diet that have changed my life. It is both! One fo the interesting things about yoga is that you really do change what you eat the more you practice yoga. Your body literally request that you eat better or your yoga practice suffers. It is most amazing how the cravings for crap leave you once you actually make the committment to eat better.

I have found this ‘slow carb’ diet very easy to follow and I can do it for month after month with ease. Of course I live for pig-out days and I have developed some really cool tricks for breakfast that I will be sharing with you.

So I have a plan for SDY, (Swim, Diet, Yoga) while I am in California. I will be interviewing yoga teachers, I will be filming the local yoga champions, and taking pictures for the blog.

I have found that having a plan makes it easier to stick to a plan and eating and doing yoga are lifestyle changes. Besides practicing yoga at new and different studios introduces you to new people and new types of yoga!

60 Day Challenge Completed, NOW WHAT?

 

Standing Head to Knee. Stand with your heels and toes together.

Today I am going to do day 61 of Bikram Yoga. Might as well, I have gone everyday for the last 60 days. I feel better and I am thinner, my pants are falling off in public places. I guess I could remedy that by wearing smaller jeans, but there is something rewarding about your pants falling off, especially when just two short months ago they were so tight my belly was straining against the belt and pouring over. It was so attractive.

 

There are things that change when you do yoga, one is your appetite. Of course I have been following the Slow Carb Diet which is basically beans, lean meats, and vegetables with lots of water. The diet is basically gluten and dairy free, except one day a week I binge and eat whatever I want. But beyond the diet there is the changes that occur to your diet simply because you do yoga daily. You find that you eat less.

 

Lock out your left leg and bring up your right leg.

Completing a 60 Day Challenge in yoga is a big deal, but I don’t really have an amazing story to tell or a great secret to share to make it easier for the next person to do it.

 

Seriously it is about making a commitment and sticking to it, no matter what. It seems like that is the hardest thing to teach a person. The value of making personal commitments and sticking to it.

In my life I have seen many great things happen as a result of personal commitments I have made. But does the yoga commitment end at 60 Days or it is a lifelong practice. After 4-5 years of start and stop yoga, this is the most committed I have ever been to a daily yoga practice.

So, now what?

 

Grab both hands under your feet. Ideally your fingers should be interlocked. Mine won't reach around my feet yet, my belly is the way. So I grab with one hand at a time. As I thin down more room will be created.

I guess I go to yoga today, day 61, maybe I will do another 30 days. I am getting flack from Bill. He is always so practical. He reminded me that my daughters are coming in a few weeks and that I need to not let yoga get in the way of our time with them. One good thing is my daughter Hillary loves Bikram Yoga. I have not got Felicity to do it yet. Though I have gotten my eldest daughter Jayne to do a class.

 

What Bill is referencing is his desire to go to Lake Superior with the girls during spring break, of course I want to go to Miami. There is no Bikram at the lodges at Lake Superior or the Wisconsin Dells.

Of course, after five years of Bikram classes I can go through all 26 poses on my own, so I can do yoga anywhere. It is just comforting following the directions of the teacher.

So 60 days down and a lifetime of yoga ahead of me! Join me on this journey and you will see your own life change.

 

Ideally my head should be to my knee and after two months of yoga, this is how far I have gotten. It is not about getting there your first try, it is about sticking to it and evolving to a better position. For at least a month I stayed in picture number two, just locking out my leg. Eventually my head will be to my knee!

 

 

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!

So I Am Standing On The Scale Naked and Bill Says……..

Here is a picture of me doing bow pose two days ago. Below is a picture from three weeks ago. The picture was taken after class and I was tired and did not get as low and flat as I did in class, but am I thinner than three weeks ago?

“Hey your ass is clearing up”

I think, as I drop my hand and rub my butt cheek, that my ass is clearing up and then he adds, “The zits are gone”. Your probably still wondering what I am doing on the scale naked in the living room, but wait, you don’t know the scale is in the living room. Now you do! Yes, I am standing naked in the living room looking at the scale when Bill informs me that my ass acne is disappearing.

One of the benefits of Bikram Yoga is that your body cleanses itself of toxins. It seems my ass has been a zit magnet from all the ingrown hairs for years. Probably related to being on a horses all day long, sweating and rubbing that dirty sweat into my ass even deeper. But hot yoga really does cleanse and detox you from all the evil toxins we consume.

My skin is starting to radiate. Maybe it is the yoga or maybe it is the fact that I am not eating crappy food, or maybe it is both. Just gotta love what Bill point’s out!

I think my belly is smaller, what do you think? The shorts I had on in the above are mediums and don’t go down my thigh as far. I had to give up on the extra large size I had been wearing. But in the above picture you can see more definition under my ribs.

Bill is like that, he is full of all sorts of loving observations. Last week he said, “Will your face is not the size of a globe anymore”. Great, I am no longer The Planetary Yogi. My face is what now? The size of the moon…..anything else you want to tell me Bill? Though to be honest, there are things I can see now when I look down, that 23 pounds ago I could not see. I will leave that your imagination.

I must be fair, Bill loves me more than anything in the world and I am lucky to have such a wonderful man in my life, his observations are real and honest, never hateful. Wish I could say the same, I am a bitter old queen, ask Bill, he will tell you that!

Needless to say today was Day 26 of the 60 Day Challenge! We were taught by another Yoga professional Brandi Lyn Wynfield  (link to video) from Salt Lake City. She liked my bow pose, though when I was giving up in awkward pose, she caught me and said, “Will don’t give up”.

‘Give Up’? I thought, I would love to give up, but my life depends on me being here, so there is no room to give up. That was a BREAK! You know, the little break you sneak in when no one is watching. OK, so I was giving up, in that pose, in that moment. This, hot yoga, is not easy, in fact, it is F-word hard. Especially after I got on the scale naked right before class and looked at the number and saw that it was six pounds heavier than the day before.

To be fair to myself, which I am not. I had drunk 3/4 of a gallon of water, had three eggs, 1 cup of spinach, a slice of bacon and a turkey salad for lunch. I am not sure why I stripped down to my birthday suit and jumped on the scale at 2:00 PM. I weigh myself only in the mornings on Saturday, before I eat any food or drink any water. So clearly, I was looking at a scale that reflected two meals and 3/4 of a gallon of water. The only thing clear though was my ass acne!

Of course I carried that into my yoga practice. The first thing I saw when I looked in the mirror was that globe face had returned. Thanks Bill! There is the Planetary Yogi, he is back! Can you imagine how self-deprecating a whimsical jump on the scale can cause one to become? All I saw, as I stared at myself was fat! No amount of rationalizing seems to help, in those moments. I whipped myself into a frenzy! I simply needed a cupcake and I was ready to tip the F-word wagon over, screw falling off of it. GIVE ME CHOCOLATE MILK!!!!

Do I really think I gained 6 pounds in less than 24 hours? No. I mean, I only had one small bag of pop corn at the movies last night, no butter. It was a little splurge. I have been sneaking in one small bag of movie popcorn a week, for the last month. That has been my only weekly indulgence, besides binge day. There is no way one small bag of butter-less popcorn could put on six pounds in 24 hours. I KNOW THAT!!!!!

But the scale transforms my whole practice for today, even though I know I am just being crazy and that I did not gain six pounds in less than 24 hours. It would not be humanly possible given that I eat only beans, vegetables, and lean protein. But still I see every bump and bulge in class. Today, I noticed that one of my man tits is smaller than the other, well…..what I really noticed was one man tit was larger than the other and that is where the 6 pounds went, it found one of my man tits!

Yes, this is a real yoga experience, by the end of class the fat guy disappeared and I started seeing all the changes I made in class. Today, was the first time in rabbit pose that my head hit the towel. Today, in our first forward bend, my hands went from under my feet to under my heels as I straightened my legs. Today, during standing separate leg head to knee pose, my head actually went to my knees. That guy in the mirror is me, filled with insecurities and weaknesses, but willing to see myself as I am. Sometimes I am really hard on myself, especially when I am standing naked on a scale.

Though the scale did not tell all the story did it!

Click here to see me get into Standing Bow on The Fat Yogi on You Tube. This was after class and I am tired, but you can see that it is a lot of work. I fall right out, but in class that day I rocked it good and hard!