Fit Fit Hooray

Oh so cheesy. Naming posts is the worst. Anyhow, with this new resolution to run I have also been embarking on some healthy eating and general fitness, and therefore to the internet for research. I found this lovely photo on Strive to Be Healthy's tumblr, and thought it was kind of perfect.

I am all about trying to reappropriate the parts of your body you take greatest issue with and trying to see them for their positive qualities. My thighs are definitely my achilles heel (uh...can I say that?) when it comes to body image. They just don't seem to conform with the rest of my body, which is fairly trim and athletic. Each thigh is only 5 inches smaller than my waist - the definition of pear shaped. ugh. 

But - they are also mad strong. At my peak strength training I could squat just shy of 400lbs. And when it comes to rugby, my thighs were invaluable. Check me out, gettin' all slow and takin' this girl out;
 

Also - cool thing I was just reading. About water. So as cool a thing about water can be. Apparently doctors are starting to realize the limitations of the old "drink 8 glasses (8oz) of water a day" rule of thumb. According to Dr Mike Moreno, physician behind the 17 Day Diet, the better rule of thumb, which takes into account different body size, is to take your weight, divide it in half, and that is the number of ounces of water you should be drinking a day. So while the old wisdom would have me, and everyone, drinking 64 ounces of water, according to Moreno I should in fact be drinking 71 ounces. Kinda cool, yeah?

Evil Ways

My darlings.

As I far too often feel compelled to do, I apologize for my blogging absence.

Un

For

Give

Able

But this is not the only evil to which my title refers. Last night the ultimate perk of living in Calgary reared it's head - that's right boys and girls, I gots to go to a concert. And not just any concert. A Santana concert. Holy shit. I wont pretend I knew every song, or could even understand a lot of his inspirational, peace-promoting message (I felt like I was at Woodstock. Seriously. "We've got to think and put out positive energy and love. It's not that far out, man." Direct. Quote), but he was truly sensational. So skilled. Great show.

I am also tackling a third evil (ok, this analogy is beginning to wear thin, but bear with me) - I am going to finally tackle my running demon. Yule, who has also moved to Calgary - hooray - and I have decided that goal oriented running is our best plan to get in shape. So she and I are starting today to train for the Robert Hamilton Memorial 5 mile run on October 22nd.

I am quaking in my booties.

Fun posts will abound in future, I promise - this was basically to assure you that I am still alive.

Hi.

Dragging it Together

The weather has turned around, and for whatever reason, that means I have finally managed to get a mostly productive day in today! I can't explain it, but when it is rainy and miserable, I can't seem to focus on any sort of work - all I want to do is nest. Which is basically how I spent my whole weekend. I watched four movies, all by my lonesome and everything.

Well now it's 28 degrees and sunny. So it's back to the library to hurtle out another thesis chapter this week. Sigh. On the plus side, if I get up and to the library early I let myself leave early as well. I'm not my own most dedicated employee, that's for sure. Slept through my alarm this morning, missing my morning yoga class, which meant that I was actually at the library an hour earlier than usual. So I let myself leave at 4:00 to make a 4:30 yoga class.

If I didn't mention it, I am back on a major yoga kick right now. My aim is to go every day for the rest of my days in Montreal - which, tragically, are numbered! I don't know which part of that sentence I am exclaiming - it's all pretty exclamatory: ambitious/startling new! I will let you know how it goes, but this is less a "30 Day Challenge" type exercise than it is a "it's time to seriously change your life" thing. I want to be someone who needs to sweat every day. And yoga just gives me such peace of mind. And I have actually noticed some leap-and-bound scale improvements lately. Like, get this, a friend of mine the other day said "Damn you and your yoga body!" to ME! I have a yoga body? I am skeptical about this one, but it was an honour to hear it, because I don't know if you revere yoga bodies like I do, but they are some seriously beautiful things to behold (I'm sorry if you practice yoga with me - yes, I ogle everyone). But in the concrete reality of improvements, I can press my palms flat on the ground in a forward fold! That is amazing!! I used to have to have the trainer rub out and stretch my hamstrings for me before games, and now I can fold myself in half.

Pretty bomb kids, pretty bomb.

Wish me luck this week - things get real up in this thesis.

Good Morning, Heathens

I hope all of my fabulous pagan friends enjoyed their Summer Solstice yesterday. You know what that means? This year is celestially half over. Once I thought about it that way, I realized that this would be an excellent opportunity to look back at my New Year's resolutions, and perhaps even revise. Because if I haven't managed it by now, perhaps its time to reconsider. Besides flexibility and the ability to reset your aims are generally good things, right?

Ok, so what were those fucking resolutions anyway?

1. Make Yoga a Priority. Yo! It totally is. I took nearly a month off while I was in California, and only went thrice when I was in Calgary for 10 days, but since I've been back I have gone every day. I love it. I missed it. I need it in my day to feel sane.
2. You will be a Runner. Well. I'm working on this. I ran a bit in Cali (though the heat - serious impedement), and had been planning on signing up at the Running Room (which would be a big hit to my pride, let me tell you), but I haven't really fallen into step. Get it? Running pun. Now that I am working full time on my thesis though, I have dedicated my mornings to yoga and the evenings to running. Which I've done once. But I am in a good rhythm right now, so fingers crossed...
3. Exercise Some Will Power. Alright, well this had been initially conceived as the "give up dessert" resolution. It isn't going so hot. Now that I'm back in Montreal, my resistance is better, but I think my will power would be better exercised more generally; drink less, order healthier, make more food at home, etc. So will power stays, but so will dessert.  

4. Love Thy Skin. Oh yeah, I'm all over this. Though I need to step back and try again to stop touching my face. Magnifying mirrors are the devil.

5. Regimen, regimen, regimen. Yup, I'm doing pretty well on this. I've even started to write down the nonessentials in my agenda - dinner invites, yoga classes attended, birthdays.
6. TLC for my BFFs. Ugh. I've been abysmal. Sorry compadres. I will jump back on the horse once...

7. Finish Your Thesis. I am halfway there! I have 32 pages written, and it needs to be anywhere from 50-100 pages. So I was aiming for 60. And that's more than halfway. And I'm at the point right now where I'm mostly done researching (though I have to look back at my sources constantly to remind me what I'm looking for) and am just writing. Which I rock at. I should be able to get it in on the 4th - a week earlier than planned! Only real obstacle? This postal strike we're experiencing here in Canada means that the sources that the American Motion Picture Arts & Science Archive mailed to me at the beginning of the month is yet to arrive. And may not before my thesis needs to be in. Uh oh...


So not so bad on the whole! The thesis is dominating my days lately, as it rightly should, but I'm optimistic. I am a couple weeks a way from being basically a Master of (the) Arts!


Which reminds me, as impressive as this whole "thesis" accomplishment may be, a darling friend of mine is going to be achieving something equally (or in my opinion, much more) impressive. The lovely Kathy will be competing in a mothafuckinTRIATHALON this weekend. I'm floored. I didn't even know she was training. Considering my most recent attempt at a run got me, oh, 8 minutes of straight running, and I am a pro-doggy padler, this is wildly impressive to me. And I will also give props to Chopper, who is training for one as well.


One day I may run a 5 k...


Congrats amazing friends! You inspire me!

A Half-way Treat for Me

Before I got sidetracked by my sudden internet fame I had been planning on celebrating being half way through the yoga challenge with you. Celebrate it!

Or your big bird and rotting steak costumes.
Whatever says "Good Times!" to you

 

I hope you all have your sparklers aloft and party hats adorned.

I have completed, in fact, sixteen says of the thirty-day-challenge. I will still be getting up at 6:00am tomorrow for class though, making it far more likely that I will watch Party Monster than live it.

It's been going well. Only the past couple of days have I started to feel worn down. I think I need to start drinking much, much more water. I feel perpetually thirsty. But then again, I'm peeing all the time! Who knew thirty days of yoga would be so taxing?

Now that I am half-way, I thought I would set some goals for myself: my goal up to this point was survival.

I have already noticed that my spine and my hamstrings have both become more flexible. The latter, in particular, is a huge accomplishment. I am still looking like my sad pink washing gloves laid out in my drying rack right now when I attempt standing split (who are the freaks of nature who can do standing split???), but it's coming along.

I've decided that I really want to work on my depth in Dancer's pose. I have never been good at it, but I've found that, by sticking to proper alignment, I have been slowly but surely making progress. I also have decided to conquer my fear of Wheel. I have been feeling much more empowered and much less like I'm going to die in Bridge, and with my increased back flexibility, I think it's time to pony up and give it a shot.

I bought myself a little treat yesterday too, a congrats on making it thus far. Ok. Only kind of. Mostly it was a way of getting out of doing laundry so often. I invested in another yoga towel! And I even branched out; under the recommendation of Guillaume, with whom I'm secretly in love, I bought a Manduka towel, rather than another Yogitoes. This was a grudging recommendation, I think because the Manduka towel was almost 20$ cheaper (40$CDN, as opposed to the 58$CSN Yogitoes), but he was clearly backing Manduka.

So what's the difference?

Well, the Yogitoes, which I've been using for a year now, have plastic beading on one side, to better grip your mat, even after you've thoroughly soaked it with your sweat [groooooossssssss]. They also are the market favourite, available in a wide array of colours and patterns and sold at corporate yoga's favourite salon, LuluLemon (I have zero hate on for Lulu, but many of the more pretentious yogis do. Probably because they find it pretentious and elitist. Ironic). The Manduka mats, on the other hand, do not have this gummy grip tactic, and are generally much more muted and "calming" in colour, but are much more absorbant.

I thought the lack of beading would prove to be a problem. And I wont lie - it is. Particularly in any pose where I need to walk my feet back (ie. transitioning from Warrior I to Warrior II), the towel gets dragged around with my foot. It is annoying, and only having done two classes with it thus far, I still find myself anal retentively adjusting it mid-class, when my attention should clearly be elsewhere.

That said, the big advantage the Manduka towel has over the Yogitoes makes this slight inconvenience inconsequential: as the towel gets damp, it gets grippier. This is the opposite of what happens with the Yogitoes, and I often find myself (particularly if my mat hasn't been washed since last class - which these days is more often than not [grooooooosssssss]) having my hands slip away from my in Downward Facing Dog. I would really rather not crash face first into my mat half way through class. But often times when we slow down to take a few breaths in downward-dog, I have that stomach-dropping experience of having one hand suddenly skid over the top of my Yogitoes. The fact that my abundant sweat [grooooossssss] becomes an aid, rather than an obstacle, with the Manduka towel is invaluable.

So, if I can learn to pick up my feet, the Manduka towel gets my gold star. Thanks Manduka, for keeping me for having sudden and embarrassing encounters with gravity.

10 days down, 20 to go!

I am already 1/3rd of the way through my self-imposed 30 day yoga challenge. It has been phenomenal. I had my friend Claire coming with me this past week almost everyday, so it has been dead easy to get to classes. It was her first time at the studio, so she had a week unlimited pass - alas, now that it's up, she can't afford the, admittedly pricey, studio fee for an unlimited pass, so she will be coming only once a week or so.

I must say though, she has started a dangerous, yet charming and irresistibly bourgeois, habit in me. Because Claire, rather obnoxiously, decided to go out and get a real job after university, she found it easiest for her to go to the 7 am classes and then head to work afterwards. My flexible student's schedule couldn't deny her this.So I have been getting my butt out of bed at 6:00 am, grabbing a bit of breakfast (a careful balancing act, eating enough to keep from passing out, but not so much that you are even mildly aware of it while in Floor Bow Pose, lest I vomit on my mat). I find it really satisfying actually, to be up that early - it leaves me able to blog in the morning before I head to the library, almost entirely guilt free. Anyhow, after yoga, we adopted the habit of stopping in at an amazing little European food shop, with fabulous cheeses, deli meats, condiments aplenty, all varieties of chocolate, as well as an amazing food counter; it was at the last the we would grab small capuccinos and croissants. We would walk them over to my apartment, polish them off, and head towards campus together.

So, basically, every morning that I do yoga, I also drink a full fat cappuccino and have a fabulously buttery croissant. So much for fitness and will power.

On a healthier note, I plan on making Giada De Laurentiis' Pasta Ponza as part of Chopper and I's long delayed culinary throw down. WEll, we are both back at it, and as it gets nicer out and I begin craving more fruits and veggies to fuel my increasingly active body, I thought that this light and simple pasta dish would be a good try. I have only had it in cold leftover form before, but the flavours are so simple, I can't imagine how you could go wrong. I hope that Chopper enjoys it - he really needs some extra TLC these days; vicious haters are trying to get him down. I am sure he will persevere though - the man is of hearty, albeit vegetarian, stock.

Wish I was going to the King's Athletic Awards "Banquet" tomorrow night instead of McGill's Athletics Gala tonight...

Too Big to Blog?

Today anyone plugged into the fashion blog scene (I utterly refute and refuse the term "blogosphere") has probably asked themselves this question, or some variant today: can someone be too big for a fashion blog?

So, we all instinctively want to say "No! Fashion should be for anyone who wants to adapt it creatively for whatever their body type," but Scott Schumann has left me in doubt.

On the fashion blog par excellence, the Sartorialist, Schumann featured Angelika, a blogger out of Milan, rocking some seriously bad ass shoes. Unfortunately, Schumann offered a brief write up about the young lady, something he does not always or often do, saying " I loved that she's a bigger, curvier girl than most of the other bloggers who you see in the the press and tend to represent the genre," and admiring "the sturdy but beautiful shape of her legs."

So, as you can imagine, the Sartorialist has been inundated with offended and outraged comments. I am very much in sympathy with them. This girl is certainly larger than the average waif featured on the website, and, let's be honest, body affirmation is not why anyone goes to the site, but she is not big and she is not curvy. I must admit, I am wholeheartedly tired of the wordy "curvy." It is a euphemism for fat - let's just put it out there. Unless you are Kim Kardashian or Christina Hendrix, by "curvy" you probably mean "plump." And I'm not hating on that either. I think most of us are a bit plump and that is fine. But stop throwing around "curvy." That said, I prefer "curvy" to "sturdy." As one comment reads, let's not use the word "sturdy" to define anything other than antique mahogany furniture, shall we?

But, as I spiral deeper and deeper into the world of blogs - friends', fashion and food are, no joke (but alliteration is always a joke), my favourites - I think that Schumann is making a point that is being missed amongst all the outrage. This girl is big for a fashion blogger (though there obviously has to be a distinction made between a fashion blogger who uses self-as-subject, which this girl does not appear to be doing). I am following four fashion blogs, Sartorialist aside, that feature teeny tiny girls. My friend Kathy told me recently that she wisely culled any of these sorts of blogs that have been functioning as thinspos (such a terribly depressing bit of eating disorder terminology for you - thin-inspirations). But, what can I say, I really do appreciate the fashion! And, alas, I am yet to encounter a fashion blog that features a girl who is more similar to my body shape (which, if you're curious, I would classify as athletically pear-shaped. Not. Curvy.).

I do follow one blog, Hey Good Lookin', which features the lovely Evey, who I know personally, and does not strike me as a size 2 (though I will admit I am completely ignorant to what her actual dress size is). Immediately upon writing this, however, I feel the need to apologize to Evey; "Evey, sorry man, I don't mean you're fat!" This is exactly the problem.

Sigh.

It is no secret, given my penchant for fitness and continually trying to drag my diet together that I have some body aims of my own, so I would never go on a truly hypocritical rant about loving your body the way it is (in fact, I will very likely in the future go on a rant against that particular breed of rant). But can we dress our bodies fashionably the way they are?

Yes please.

If anyone knows any fabulous fashion blogs that I must check out, particularly ones of the "body inclusive" or "body harmony" varieties, please share.

Let's Get this Fitness Train a' Runnin'

Do trains run? No, they roll, but "rolling" and "fitness" just don't seem like complimentary images: I'm working out to avoid becoming a shape for which the easiest movement is rolling! [Read: sphere]

So I had my first spinning date with Yule. I have been very resistant to spinning ever since I saw an episode of Gilmore Girls where they find themselves appallingly the guests of a mother-daughter duo who insist on morning spin classes. Lorelai and Rory escape before they can be indoctrinated. Much hilarity and paranoia regarding the utter lameness of spinning ensue. This initial and, granted, irrational fear of spinning was soon overcome to the point that I sat on a spin bike. Then my reasons for not spinning became slightly better grounded. Spin bikes were designed by either a) individuals with a poor grasp of human anatomy or b) sexual sadists. Call Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay!

But. But. I have heard they will make my legs sexy, and after my embarrassing appearance on the rugby pitch in Truro, I figured I could use a new challenge to keep me motivated at the gym.

So, Yule and I are now doing 3 gym dates a week! Spinning and weights included.

In addition to this, I have taken it upon myself to commit myself to a 30-day yoga challenge. I had been wanting to do a 30 day challenge all semester, and was just waiting for the studio to announce when it would be. Well they just announced: April 15-March14. I plan on being in California as of March 6th, and a yoga challenge isn't really a good enough reason to delay my departure. Rather than sacrifice the challenge, however, I am just going to go ahead and do it myself. Today is day 3/30. My goal is to make it consecutive this time around!

So, to recap, I am now doing a 30 Day Yoga Challenge, Gym date 3 days a week, and, with any luck, outdoor runs on the weekend with my baby bro.

Bring it on summer!