HOW TO TAME A TIGER

This is how our night time ritual with the Cabbage used to go: bedtime story followed by goodnight hugs, kisses, animal kisses, and butterfly kisses. We'd turn on her pillow pal night light, turn off the light and say "goodnight" while shutting the door behind us. Then the Cabbage would get up and come out  of her room like twenty times yelling "I'm not tired!" as she rubbed her tiny fists in her eyes. It was sort of like trying to negotiate with an angry meerkat. Not to mention that the Cabbage has a way of walking around the house as if she weighs six tons instead of 43 lbs. Her bedtime is supposed to me 8:30. My bedtime during the week is around 9:00. I'd just about be drifting off when I'd hear a heard of elephants crash thought the house and shout "I'm not tired!". Since I don't believe that Joan Crawford was right in tying children to the bed at night, I knew I needed to try some other bedtime rituals. 

I started talking her through a final relaxation as if she was a grown up in one of my yoga classes. Sometimes I add in fun kid friendly things like floating on clouds, but usually the script goes like this:

      Gently closing the eyes. Find the coolness of the breath as it hits the back of the throat on the inhale following it into the lungs and out as you exhale. Starting with the top of the head. As you inhale, imagine drawing the breath in through the top of the head and feeling it travel down the face. As the breath travels down the face, feel the eyes relax and become heavy. Feel the face relax, the mouth relax. Continuing to feel the breath travel down the neck, feel the head completely relax and release into your pillow (or cloud). Let the breath move into the shoulders and feel your shoulders relax at it travels down the arms, into the hands and then out the fingertips. Releasing the shoulders and arms into the bed (or cloud). Breath into the heart and feel the chest open and expand and then draw that breath into the belly. Feel the belly soften as the breath continues to travel down the body into the thighs, into the knees, down the shins and the calves and into the feet. Let the breath spread from the heal of the foot all the way to the base of the toes, through the toes and out the tips. Relaxing and releasing and completely surrendering to the sweetest dreams.

This has become part of our bedtime ritual. In fact, she asks for it and as soon as I say "gently close your eyes" she shuts her eyes and puts her arms down by her side. Now this doesn't mean that she doesn't interrupt me twenty times or that she goes right to sleep at the end. That's the ideal. She does interrupt, but I just gently remind her to close her eyes and we move on. Instead of getting up a dozen times, she gets up maybe once. Some times twice. Usually Michael bribes her with jelly beans on the second "I'm not tired!" and that's it. She's down for the count. 

Here's my theory on why this final relaxation thing helps. I talk to her with my soft soothing yoga teacher voice. I call it my hypnotizing voice. I take her from oh-my-god-its-play-time mode to a calmer more relaxed, more conducive to the idea of sleep stage. I'm also spending a few extra minutes with her. In truth she gets up because she just wants some company. Maybe hanging out with her just a few minutes longer eases that need for another human being. Any way, it's not a sure thing. It helps. At least I've noticed a difference. 

Next thing, I'll teach her how to do alternate nostril breathing. 

GHEE-DY

OK, I think it's finally time to tell you about ghee. Ghee is clarified butter, which sounds terrible. At least, I never thought that it sounded like a good idea. It's kind of a big deal in Ayurvedic medicine and is encouraged by the tablespoon as a cure-all miracle oil. The research varies on the benefits and the downside to consuming clarified butter. I mean, it's fat, but it's good fat that has been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol and is high in omega-3:omega-6. Ghee can be heated to extremely high temps without breaking down and reduces the glycemic index of anything cooked in it. It is a saturated fat, but one with short-chained fatty acids. So it's easily metabolized. Of course, it's still saturated fat. Moderation and common sense people. Use it. You can buy ghee at your local health food store or make your own. I think I prefer making my own because it's believed that the good energy you put into the ghee while making it, increases the benefits. The more love and happy energy you put into it the better. While the butter is on a slow boil, you turn up the music and dance. You sing to it. You whisper words of love and happiness into the pan. Then you strain it through cheese cloth to remove the milk fats and bask in the glow of the delicious ghee that you have made. And your house will smell like buttered croisants.

When I went on antibiotics at Christmas time, my skin broke out with hives and pimples. It was really bad and ugly. After the round of antibiotics, the acne got better but never really went away. One week of replacing my olive oil and butter with ghee and my skin is practically clear. I don't use it every day. Coconut oil has become my other choice for cooking oils. But many of my meals contain ghee. Rice and mung beans would taste like gruel without it. I know it sounds silly, but ghee has brought a richness to my life. I have seriously become enamored with ghee. Ghee, ghee, ghee. I love ghee.

Sorry. But I did warn you that there was an entry coming about the wonderfulness of ghee.

I'M A PITTA WITH A KAPHA KITCHEN

I've always thought of myself as a Kapha girl. I mean, I've never taken a dosha quiz, but just from the things I know about doshas I just pegged myself as a Kapha. Well it turns out I was all wrong. I finally took a dosha quiz and I'm a Pitta. Pitta, Pitta, Pitta. I know none of this makes sense to many of you, but stay with me here. In Ayurveda you are always more of one dosha than the others, but ideally you'd like to be kind of close to balanced in all three. The thing about these kinds of workshops is that you have a tendency to go into them assuming that you have some sort of major dosha imbalance. In other words you go into them thinking there's something wrong with you. Well, I learned this weekend that there's nothing wrong with me. I'm fairly balanced in all three doshas, but I'm strongest in the Pitta. I eat a diet that suits my dosha and do activities appropriate for my dosha. I'm doing most every thing right. You know what is wrong? My kitchen. My kitchen is all wrong for an Ayurvedic kitchen. See the evidence below.

That top square is how the layout of an Ayurvedic kitchen should be. That bottom square is a diagram of my kitchen. See the the problem here? I've got fire where I should have water and earth where I should have air. My kitchen walls are yellow which is a Kapha balancing color and the color swatch I've had taped to that wall for over a year is orange which is a Vata balancing color. Maybe I won't be painting that kitchen orange after all. In fact, from where I'm sitting, all I can think to do is gut it entirely and start over from scratch. I mean how hard could it be to move plumbing and gas lines?

OK, maybe that's a bit of an over reaction. That top diagram is the ideal Ayurvedic kitchen, but nobody lives in ideal conditions. There are ways I can fix my kitchen without calling in the construction crew. The first thing I can do is paint my kitchen a Pitta soothing color like green, blue or purple. Next I need to put something inspiring along with a small water feature in the north east corner. The water feature can be something as simple as a plant or a vase of flowers. Since I can't move my stove into the "fire" corner, I can put things that get hot in that corner. This is something I already do. My coffee maker sits there and also the rice cooker. Now, let's move to the earth corner. That's a good place to store things from your past. I'm doing OK here too. This is the area I store my dishes. My dishes are special, made by my mother, and spent three years packed away in storage. They represent something from my past. The air corner is where you should keep the things that you don't use too much. I use the fridge every day, but I store baking pans and muffin tins in the cabinet above.

So... nothing a little paint and inspiration won't fix. The first thing I need to do is figure out a paint color. I've been set on the idea of orange for a kitchen for a long time. Now I'm leaning towards eggplant. And maybe open up the cabinet above the stove to put cookbooks and something inspirational to look at while I cook. Easy, simple fixes and I'll have my very own Ayurvedic kitchen. Om shanti.

LOVE THURSDAY

My sister left a comment on fb about my guilt entry stating that I was never the fat kid. That's not entirely true. Sure, I would never had made it onto the Biggest Loser, but I was the fat kid of the family or had the tendency to be on the chunky side. I have had a couple of women in my life (actually still do, she will probably go to her grave before she will willingly say anything complimentary about my body) who have gone out of their way to point out my chunkiness. They started this when I was reaching those formative teenager years when I was already struggling with body image. I was still trying to figure out how to get my bangs to stand up (never figured that out) and how to put on eyeliner (never figured that out either). One of those women even helped me cultivate a fear of eating. In fact, I can still hear her voice in my head when ever I go to eat anything bread related. "You eat that roll and you're gonna get fat". Things got worse when I continued to put on weight in college and grad school. I just kept buying bigger pants and making horrible food choices. This is also when I started to obsess about exercise. I was convinced that I just needed to exercise more. I lost a pants size and figured that I just needed to exercise even more, but I stayed at that size and weight. So I thought this was the size and weight I was supposed to be. I continued to exercise like crazy because I was terrified of going back up a size. The one good thing to come out of all of that was my introduction to yoga. Yoga was the thing that I could consistently do without dread or seeing it as a chore. Eventually something clicked. I learned about food (there's no such thing as "diet" foods) and I learned to work smarter, not harder in exercise.

One of the most important things I've done in dealing with my body insecurities is to surround myself with women who encourage each other. Instead of hearing "you're looking a bit pudgy today", I hear "you look fantastic in those jeans". I've surrounded myself with women who recognize that even though we have flaws, we are beautiful. Isn't that the way it should be? Women make up a little over 50% of the population in the U.S. We hold high powered jobs, run households, and other general awesomeness. Yet as women, we are bombarded with advertisements that tell us we are not awesome. As women, we are assailed with music and images that tell us we are less. So the last place discouragement should ever come from is a woman. I've been blessed with the women in my life. They're response to "you eat that roll and you're gonna get fat" is "here, let me pass you the butter". They have helped me see that I am beautiful and I hope that I do my part in letting them know that they are just as beautiful if not more.

Happy Love Thursday!

FEEL JUST LIKE I'M WALKING

People talk about seasonal depression and how Fall seems to be a trigger. I've never thought of myself as one of those people that fall victim to seasonal depression, but I do get antsy with season changes. This week it seems that the antsiness is beginning to get to me.

I've been easily frustrated with breaks in my routine but at the same time apathetic. Tonight is dust and vacuum night and I wasn't really into the idea of dusting. Chris caught me touching the dust rag to a spot on the shelf. I was testing it to see just how dusty it was. He let me off the hook by saying that he planned to take the air-conditioning unit out of the window this weekend and re-install the screen. He said I could wait to dust until then. I shrugged and moved onto the vacuum.

My sleep has been off. Last night I struggled to get to sleep. I was hot. I was cold. I itched. When I finally did fall asleep, I dreamed. I dreamed that for "science purposes" we were going to shoot my foot at point blank and study the exit wound and repeat with the second foot (we've been watching a lot of Fringe lately). We did both feet and I have no comparisons, but if gun shots hurt as badly as they do in dreams, then I pray to the Gods that I never get shot. So I woke up and in pain, which didn't make sense because there was nothing physically wrong with me.

But then, I'll do something simple like ride the scooter home or dance like a fool in Zumba and I'll become lighter, happier. The frustrations and the struggles melt away. The guy in these pictures walks on glass as his performance art. Well, I think we are all performance artists. We all walk on glass every day. There are days where walking on glass is just not as easy as this guy makes it look. We may cut our feet. But then there are days where we prance around on that glass as if it were a pile of feathers. Monday and Tuesday were my days to practice walking on glass. There have been a few cuts, but nothing that requires stitches or even a band-aid. The rest of this week, I'll be walking on feathers.

LOVE THURSDAY

I still have plenty of pictures from my San Diego trip that I have yet to upload and edit. Part of me is disappointed in myself for not doing anything with these and just leaving them on my card. But then I realize that I need an image for a blog entry and I haven't taken anything that day worth showing. It's like finding a surprise in the bottom of your cereal box. I wasn't sure where today's entry would go (still not sure really). I started browsing through my old images, the ones still on the card, and I came across this one of the seagull. I remember taking this picture. I remember the sun beating down and the cool breeze. I remember how I tested the bird by getting as close as I possibly could. I remember getting so close and then he fluttered his wings a bit and I backed off. There was something to all of that. There was moment of stillness and calm. It was like both of us were holding our breaths. The fluttering of the wings reminded me to breathe and I took this picture.

Some times I realize I'm holding my breath. There's this road I sometimes take home from work. It's a pretty straight road except for one section that has a very hard curve. I struggled with this curve. I'd come to it and stop breathing and try to make the turn. I'd have to slow way down and then I'd get wobbly. One day I decided I was going to get this curve. I shifted my focus from the severity of the turn to all the things around it and to my breath. It was a perfect turn.

The power of the breath is an amazing thing. So today, for Love Thursday, I'll ask of you one simple thing. Remember to breathe.

Happy Love Thursday.

LOVE THURSDAY

Every day we are bombarded with things that tell us we are not enough. We are not skinny enough, smooth enough, happy enough. Just turn on the TV and it will hit you with every commercial. You want to be happy, skinny, perfect, then buy this. It used to be I only noticed drug commercials with the promises of perfection. Now I see it every where. I started thinking about it while reading this entry from Shauna of Gluten Free Girl. She says something in there about finally being happy in her own skin and how long it's taken her to get to that place. Raise your hand if you can relate. I have fought with my body my entire life and if it were not for my yoga practice, I would still be fighting with my body. But when I'm doing yoga, like really into my practice, I feel beautiful. My waist feel long and lean. My legs and arms are strong. I am graceful and gorgeous. And it has taught me the most valuable lesson of all. It has taught me to work with my body. I am not a size zero and there are some poses I'm just not good at (yet), but none of that matters when I am on my mat. The only thing that irritates me is that it took me 30 something years to figure this out.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. We all have something in our lives that make us feel our absolute best when we are doing it. It's just that some us may not even realize what that thing is yet. But those people closest to you know. They've seen it. They've seen you in your practice, whatever that may be yoga, art, performing, and they've seen you at your absolute best smiling and shining like the sun. And deep down, you know what that practice is too. Maybe it's time to reacquaint yourself with that practice.

Happy Love Thursday!

LOVE THURSDAY

I came back from BlogHer all fired up, full of ideas and dreams. But it seems that I've run out of a bit of steam. There are not enough hours in the day for me stick to my routine, let alone add something to that routine. I feel my days are very organized. Too organized. There's no leeway. I can't. I'm tired. I'm not enough.

At first I looked at this picture and thought it was a great representation of my thoughts right now. The Sphinx is hiding or bearing it's head in the sand. Sort of bleak. Then I realized, the Sphinx isn't hiding. It's resting, lying in wait. It's a much nicer thought. Time is so odd. It's so easy to get caught up and think that things have to happen right this very minute. That the act of not doing, doing, doing makes me less of a decent human being if I don't make it happen right this very minute. But we hear in the back of our brains that time is short and we forget. We forget that time is relative. I know I'm doing the best that I can in this present moment and who's to say that isn't enough. We are our worst judge.

Instead I should be taking my cue from the resting Sphinx. Using this time to rest, to really give pause before writing or speaking. It is another practice in mindfulness. It is another practice in patience. I take pause now so that I am not tired. I can and I am enough. Sometimes our hardest acts of goodwill and kindness are those towards ourselves. So, I remind you today. Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. Love yourself. And the rest will fall right into place.

Happy Love Thursday.

LESSON # 2

The Facebook events that prompted this entry couldn't have come at a better time. I think it planted a seed and the sessions I attended at BlogHer acted as the water to make it grow. Sitting in on the International Activist Scholarship Winners session really makes me appreciate the freedoms I have. This years scholarship winners were Reem Amir Abbas, Simone Leid and Yoani Sanchez and the session was moderated by Cheryl Contee. Cheryl Contee is one cool chic. Check out the work she does. All of these women are remarkable , blogging in unsafe territory. Yoani Sanchez could only speak to us through a video she had sent. The Cuban government refused to let her leave the country and she is currently under house arrest. For her blog. Now this is were you stop and let that sink in. No matter what your gripes are towards our government, you at least have the freedoms to write and post what ever it is you want to say for who ever wants to read it.

I also sat in on the Owning Your Beauty session moderated by Rita Arens. Panelist were Karen Walrond, Jess Weiner, Kate Harding and Stephanie Nielson. I intentionally went to see Karen and I had met Rita the night before. She's a KC girl and she swept me into her gaggle of fellow KC bloggers. But the woman I related to the most was Kate. Her blog focuses on being healthy at any size and learning to be comfortable in your present skin. I can't tell you how long it took me to get to that place in my life.

So how do these two tie together for my second lesson. Well, there was a lot a talk about changing the language. Changing how we talk and think about differences. I have the freedom to and the power to do just that. But just not with my words. I've decided that once we get the house settled, I'll start teaching yoga again. On a volunteer basis. I see a class of underprivileged girls or women of low income families. I see myself teaching these women that they are beautiful and they are worthy through yoga. That's what I want.

OK...just one more lesson, but that's for another day.

SALT THE EARTH

Monday was one of those cliched kind of days. I had slept poorly, having dreams where I argued with my mother, so that when I woke up, I woke up bleary and cranky. I went to work and had a long mentally exhausting day. I didn't do my yoga practice. I worried about the house. I mumbled in my head about my fat tired body. I whined about the heat. And all of this I did internally, trying hard to not sound snappish when I talked to Chris. Then, that evening, while I was moping on the couch, Chris came out and said he wanted to water the garden and spray the yard. I grumbled and put on my shoes and headed out to help. I watered the garden and pulled some weeds while Chris sprayed a salt brine around the perimeter of the house and yard. And we were swarmed by mosquitoes. Masses of them. We came in covered in bites and Chris immediately jumped in the shower. I flopped down on the couch thinking I would not shower. I would just sit and itch and grumble. But Chris finished and I decided at the last minute to grab a tub of salt and jump into the shower and scrub myself with salt. Then, a funny thing happened. I stopped itching. I felt cooler. I felt less cranky. In fact, I didn't feel cranky at all.

We learned about energy cleansing with salt in yoga teacher training. It's best to soak in a tub of salt water for twenty minutes, but in a pinch (punny) you can just pour it over yourself and use it like a soap. I realized last night that this is something I don't do often enough. My body was hot, sweaty and itchy and could have done with a good scrub. But really the part that needed to be cleansed the most, was my soul. It's odd. I clean the house once a week. I wash clothes once a week. I shower daily, but I have a hard time remembering to clean my spirit. Perhaps salt baths should be added to the weekly chore list.

FORGIVENESS

My sister posted a link to this article from yoga Journal on her Facebook page. Maybe it's something she's been struggling with lately and the article spoke to her or maybe she just thought it was a good read. I don't know; she didn't say. But I read the article and it is a good one and it did make me pause and question forgiveness. Often times I feel I've forgiven someone for some transgression or another only to have the memory of that anger and hurt rear it's ugly head again during my meditation practice. I start to rerun the event wondering if there were ways I could have made it better. This is of course a distraction during my practice. Or it could be a way for my subconscious to actually deal with the issue. I've come to realize that often times I forgive (maybe too easily), but I don't really forget. I distance myself from the transgressor, because I no longer trust that person not to do it again. It's safe. It's easy. But does my inability to forget mean I've really forgiven?

I forgive those who have trespassed against me. I forgive and forget the trespasses. It's an easy thing to say (or type). But if I live a life where I believe that words matter, then I should make this an easy thing to do.

Namaste Y'all.

LOVE THURSDAY

I came home the other day and noticed a package from A Complaint Free World sitting on our credenza. Chris had decided to order some bracelets as a practice to be more mindful. He had forgotten about my assignment I had had for yoga teacher training a few years ago. We had to go complaint free for 24hrs. It took me two days. The rules are simple. You wear a bracelet and every time you voice a complaint or criticism you have to move the bracelet to the other wrist. The idea is to not have to move the bracelet for 21 days. It's difficult and humbling. You realize very early on just how much you complain and or criticize. Last year, I put the bracelet back on because I felt myself slipping back into that cycle. I was at a job I didn't really care for and not in a place where it was easy to be happy. I had to work to bring happy into my life and some days were harder than others. But one day, I went to work with the bracelet on and come home with no bracelet. Some where in my day, I had lost the bracelet.

Chris and I each put on a bracelet that night. We started talking about this and that and suddenly we both realized that we needed to move our bracelets. Afterward Chris would say "Now this is not a complaint, it's just an observation, but ...". It made me laugh. I told him we may have to change the rules to include his "observations". The next day, I wore my bracelet. It stayed put on one wrist all day. I really don't have all that much to complain about.

And today for Love Thursday, I am doing my very first give-a-way. The first eight people to leave a comment, will be sent their very own complaint free bracelet. Happy Love Thursday!

Check out A Complaint Free Revolution on YouTube.

Or the book, A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted.

LOVE THURSDAY

Yesterday, I went to yoga class and it was the first time I'd been on my mat in four days. By the time I got home I was exhausted and had to take a nap while Chris made dinner. My nightly chore list seemed to be impossible even though the chore list is designed to give me only one task a night (clean the bathroom, vacuum, etc). I dragged myself through each one, but skipped my morning practice to sleep in an extra hour. The whole time, I've had this part of my brain that keeps telling me to "get up! you lazy bitch!". Some of you may remember when I did the Yoga Body Diet back in January and had to figure out my Dosha and how all these years I'd thought of myself as a Kapha. To compensate for the belief that I have a tendency to be lazy (Kapha), I've become a bit of an overachiever (also known as Vata). So while I've had that nag sitting on one side of my brain, there's the other side of my brain telling me it's OK to slow down a bit. I know I have some things going on with my body this week that requires me to get a little extra rest. I think the real struggle is being OK with being...OK.

At what point did we learn that no matter what we were doing, it just wasn't enough? Because this is what it all really comes down to, knowing that we are enough. It's not like any of us just do nothing all day. I work, I exercise thirty minutes every day, I cook dinner (usually), I do a chore, feed the dog and take him out for his front yard patrol. Why should I feel like I should be doing more? Isn't this enough? I say it is. I say that we are all enough. I say that we cut ourselves a bit of slack and stop being our own worse critics. Because no matter what, even on our lazy days, we are still loved.

Happy Love Thursday.

I THINK I MIGHT BE ALLERGIC TO TEQUILA

Friday evening, Chris and I finally made it home from a long day at work (long week really) and we started right into making our dinner of left over potato soup and grilled cheese sandwich. While the soup warmed up on the stove I made us up some margaritas with clever margarita kit my pal Robin gave me for my birthday. Robin's recipe is 3 parts tequila, 1 part water, 1 part lime juice, and 1 part agave nectar. Robin is an alcoholic (I say that with love). They are very tasty and very potent margaritas. Any way, we're eating and drinking and watching Red and folding clothes. And I realize that the more margarita I drink, the more my eyes get itchy and my sinuses get stuffy, but I ignore it all because did I mention that the margaritas are tasty? And potent? So I spent the weekend battling with my nose and a nice little allergy attack. And today? Today I woke up with a canker soar the size of Texas on my tongue. I'm thinking it's either the agave or the tequila and I'm leaning towards the tequila, because that's a new alcohol to us.

So I guess this means that tequila goes on the list with avocados. That means I will still consume it, but that I am aware that my body doesn't like it. My yoga teacher used to tell us that every thing is about choice, just be aware of all the consequences of that choice. Meh. I can live with the canker soar.

WEEK THREE OR SOMETHING

OK, I realize that today should be an update on the Yoga Body Diet. Things are going well. I eat whole lot of food at lunch and I'm not ready to eat my fingers off by the time I get home in the evenings. This is actually the most important thing. Usually, I am starving, as in Chris Farley starving, by the end of my work day (after teaching class and what not). I'm usually so hungry that I don't want to cook; I just want to eat and consume it in two point six minutes. It also leads to me eating way too much food right before my bedtime. The new plan is working out a bit better. I'm not as hungry by the time I get home and cooking supper is easier. Plus I make enough to put away for lunch the next day. I still feel like I'm eating way too much food at lunch time, but I don't feel like I need to eat something between lunch and supper any more. I plan on sticking to this way of eating even when the four weeks is up.

So week three....Yeah, through the chaos of putting together a surprise birthday party for my mom, I never managed to read up on what is expected of us in week three. I think this the part where they expect us to do lots of yoga and do poses that benefit your dosha. I think this is the part of the diet where we start to slide a bit. I already do lots of yoga and I know that my personal practice is just savasana. I also know that I need to be squeezing in this practice more than twice a week. If only we could add an hour to the day.

WEEK TWO

Chris and I begin week two of the Yoga Body Diet today. To prepare for week two, we had to take a quiz to determine our dosha. As I mentioned before, there are three types of doshas and they reflect your mind/body type. The quiz is pretty straight forward. If you want, you can take one here. Describing the different doshas could be an entry all by itself, so I'll spare you the details and just say that after taking the quiz Chris turned out to be very much Vata with a little bit Kapha and a tiny bit Pitta. I was another story. I ended up scoring 18 points for Pitta, 17 for Pitta and 16 for Kapha. Pretty balanced. I have read about doshas before and have always thought I was Kapha. In fact, if you read the Kapha description, it sounds like me. But, when I read through the Pitta section, Chris and I both went "Oh". Yeah, I'm Pitta. The next step is to design meal plans based on your dosha type. The book contains a list of foods that are best suited to your dosha. The book also stresses the importance of eating three meals a day, no snacking in between meals. Breakfast looks like this: fruit, hot cereal, toast, and herbal tea. Lunch is meant to be your biggest meal of the day with soup or salad, vegetables, meat or tofu, dessert and herbal tea. Supper is the lightest with soup or salad, a sandwich, dessert and herbal tea.

As we started figuring out the grocery list, I started to freak out a little bit trying to figure out how to plan meals for the two of us with out breaking the bank. The Pitta in me wanted to be strict and really stick to the food list, but it seemed so daunting that the Kapha in me wanted to just chuck it all and forget it. I compromised with myself and decided to not get so hung up on the list. Super is just a lighter version of lunch. I designed meals that I could make extras of to bleed over into my lunch like quasadillas, tacos, grilled sandwiches. Things that we could put different fillings in and wouldn't be a big deal to make up separately.

One of the things that I really like about the book is how much it emphasizes how important it is to not stress. I had to remind myself that the no stress applies to the diet as well. We're keeping things simple. We've decided that making lunch the biggest meal of the day with a lighter super is more important than sticking to the list. The biggest problem will be getting Chris to not graze through the day. Vattas are known grazers.

Bring it on week two!

RESOLUTION TO NOT RESOLUTE

I never make resolutions. I might go as far as to say "I'll try", but really, I make no promises (something that is also prone to get broken). I do have some tentative plans for the New Year, like crossing a couple of things off the Life List. Speaking of which, I need to go in and make some edits on that thing. I'm pretty sure I can find something else to replace "run a marathon". I just don't like running. There. I've said it. One thing for sure that's happening in the New Year is getting back on track with the food. Chris and I have gotten a little out of control (particularly around the Holidays). We're still sticking to 90% organic, it's just that we're eating so much of it. Like gobs and gobs of food in one sitting, inhaled in minutes. Not good. So I've talked Chris into doing 4 weeks of the Yoga Body Diet. Actually, it turned out to not be much of a hard sell. He usually says no to my cleansing diet schemes.

Today starts week one, which turns out to be pretty simple. You start with mindful eating, devoting at least 20 min three times a day to your meal. No multitasking while eating. No reading, no TV, no internet and no sound. Next step is drinking water. If you feel hungry between meals, drink two cups of warm water. The ideas in the book are based on an ayurvedic diet. Warm water is supposed to help flush out the system where as cold water causes blood vessels to constrict restricting things like digestion. The next thing on the list for week one is mindful breathing. I teach it to my students as three part yoga breathing, filling the belly, the ribs, the chest and then emptying belly, ribs, chest. Again, this is simple because I do it everyday. I just need to start applying to times when I'm not teaching or doing my own practice.

I thought it would bother me this morning to not have the TV on, or the iPad at my side while eating breakfast and lunch. But it wasn't that bad. I was conscious of every bite and at lunch I even had leftover crackers to snack on before teaching my evening class. I can't say that we'll be following the four weeks exactly. I've looked ahead to week four where they expect 3 hours of yoga a day from you. Sure, if I didn't have a day job and taught yoga one to two times a day already. And I will have to have that 3 or 4 o'clock snack if I'm going to make it through my classes. Snacking will just have to happen, but I promise that it will be smart snacking.

Next week has us eating to benefit our Doshas. The topic of Dosha is a blog entry for a later day. Also, I promise that I have an entry planned about my 365 day project. It's in pieces in my brain and I need a bit more time to put it all together. But the most important thing is that I finished it and I don't have to take a picture of myself today.

DREAM, DREAM, DREAM

Last night I dreamed that Oprah stole one of my blog entries to use on her blog as one of her own. Actually, it wasn't really Oprah, but one of the people in charge of her blog. They plagiarized me right down to my Deviled Sham recipe (which is odd because I haven't actually written down a recipe for that, it's more of a made up thing). I was so mad and let Mrs. Oprah know exactly what I thought of the whole thing. She had know idea that her employee had done this. She told me that she doesn't even read her blog and that she was very disappointed that one of her employees would stoop to that level. I told her that I didn't care as long as they just gave me credit for the article. And I woke up. Do I have a fear of being plagiarized or having my words stolen? Nah. Maybe on some level, I worry about not getting credit, but this is just in general and not just related to my blogging. 'Cause, really? What do I need to get credit for exactly? I think we all have a need to be validated for our deeds. But would we all together stop doing the things that we do if no one ever said "thank you" or "good job"? I can think of one area of my life where it never seems to matter and that's when I'm teaching yoga. I can start a class in the worst mood, but by the time the end rolls around, every thing is better. I feel better. It's an added bonus at the end of class to have students tell my just how much they enjoyed the class. This is what I think about when I start thinking about dropping one my classes.

So what does the dream mean? Am I going to stop blogging because I have five readers and I have nothing much to say any way? It means I once again ate too many beans for dinner. It means that I know that I've done a good job and that I can give myself credit for the things that I do.

Take that Dr. Phil.