Bikram Yoga

Now

Then

My brother's been touting the miracle of hot yoga for awhile now. He lives in Cambridge near Baron Baptiste's studio -- and yes I know the two are in a dispute about Bikram's trying to copyright the sequence of asanas... and I know the yoga community has strong feelings about it -- so if you've stumbled here because of that --feel free to comment since I know very little about the differences between the two and am not able to do anything but home practice now because of the baby -- but did look up Bikram's asana sequence online and have been doing it. I' ve been doing yoga for nearly ten years now - mostly 'hatha' yoga -- some at gyms, some at yoga studios, some from yoga tapes and a home practice -- I've done quite a bit of technical reading on postures because that's the sort of geek I am and love the yoga textbook I have, a review of which I found in the old Yoga Journal when it was more of a old school yoga practitioner magazine rather than the glossy incarnation it is now...anyway I can do most of the poses -- or a close variation -- with the exception of the toe stand. I don't know how to even GET there.

I'm also wondering what kind of transitions go between these poses -- is it all sun-salutation based like the hatha-flow?

I love how yoga makes me feel -- and since I can manage to do these poses and talk to the little one it makes for a more doable workout than say, running on the treadmill -- something I have to reserve for when she naps longer on her own than she does now.

I'm losing weight steadily at about 1.5 lbs a week -- that's if I don't do much in the way of crazy-dieting or heavy cardio -- neither of which I've done since I'm breastfeeding. Slow and steady I keep telling myself. Slow and steady.

I took my measurements for the first time in a long time -- that being my long-time marker of progress other than the scale -- the interesting facts I learned -- that for me an inch in the measuring tape equals about five lbs -- that most of my weight gain is in my rear and chest (no surprise there) -- that I'm probably 25 pounds away from feeling good about myself and getting that sexy mojo back -- so that's my goal -- 165 -- gone are the days of obsessing about trying to get into the 130's -- something I was only able to do after a year and a half of crippling depression, obsessive exercising, sticking to a 1200 calorie diet, traveling to Colombia to visit my brother and not speaking enough Spanish to ask for a snack for two weeks and THEN coming home with a serious case of food poisoning, followed by a two-week bout with the stomach flu.

Then I was a size six and weighed 138 pounds. I could give you my measurements too -- 35-27.5-39 -- exactly five inches more now on each of those measurements...

But I'm not going to obsess, right? This is like an alcoholic telling old drinking stories -- I need to let go of those measurements -- I was angry with myself when I couldn't find my old obsessive journal with all the measurements from over the past ten years -- all the chronicling that I must've thrown out in a moment of mental health clarity --'what was I thinking' I asked myself...

This fostering a positive body image is hard fucking stuff.