PonderEthereal

I traded massage for a session the other day. I got THE MOST AMAZING 3 hour Thai massage. She worked me up and down - twice. She’s kinda small to put so much oomph in it. Very thin and waifish. But I have massive sore spots everywhere, two days later. When she got done, I spent the rest of the day detoxing. I guzzled water like air and had a fever and felt woozy for a good 12 hours later. My skin, in some places, was hot to the touch - which makes sense, from an energetic standpoint. I’m not sure if there is a physical explanation for it.

I told her before we started about the posture thing I’ve been working on so she paid special attention to my hips. There were knots in places I didn’t even know I had hips.

I have this weird thing down the…

I noticed a couple of weeks ago, when I started to walk across a parking lot that I had to build momentum before I stepped out - like an old lady. A gave it some thought and I realized that when I walk, I walk between my hips. My core, my middle is doing nothing. I don’t know how else to describe it other than for each step, I’m walking from hip to hip as opposed to walking from my center. Often, my feet scuff when I walk.. I’m a lazy walker. And then I thought about all the times that I’m standing in line. I rest on one hip and then switch to the other.

So I started standing up straight. Not just from the waist up - because I think that’s what most people think of when they are told to stand up straight - but I started…

When I started learning from Storm, I started back at the very basics. The Three Selves alignment is one of the very basics. But of course, hearing it from another teacher in a different way puts it puts another spin on it. So I’ve been doing the exercises BECAUSE THATS WHAT A STAR STUDENT DOES (grin) and I’ve really been trying to immerse myself in fetch enough to hear her in the moment and really relate to her.

What I found was that although I knew (with talker) that my talker self dominates that relationship, when I felt that with fetch, it wasn’t a knowing at all… it was a place of being and there is emotion tied to that. Fetch doesnt like it at all. And yes, talker self needs to make the logical reasonable decisions but my talker stifles my fetch far too much. My talker is a bully…

I went to my first T’ai Chi class this morning. A couple of weeks ago, I found great, cheap classes at the community center and thought ‘There is no time like the present’ and so… today was the present. I’m learning T’ai Chi Ch’uan and we are learning a form with a really long name and 60 some odd movements.

My class mates are all older than me. At first I felt a little out of place floating (read: clomping) around the dance floor with women old enough to be my grandmother. But then I realized they were all more coordinated with me and I can only imagine how much more out of place I would feel with people my age. It’s like I have a handicap in this class. A handicap over the handicapped. Sorta. I digress.

I wore a pair of yoga pants… you know, the flair leg, knit pants…

I hit 155 today! Go me! It’s officially been documented… no turning back now. :) My next goal post is 150 by 8/28. For those of you just catching up, I’m using the Hackers Diet. It’s totally free and totally logical and sensible and is everything you already knew but have had difficulty facing about diet and exercise.

Today I’m wearing a pair of low-rise jeans I haven’t been able to wear in over 6 months. My hips are voluptuous, my waist is slim. It all makes my boobs look bigger, which is key, ya know.

So… about a week ago, I really started guilting myself. It went like this :

Me: “You said you were going to start losing weight again.”
Me: “I know… I just mumblemumblemumble… ”
Me: “Instead, you’re letting food… like… talk you into eating it! You’re eating everything! Here and there a bite - every single day - and you’re feeling guilty over every bite so you arent paying attention to it hoping it will go away… but it isnt. Hello?!”
Me: “I know… but… mumblemumblemumble… ”
Me: “You weigh 160 again! 160 pounds!”
Me: “I know… that’s so horrible.. I must have like gained 10 pounds because I was like… SKINNY. And I’ve been skipping out on my diet like FOREVER.”

And so it has persisted for like 2 weeks now. Last week, I cut caffeine, alcohol and sugar out for three days and it was the biggest struggle like EVAR. Today, I counted all of…

I couldn’t find fat free, low cal fruit yogurt with actual fruit in it that didn’t taste like ass or cost an arm and a leg so I make my own.

I buy frozen strawberries and black cherries. They are usually cheaper frozen and I don’t eat them fast enough to buy them fresh. I divide them up into freezer bags and thaw them out as I need them. The black cherries are higher in calorie content and a lot sweeter - so they make a nice dessert rather than an every day thing. I buy the biggest container of yogurt I can, because it’s cheaper that way. Then I scoop out what I need at each serving. If I’m making yogurt for work or school that week, I make a big batch and scoop it into small containers and put them in the fridge.

1/2 cup strawberries - 25…

I’ve lost 20 pounds as of today!

1. I bought my first guilt-free size 10 pants yesterday in over a year. It’s a pair of cargo capris, which is the closest thing to shorts that I really like wearing. Guilt-free because I was not simultaneously having to convince myself that I wasn’t just buying a size 10 because I was scared of a size 12.
2. My face isn’t bloated looking anymore and my throat is starting to look like an actual throat again.
3. I am 2/3 of the way to my goal weight. Now that I know I can do it, there is a whole lot less fear and anxiety in the idea that I might not lose any more weight.
4. I need to get a ring sizer for my ring. I’m still not confident enough to get the actual band altered… but I’ll get there.

Go, me!

I suspect that being out of the…

I’m still on the relocation diet. That’s the diet you’re on when you give up on attempting to keep up with the Hacker Diet because you’re mid-move and you’re really just eating anything you can get your hands on. And the computers were disconnected for a week anyways and that’s where the spreadsheet is so there is no use trying to keep up with that whole part of it. And then you move into the house and then it’s time to clean, paint and build walls elsewhere so you’re just eeking by on enough sleep to keep you going through the day so you’ve been drinking LOTS of caffeine and then lots of wine at night to try to relax and still just eating what you can get your hands on. But then you have a mint chip shake ‘for lunch’ thinking it would be a nice treat after painting…

Here’s the step in my diet when I tell people to heighten accountability, responsibility and encouragement. I’m on a diet again. I need to lose weight somethin’ FIERCE.

Three weeks ago, I weighed 172 lbs. That is 22 lbs over the highest end of my recommended weight range and 32 lbs heavier than I am accustomed to being. It is also 4 pants sizes bigger than my favorite pants. And as I sucked my stomach in to squeeze into my Jeans Formerly Known as Baggy, I got really angry and ready to change.

I’ve dieted many times over the last 7 years with varying success. In the past two years, although I’ve learned a lot about nutrition, exercise and health, I have been less successful losing weight. Invariably, I have always gained it back. Sometimes, doubly. So it was time to cut the crap with myself.

• You cannot lose 30…