Children's Yoga

* Child's pose = seed + water back + growing

* Focus on animal nature of poses (cat, downward dog + life leg/tail, snake/cobra, elephant: stretch hands/trunk up and to sides *lion:kneel with but on heel and hands on ground +make big faces)

* Hold knees and roll around on back

* Tree pose + branches in the wind

* Visualize breath expanding in stomache

* Dance around and then freeze in starfish pose

*From Lucy's classes at The Children's Museum*

Raising Kids with a Healthy Body Image + Posing Ideas for Children

Oh Happy Day

1. Encourage balanced eating (response to hunger)

2. Get active as a family

3. Speak up when family members comment on a person's shape or weights

4. Encourage and model critical thinking of mesages

5. Don't dismiss comments from your children about their bodies

6. Examine and modify appearance expectations about your own child

7. Work toward openly loving and accepting your own body

from Janna Dean

Ashleyannphotography

Running

“There is a restless place inside me, and if I don’t intentionally access and relieve it, it groans at me, distracting me. There are too many thoughts in my head, too many feelings in my heart, too many things I want to do and say—and if I’m not careful, I can get overwhelmed with myself. Running restores my equilibrium, quiets the noise within, reprioritizes my list, repairs my state of gratitude, and returns me to myself, but a better version, nice and roomy in my own skin.” Kristin Armstrong Mile Markers

Running for beginners(from Real Simple): 1 minute [30 second run + 30 second walk] 2 minutes [1 minute run + 1 minute walk] 3 minutes [1 1/2 run 1 1/2 walk] 4 minutes [2 +2] 3 minutes 2 minutes

Personal Training

Part of my 30 before 30 plan is to shed some pounds. Enter one personal trainer and I'm feeling pretty confident. I'm going to try to keep track of some of our workouts so I can reference them again.

Mini-workout: with 10 lb kettle balls 2x[20 squat and swing up, chops from upper corner to opposite lower corner, 10 swing balls in wide to narrow squats, 10 pushups, 15 plank ups from laying to planks]

Full Workout #1: 3x[20 lat pulldowns, 15 squat to upright row, 1 minute plank elbows to hands, 15 slow crunchs] and 3x[15 leg curls, 1 minutes step-ups, 15 supermans, 10 single leg drops]

Between trainings: [3 cardio machines for 15 minutes] [full body on hoist machines 2 sets of 25 on each machine + 20 minutes of cardio]

Update from half birthday: down 3.2

Image from http://ellymackay.com/etsy.aspx

“We have, in effect, an Eleventh Commandment. We have come to believe thinner is healthier, happier, and more beautiful as though it were handed down on Mount Sinai. But these are not divine truths—they are prejudices with a complex history. They have led to a false religion that does not deliver what it promises.”

--Roberta Pollack Seid, Never Too Thin: Why Women Are at War with Their Bodies

Women, Food, and God

I felt like this book was disorganized and a little touchy-feely but it still hit some cords. Cords are as follows:

Image

"Brokenness is learned, not innate."

"When you believe in yourself more than you believe in food, you will stop using food as if it were your only change at not falling apart."

"'sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness'"

"Can you imagine how your life would be different if each time you were feeling sad or angry as a kid an adult said to you, 'Come here, sweetheart, tell me all about it.' If when you wre overcome with grief someone said to you, 'Oh darling, tell me more. Tell me where you feel those feelings.'"

"You bring yourself back to your body (an awareness of) about a thousand times a day."

"If love could speak to you about food, it would say, 'Eat when you are hungry, sweetheart, because if you don't, you won't enjoy the taste of food. And why should you do anything you don't enjoy?' If love could speak to you, it would say, 'Eat what your body wants, darling, otherwise you won't feel so well, and why should be walk around feeling tired or depressed from what you put into your mouth?"

"We don't want to eat hot fudge sundaes as much was we want to be hot fudge sundaes."

"During the first few bites, and before we get dazed by overeating, everything we want it possible. Everything we've lost is here now. And so we settle for the concrete version of our lost selves in the form of food. And once food has become synonymous with goodness or love or fulfillment, we cannot help but choose it, no matter how high the stakes are."

"To understand that food is a stand-in for love and possibility and whatever you call true nature or God."

"You are not who you think you are. Hardly anyone is. Because although kids come into this world with an implicit understanding of who they are, they have no self-reflective consciousness. They know who they are but they don't know that they know. And the only way to find out is by seeing themselves in their parents' eyes. We become what our parents saw."

"Guidelines: Eat when you are hungry; eat sitting down in a calm environment; eat without distractions; eat what your body wants; eat until you are satisfied; eat in full view of others; eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure."

From Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth

"Using food as the doorway to understanding yourself can lead to unimaginable beauty and openness and a kind of awakening...I think we all have a hunger that is hard to name."

"We treat our bodies as if they are the enemy and the only acceptable outcome is annihilation. Our deeply ingrained belief is that hatred and torture work. And although I've never met anyone - not one person - for whom warring with their bodies led to long-lasting change, we continue to believe that with a little more self-disgust, we'll prevail. But the truth is that kindness, not hatred, is the answer. The shape of your body obeys the shape of your beliefs about love, value, and possibility. To change your body, you must first understand that which is shaping it. Not fight it. Not force it. Not deprive it. Not shame it."

"Eat what you want when you're hungry and feel what you feel when you're not."

Picture seen here

I am so excited to go to Cancun in a few weeks but I am a little disappointed I didn't reach all my fitness goals before going.  So here is to taking a moment to celebrate the bodies we do have and enjoying them.  Perfect or not, they are pretty great. 

Cancun

Mike and I booked a trip to the beaches of Mexico before they added a week to the end of my school year. Luckily, this week I got our week of vacation approved and I am getting excited all over again. I still have a good bit of weight to burn off but these suits from J. Crew are inspiring.

French Women Don't Get Fat

"There are two selves in each of us: the one who wants to be slim and healthy and the one who wants something else. One sees the big picture - well-being, self-esteem, fitting into the latest fashions. The other wants pleasures aplenty, and now. One is Narcissus leaning over his pool; the other in Pantagruel Leaning over his table. The key...was not to conquer the second, but to broker a rapprochement: make friends of your two selves and be the master of both your willpower and your pleasures. That was the French way."

The Biggest Loser - Last week

Everyone has been such good sports - trying to stay healthy during the holidays is not easy.  I feel like we should be proud of simply maintaining during this time, but most of us lost at least a little this fall season.  The challenge is over on the 20th - the last official day of fall. When you weigh in, be sure to calculate the percent you have lost.  Mike will leave a comment on this post explaining how to do that.  Post that percentage and then we can determine a winner.  Good luck on your last week!   

The Biggest Loser -Week 3

I hope everyone had a good week. I feel really good about my efforts but the scales are moving very slowly! The challenge this week is to drink more water. It varies for everyone but I found some good information on water consumption here: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/water/NU00283

Have a healthy week!

The Biggest Loser -Week 2

I hope everyone had a good week trying to get a little healthier.  This week's mini-challenge is to pick a simple exercise that is hard for you or that targets an area of your body you want to work on, and do it every day for one week.  For example, I am always frustrated in yoga classes that I can't do a plank very well so I am going to practice that for the week.  You might pick wall sits or lunges or simply holding your arms out to the side of you for as long as you can.  Have fun and feel free to post any small successes or struggles you are having along the way - I know Katie had a power week with significant weight loss, while others of us have gone to the gym every single day and gained a pound!   

The Biggest Loser -Week 1

The task for this week has two parts.  

• First, set your goals for the seven week program.  How many pounds do you want to lose.
• Second, give up one food item that is a downfall for you for one week.  After the week is up you can go back to eating it if you want.  Post and let us all hold you accountable for what you are giving up.    
  

The Biggest Loser

Just want to get an idea of anyone that might be interested in a biggest loser competition from Halloween to Christmas.  I know, I know - it's the holidays.  But what better time to stay on track.  I'm thinking that the entry fee will be one piece of workout clothing, which, depending on your budget, could range from a package of socks to a sports bra to a pair of nice yoga pants.  And of course the winner can tell us what size and where to send it to.  So, all I really know is that my sisters check this blog every once in a while but anyone else who would be interested can feel free to let me know. 

My motivation, something that seemed impossible, came yesterday when a coworker said I look "delicate and tiny."  I'm not so delusional to think that her account was entirely accurate but it reminded me how empowering it is to take control of your health/appearance.  

I need a plan

... to avoid all the holiday treats. It's not even that I have to have it for sugar's sake. It's that I feel like I haven't celebrated the fall if I haven't eaten lots of pumpkin cookies. And if I don't make lots of sugar cookies to decorate, Christmas just won't be Christmas. I'm thinking I need new associations for the delicious holidays coming up.

Probably

Eating healthy changes how I feel on so many levels.  I miss all my healthy patterns.  I got sick, I got lazy - time to get it back together.

Dear Body,

"Why, I say, should I ever have bitterly blamed my body for such trifles as  I have blamed it for: for having too much flesh in this spot, too little muscle in that, for producing this wrinkle, that sag, that gray hair, or this texture? Dear body! My dear body! It has gone about its incessant business with very little thanks."

Janet Burroway

Music to Workout to

Harder to Breathe Maroon 5

SOS Rihanna

Firestarter The Prodigy

Another One Bites the Dust Queen

Girlfriend Avril Lavigne

Pump It Up Elvis Costello

B.O.B. OutKast

The Rockafeller Skank Fatboy Slim

Here It Goes Again Ok Go

She Wants to Move N.E.R.D.

Runnin' Down a Dream Tom Petty

Around the World (Radio Edit) Daft Punk

Running - 125 to 160 bpm - "Push It" by Salt-N-Pepa, "Put Your Hands Up for Detroit" by Fedde Le Grande, "Run to You" by Bryan Adams

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/workout/music/popular-playlists/reader-favorites-top-100-workout-songs/

Workout:
*Breathe - Telepopmusik
*Heartbeat - Annie
*Just Be - Tiesto & Kirsty Hawkshaw
*Light A Rainbow (Whippenberg Mix) - Tukan
*Move Along - the All-American Rejects
*Fighter - Christina Aguilera
*Beautiful Things (Gabriel & Dresden Radio Mix) - Andain

Cooldown:
*Breathe - Alexi Murdoch
*A Good Start - Maria Taylor
*Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
*You Had Time - Ani DiFranco
*Colors - Amos Lee
*Breathe Me - Sia

"pump it" by the black eyed peas.
The Killers, Black Eyed Peas, The Bravery & Vampire Weekend.
Ani diFranco is beautiful. I love her song hypnotize the best!
i like "love love love" by tristan prettyman. it starts out like it's a cool down song, but it's a nice easy workout song.
"Sit down, Stand up" from Radioheads hail to the theif is perfect for the first song when beginning a cycling workout because it starts so calm and just starts going crazy nuts.