Vacation Attempt

Guys, I'm totally trying to win this vacation...

Beautiful Laguna!

http://snapknot.com/blog/2010/04/26/win-a-free-luxury-oceanfront-vacation-in-beautiful-laguna-beach-california-from-surf-sand-resort-and-snapknot/

Whatchya gonna binge on?

With less than a week left of this 40 days, I've been asked over and over again, "So, when this is done, whatchya gonna go crazy and binge on?"

I've been thinking about it, and I think the answer is nothing. No binges.

The approach I've taken since the fruit cleanse has been much less intense. I've pretty much given up on long meditations, and only doing it when I have time. I've eaten ice cream every night this week, cause I want to.

I'm still doing yoga every day at the level I'm supposed to. I'm still eating healthy foods for every meal. I'm still reading my book on Christianity. I'm still doing the excavation questions and thinking about myself. I'm still not drinking caffeine and VERY limited alcohol. But I'm making it work with my lifestyle, and I'm working on the anxiety - it hasn't been a problem since I stopped the long meditation.

There's nothing I've prevented myself from having that I could binge on, really. I'm making it work for me, and that means I don't need to binge to get back something I'm missing. I'm not missing anything that big.

So no binges... except for maybe a no yoga binge. 6 days of yoga left!

Random snowed in fun!

So if you know me, you know I'm a twitter addict.

A couple days ago, I found a tweet from Enrico's Biscotti - the famous Strip store - saying to come for soup at their new Highland Park location on Bryant St from 11-3 yesterday. That's pretty much all it said. No major details. Just... come for soup.

The boy and I had been on Bryant just the day before and saw nothing that said Enrico's Biscotti anywhere. We knew that a new location couldn't have popped up overnight - especially in a snowstorm. But we took a leap of faith and decided, at 1pm, to walk down anyway.

We headed down the snow covered street toward the shops, scanning for signs of soup. At last, we came upon what looked like an abandoned storefront that sported a piece of plywood with the words "HOT SOUP" written in permanent marker across it. Sketch? A bit...

We walked in. To our left, there was a dimly lit, packed dining room with 6 or 7 dining tables, a table set up with water, coffee and essentials, and a whole bunch of happy people. We headed through the crowd to the kitchen, where we stood in line for soup. The kitchen was a hodge podge of kitchen accessories, freshly washed bowls and people, and something of a soup kitchen feel. We were handed a bowl of Pasta Fagiolia and two pieces of freshly grilled bread. We found the edge of a table and sat down.

People were thrilled. They brought beer, wine, tea... just enjoying the different scene. The people making soup were happy to be there, a man I could only assume was the owner was talking to everyone. It was such a fun neighborhood event; everyone talking and eating and comparing snow stories. We ended up being in the last 10 people to get soup - they had gone through three pots in two hours. They took the wooden sign down, and those who didn't make the special trip would have never known hot soup was ever served.

And payment, you ask? There was a bucket with a "$5 donation" sign. That's it. It was done out of the charity and fun of Enrico's heart.

I have no idea how other people heard about it. I have no idea what will happen with this space in which we all enjoyed soup. But I'm glad we took the leap of faith and went.

Now to get to the Strip location!

Snow days...

The snow has really been jackin' my style here. We're STILL not plowed out and supposed to get another 6-10" today! UGH. The city of Pittsburgh needs a new plan (and/or a new mayor. Can we all remember this in three years?)

So I finally made it to a yoga practice at the studio last night, after a really long, harrowing drive there. It was relaxing... definitely not a full house, nothing too difficult. Nice to be in the heat. I was in a good mind frame to tackle the craziness that was the supermarket.

At the supermarket, I bought ice cream. And I had some last night. I'm totally okay with that.

My little sister and the boy have been asking me why I'm doing this whole thing if it's making me miserable. I really fell off the bandwagon during and after the fruit cleanse. I'm finally listening to them and taking the intensity of this thing down a notch. Or three notches. I can't handle it, and I refuse to make myself miserable any longer. I don't have to not enjoy my yoga practice because of some crazy scheme that I can't have a balanced life with. Maybe this is just showing me that yeah, I can have a normal, happy life, complete with exercise, if I find a balanced level.

I finally did some meditation for the first time in pretty much over a week today. Just 10 minutes. They were anxiety free minutes, and I can't ask for much more than that. Much more than that is just kind of weird to me and doesn't help my stress level at all. It's not practical for my real life, so there's no point in continuing it.

As for eating - I DO EAT HEALTHY. I don't need to just eat brown rice and beans to eat healthy. I've cut out almost ALL caffeine and alcohol. I've had a cookie just about every day, but whatever. I always come up under my calorie count.

I'm going to have to get over this feeling that I'm not doing enough because I'm not doing what "everyone else" is, and remember that I'm doing enough for me. I need to get over feeling guilty about the cookies. I feel like I've given up, and I hate, hate, hate HATE that feeling.

Eight more days of no exercise but yoga, eating right (with some ice cream and cookies interspersed, cause... I can?) and some meditation. I can do that.

week 5.

Happy Superbowl Sunday. :)

Due to weather conditions here in the 'burgh, and especially in my neighborhood, I couldn't make the regular Sunday yoga meeting today. I was pretty bummed out about it, but it just isn't safe to drive around here. Trees down, roads packed with ice, haven't seen a plow YET (and it stopped snowing yesterday). Took us 90 minutes to get 23" of snow off of the car with a pot and a broken broom head. Supposed to get another 6" Tuesday. Blah.

This week is 75 minutes of yoga and 25 minutes of meditation morning and night.

Mmmmmk. Can handle the yoga. The meditation... umm... uhh... not real sure what to do about that. 20 minutes caused anxiety attacks. 25 minutes? I'll attempt it at some point.

We clearly didn't make it to church today, so I started reading a book on the Christian faith given to me by a dear friend. It's called "Velvet Elvis". I'm 34 pages in and already agree with a lot of what it has to say, so I'm looking forward to the read. When a book focuses on questioning the faith as an important part of what needs done, I'm hooked.

I'll keep you posted on the week, but I'm pretty ambivalent... probably not a good way to start the week.

break..

I didn't do any yoga today.

Yep, that's right. This wasn't a rest day. I still got a work out in - I did a cardio routine. I took a mental health day from yoga. Sounds wrong, doesn't it?

It is. And that's why I needed the break. I don't know where the anxiety I've been experiencing during my meditation came from, but it permeated through my entire life. Without going too much into a psychoanalysis on the blog, I've been living with some serious anxiety the last few days.

I've been making to-do lists (which I normally do), and having anxiety attacks if I don't finish those to-do lists. These are impossible lists. I also list all the fun things I want to do, and have a heart attack if I don't get everything fun in. I feel like I've wasted time if I do anything not on the list. I can't relax. If someone distracts me, I flip out. If it's not exactly what I want to do, it's painfully wrong. I can't think of anyone but myself, and if I try to, it falls into a panic attack. There has been nothing happy about living like this.

The only explanation I have for why this started is me trying to micromanage my life because of the huge time commitment this yoga has become. I love doing the practice, but there's so much else going on with the program its become difficult to manage. It would be difficult enough to do 75 minutes of yoga, like I'm supposed to do every day this week, and do anything else. It finally occurred to me this week that this is really interfering with my ability to do law school the way I want to do it. So, my type-A personality instinct is to try to make it all happen.

It's driving me insane. I can't shake the anxious feeling. It has been completely and totally awful. There's no reason for yoga to make me miserable like this. I needed a break. I took it today.

I don't know that just today will be enough. We'll find out.

My reaction...

Yesterday was my rest day, and I really needed a rest from everything yoga. EVERYTHING (thus, no blog). I did get some meditation in, but more on that later.

As my first post-fruit-cleanse meal, I had oatmeal with mashed banana in it. It was good! It was something familiar to my body so not too shocking. Everything seemed fine. I snacked on carrots right before lunch.

Our instructors sent us some suggestions for after the cleanse. I was so excited because sushi, one of my favorite dishes, was one of the items! I headed over to the sushi place across from the law school. I ordered a California roll because it too had items familiar to my body - avacado, rice. I also ordered a spicy tuna roll... just because I love it. Turns out they forgot the spicy part of the roll. I was disappointed but it was a healthier option, so I dealt with it.

I ate the rolls pretty slowly, taking my time so as not to shock my system. I finished, content... and then it went downhill. I started getting ravenously hungry, feeling my appetite increase second-by-second. I started shaking. My breath started to get heavier. My attitude dipped dramatically. I didn't know what to do... all I could think about was getting more food. I sat with it for a while, but my mind kept coming back to wanting the free cookies upstairs. I decided to eat an apple. After the apple I was STILL hungry... until I stood up.

I stood up and felt how full my stomach was. Suddenly, all that ravenous appetite went away. I ventured up to the free cookies and grabbed one, but truly didn't want one. I stored it away for later as the apple was supposed to be my snack. The cookie had no effect on me when I did eat it later.

I made veggie and very lean ground beef stuffed red peppers for dinner. Nothing but veggies, beef and a little taco seasoning. I was fine while I ate it, but later that night I felt AWFUL again. This was a stomach ache like I haven't had before. It made me so ill I was in bed by 10:30.

Just before bed I decided to do my meditation. I had done the 20 minute morning one just fine. After 10 minutes, the anxious feeling I've mentioned before creeped up. I tried to focus on my breath, but that just made me more anxious. I tried removing my sweatshirt, and it creeped back up again. I tried to focus on my hands, switch positions, open my eyes - no dice. I finally had to give up on it because it felt like a full anxiety attack.

I'm not sure what the hell is going on, but after the last four days I'm feeling pretty jaded with the process. I still loooooove doing yoga every day, and it really makes me happy, but the rest of it? UGH. This stress is not conducive to stress-relief and relaxation, the goals of the program...

In good news, I've eaten pretty much what I want today and been successful at it. :)