Exploring Yoga

One of my 2018 goals is to attend 50 yoga classes. I want to increase my flexibility and fix my janky shoulder. And I need to relax. I have had several trying months. My anxiety and stress reached an unbearable level to where my coping method has become to do nothing. Like actual nothing. Sit on the couch with the tv on to repeat television and reset my alarm over and over again telling myself just 30 more minutes nothing. I have decided to do more by committing to less.

I started the New Year with a few classes at Be Hot Yoga. It's bastardized Bikram but the only thing you can get in in-town Atlanta.

I've discovered that I like vinyasa, power, and flow classes. When I was in Austin last week I stopped by the newly opened Yoga Pod studio. It's located in Arboretum Crossing, which is apparently in/near/somewhat close to Far West Austin. I think means the bougie burbs. I liked the studio a lot.

I went to podFLOW2 taught by Bryce Valdez. "podFLOW 2 classes, set to music, are dynamic and accessible, offering more challenging postures and variations based on the fundamentals of the podFLOW1 classes. Teachers bring their own creative element to podFLOW 2, resulting in diverse and inspiring classes. Each class focuses on proper alignment techniques and safe and intelligent sequencing progressions." podFLOW2 wasn't super advanced. If you've attended a few yoga classes in your life, you could keep up.

Last night I tried Infinity Yoga in Old Fourth Ward, Atlanta. I live nearby, I've heard good things, and they have a $20 new client special. I went to Infinity Flow taught by Ashley Lorenzo. Infinity Flow is described as, "powerful dynamic flowing sequences with music! Many skill levels come to this class so many options are given, however knowledge of sun salutations and solid all around fitness is recommended for this class. Be prepared to sweat and have fun! Classroom temperature is WARM (between 82-87 degrees)." It was an advanced class. My body doesn't contort in those directions. But I had a good time and I'd go that class again.

April 2017 Goals

Fitness and Nutrition

CrossFit Goal: 62/200 WODs. I did 13 WODs this month, including the Loganville Lockdown competition with my girl Amy.

This is me during every workout ever - shirtless, tummy out, mouth wide open.

Weight Loss Wednesday 4.26.17

So this week's Weight Loss Wednesday post started as a Monday Macros post. I started it Monday morning, but decided that yesterday's workouts were relevant to how I've been feeling about my diet. This week I lowered my macros to 120 g protein, 175 g carbs, 65 g fat. The only number that changed is the amount of carbs, but it's still more carbs than the last time I was eating 1,765 calories a day.

Monday's WOD went great. We did Nancy, which is 5 rounds for time of a 400 m run and 15 overhead squats. The Rx for women is 65#, but I scale to 55#. The desired stimulus is to go fast and hard, so the OHS should be unbroken. I think yesterday was the first time I've done all 5 rounds at 55# unbroken. I finished in 14:31, which is 2 minutes and 46 seconds faster than the last time I did the workout on April 6, 2016. This is why you log you workouts folks. Data is awesome.

I was particularly proud of my color-coordinated outfit for Nancy on Monday. Couldn't care less about what I wear for work, but my workout clothes are on point.

I was so hungry Monday night before bed that I had trouble falling asleep. I wondered how much of that was mental, just knowing that I had eaten less, but I definitely felt less strong at the 6:30 AM Crossfit yesterday. I hit my 6x2 split jerks at 65#, 75#, 80#, 85#, 90#, 95#. That 95# did not feel as light as it has recently. The metcon had squat snatches at 145#. I probably would have used 125# at an evening class, but scaled to 105#.

Houston and a Drop-In at CrossFit Downtown Atlanta

Hey y'all. Last week I was in Houston for a program monitoring site visit with some grant officers. I didn't realize how stressed I was about it until it started going well. I don't think they're taking my money away just yet.

Because it's totally normal to weigh your sashimi at the sushi bar. I love going to Oishii whenever I'm in Houston.

I didn't workout Wednesday through Friday and it began to drive me crazy. I should have gone to the gym instead of the hotel bar on Wednesday night. Oops.

CrossFit and Fearless

I was in Austin last week for the Texas AmeriCorps conference. The conference was informative, the people were pretty great, AND I got to see my bestest friend Jesse, her fantastic fiance Dave, and the star of their family, Rue the mini Aussie!

No business trip is complete without a drop in. Fortunately CrossFit and Fearless was a mile down the road. I dropped in on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. The first night I took an Uber because I wasn't sure where it was and I signed up for the 6:30 PM class. Like many boxes, CrossFit and Fearless is in an industrial park but it was also super close to some apartments. I imagine it's a convenient location. On Wednesday I mentioned that I was going to CrossFit during a break in the conference and it turned out that Jennifer also CrossFits AND she has dropped in at CFHK since she moved to New York from Sydney.

I happen to like the Pukie mural but apparently it's controversial.

I loved training at CrossFit and Fearless. I partnered with Madison both days for strength. She really pushed me and I ended up PRing my push press by 5 lbs. Hello 100! I also hadn't hit 95# since 2014 and before my shoulder and lats started bothering me, so this is a big accomplishment. We had back squats the next day. Madison hit her 1RM (215#) for 2! I was able to get 185# for 1. It's been a long time since I hit a 185# back squat. I was psyched.

Beltway CrossFit

Greetings from Houston! Yesterday I cancelled my early morning Pure Barre class to spend some quality time with my two favorite guys - Frank and the boyfriend. I knew I needed to get to the airport a little earlier than usual because of the impending snowmageddon inch of snow and that attending a noon class anywhere in Atlanta was really pushing my luck. No worries, because a simple Google search told me that Beltway CrossFit is located right down the road of Bush International Airport.

I always like to call ahead before I drop-in. I spoke with Coach Michael Gager, who told me that I could show up to either the 5:30 or 6:30 PM WOD. I landed early but had a bit of a delay at the rental car desk because the lady in front of me was trying to use a false address. I ended up arriving at the box at like 5:32 PM but Coach Aron Anderson was awesome and let me get changed and join a little late. Unfortunately I missed the tire flip warm-up.

Beltway CrossFit does chipper WODs on Fridays. I really like chippers because I find them mentally less challenging - I've got a goal to do, I just need to get to the next movement, and I don't have to keep track of rounds.

WOD

1 Mile Run

6 Gymnastic Combos (1 Rope Climb + 10 Strict Push-ups)

80 Alternating DB Snatches (60/40lb)

***Each exercise must be completed before moving to the next!

*3 short dead climbs will equal 1 tall climb

*Must alternate arms on the db snatches.

source

I used the one mile run as my warm up. I made sure to stand right behind the run leader because I wasn't really sure how they measure a mile even though Coach explained it about 6 times. It felt good to loosen up after my flight.

CrossFit Identity had rope climbs and handstand push-ups on Tuesday. I think I switched from the J wrap to the S wrap sometime last year and now my left ankle has some sweet permanent rope bruises. It's not a burn as much as tender mark from pressing the damn rope into my leg. I could definitely feel Tuesday's rope climbs the minute I got up on the rope. We climbed to the 15 foot mark. The push-ups were regular push-ups. I thought maybe they were HSPU when I saw strict, but they were not.

I used 25# for the dumbbell snatches. I probably could have used 30#, but I hadn't done any dumbbell snatches in a minute and wasn't sure how low to scale. My time was 23:08.

This was the best group I have ever dropped in with and I had such a great time. The class was really supportive of each other and included me right away. Roger and I shared a rope for the climbs and he cheered me on for every rep. As people called time, they turned to the person next to them to cheer them on. Chris Rx'd the WOD and was fighting to get through 24 more reps at 60#. We gathered to help motivate him and I kept count. I fucking hate trying to keep count when I am fighting through the pain cave so I try to make myself useful and count for others when they're in that situation. I was really impressed by Chris' drive to knock out those reps.

I enjoyed myself so much that I hung out for 45 minutes after class. Chris was giving me some tips for chest to bar pull-ups. I'm excited to work on them with a wider grip and see if I can finally get one. A group of us discussed our respective diets and I shared my new found love of macro-counting and flexible dieting. I encouraged everyone to sign up for the Open. Beltway CrossFit was a great time and only $15 to drop in. You can also buy a $25 shirt instead.

Thanksgiving Fitness

My sister lives in Dallas and my aunt lives in Plano, so the family trooped off to Texas for Thanksgiving this year. Frank was a little miffed that he wasn't invited until he found out he got to spend the long weekend with his trainer Jennifer. Frank now has his own Instagram account, be tee dubs.

I arrived at DFW on Wednesday and headed back out Sunday. I made it to three different gyms in between.

My aunt lives super close to Flywheel Plano so on Thanksgiving morning I agreed to help my cousin push one of his Mustangs into the garage if he'd drive me to Flywheel in the other. His other car is a white Shelby Cobra and it's beautiful and makes a ridiculous amount of noise and I love it.

Austin's Lady Bird Lake

It was definitely hard to find time to workout on tour - mainly because I had to ask permission to do anything. The more I travel for work, the more I realize that traveling for work isn't really my thing. This coming from a person who has been traveling for work since 2012...

The good thing about traveling for work when you manage to carve out an hour to do something without your colleagues is finding local running routes. The Driskill Hotel had these nifty little running maps of Lady Bird Lake. I got lost getting to the lake so I ran about an extra mile.

Hot Yoga in Houston

I was in Houston for work last month and my colleagues sent around an email chain about going to hot yoga at YogaOne. Only Kaitie and I ended up getting up at the butt crack of dawn to make the 6 AM class but I'm glad we went.

Hotel Handstand Practice

What do you do when you have a huge hotel room at the Hilton? Practice your handstands.

This video captures the end of my practice. I finally stayed up there but I still look sloppy. Really excited to keep working on this.

The Lost Week(end)

So I've been missing in action in blogging for about a week. The Latino Summit got fun, our plane rides got rowdy, and then somehow the weekend happened. The only thing I have to say for myself is I've learned you shouldn't eat things you find in your friend's couch.

Last Tuesday I did get up for Bikram yoga as I promised. At 4:45 AM my alarm started going off and then my poor roommate thought it was her 7:45 AM alarm and kept trying to turn it off using her password. It was comical and just a little bit sad.

My coworker and I got into a taxi that drove us the 1.8 miles to Bikram Yoga Houston for the 5:30 AM class. I really liked the studio and it was super clean. Bikram has the potential to get gross (i.e. smelly and moldy) real fast and I am all about hypoallergenic studios. We had a great class with Tony (pictured below with us) and I loved hearing his cues in his Texas accent. It made lying on my arms in Locust Pose a lot more pleasant than the New York accents I'm used to hearing. We had just enough time to walk back to our hotel, take ridiculously fast showers, and make it to the Welcome Breakfast.

I cannot explain my face here except to say I had already completed a 90 minute Bikram class by 7 AM.

Quickie in Houston

Greetings from Houston! I'm back down in the greatest state in the nation for the Latino Summit. We spend three days exploring our Latino identity and Latino leadership. And yes, I get paid for this.

I got in a quick workout tonight in the hotel gym even though I'm feeling pretty meh. Early flight, limited sleep, lingering stomach troubles, and buffalo chicken rolls aren't really conducive to feelings of awesomeness, but if I am going to be tired and bloated, I might as well not be fat.

I'm in the room getting changed for the gym
while most of my friends are still back at the bar.

Feeling gross is no excuse to lie around like a fat kid.

The gym is on the fifth floor of the JW Marriott and has some nifty views of the Galleria. I love the Galleria; it's one of the most beautiful malls I have ever seen and as a Long Islander, I know my malls.

I did a quick 1.25 mile run on the treadmill, alternating between sprints on an incline, walking on an incline, and running 9ish minute miles (depending on the song.)

You can't tell what this view is of at all in this photo, but take my word for it.

Oh hey. I've been up since 4:45 AM. No worries. I'm solid.

I really wanted to get into the weight room, so after breaking a sweat, I headed over to play with the boys. I started off with some squats with the bar. Had I been alone with more free reign of the gym, I would've experimented with adding weights to it, but three of the guys from my conference were in there, and I decided not to make an ass out of myself. I did three sets. Then I grabbed some weights for presses, bicep curls, and lunges. What I really needed was 15 lbs weights for the presses and curls, but alas, there were only 10s and 20s. I used 10s for the arms and 20s for the lunges.

I did 130 lbs on the leg sled before calling it a night. I was back in my room by 11 PM, which is good because I promised to get up early for yoga tomorrow.

Dallas in July

I had the brilliant idea to get my entire family to fly to Dallas to visit my sister for her birthday. My exceptional planning skills and habit of Googling random things led to the best birthday weekend ever. Here are some photos.

My parents sharing headphones at baggage claim. Aren't they cute?

My sister at her birthday brunch.

My sister modeling the present I bought her.



My sister's bathroom is larger than my entire apartment. I want a "studio" this size.



Motivating for my morning run.



5 miles in the rain.



A house I saw on my run. I like palm trees.



My insurance company.



Family photo at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum

Sisters and the George Bushes

Family photo in the Oval Office replica

The Big D Re-Gals

this photo was NOT posed

We went to the In-Sync Exotics Wildlife Rescue and Education Center in Wylie, Texas. This wonderful organization is dedicated to the rescue of neglected, abused and unwanted exotic felines.

A white lion.

A white female lion named Sheila.

We saw lions, tigers, leopards, servals, mountain lions, bobcats, ocelots, and cheetahs!

S'mores at dinner

I tried to restrain myself when we went for Chinese food.

Hydrating for the flight home.

Road WOD

I'm a sucker for zombies and when I found a Zombie Fitness app, it was only a matter of time (6 seconds) before I had to buy it. It was on sale for 99 cents, which made it even more enticing.

The app has a bunch of zombie and doomsday fitness plans that require rucksacks filled to 1/4 of your body weight, but it also has CrossFit WODs including space to record your best score for Fran, Cindy, Karen, Fight Gone Bad, etc. There's also a section called Road WODs.

Now I tend to travel a reasonable amount each month for both personal and professional reasons, and sometimes both when I can coerce a friend to let me stay with them when I'm in their city for a business trip. The hotel gym, especially during conferences, is packed so I usually go for a run and then pretend to do some arm exercises. It's difficult fitting in a quality run with a packed conference schedule and I always end up rolling into my first session with wet hair or I'm seriously annoyed with my roommate who has decided she is getting out of bed to shower mere seconds before I get back soaking wet with sweat. I spend 60% of every business trip pissed off and scowling in the coffee line.

I'm still at my aunt's in Plano and it's raining again. I didn't want to get my running shoes wet before my flight (hello mildew) and perused the Road WODs instead. I settled on Road WOD 12.

The app has a nifty timer function that includes a stopwatch, a countdown, and a Tabata timer.

I was finished with my workout in 6:36 and I didn't even have to change out of my pajamas. My Sunday Funday t-shirt and sweatshorts obviously made an appearance because I sleep in that shirt every Sunday.

As you can see, all you need is an Oriental rug and a cat to complete this workout.

Henry is telling me to suffer in silence.

BUTI Fit with Christyn Johnson

My aunt is amazing and arranged for me to take a BUTI class with her personal trainer Christyn Johnson. This morning she put her yoga mat, a towel, bottled water, and me in the car and dropped us all off at Well Help Fitness in Addison, Texas. I met Christyn, put down my mat, and promptly got my ass kicked.

BUTI is a "female-empowerment lifestyle brand" whose "signature movement fuses yoga, tribal dance and plyometrics." Just so you know, BUTI was developed by a former stripper exotic dancer and the signature movements reflect the profession, but if shaking what God gave you equals results, twerk on.

Four of us attended today's class and two of the girls were really good - obviously regulars. We started in a modified lotus pose and warmed up before getting into downward dog. This class is basically yoga for people who are too ADHD for yoga. We jumped in downward dog, we rotated our hips, and we did something called sexy push-ups. From what I gather, sexy push-ups are the same thing as yoga push-ups, which is when you lower into chaturanga, lift up into up dog, push back into downward dog, and repeat. They're killer. I liked that most moves only had 5 reps because you can convince yourself to do 5 of just about anything.

Christyn and me at her studio Well Help Fitness after class

My favorite moves were the based on Warrior 1 and Warrior 2. After getting into those poses, we pulsed and twisted, and some girls may have shimmied but I'm not at that level. It took months for me to get a few dance moves down in Yves' dance fusion class and the shimmy still eludes me.

This entire class targeted my abs and they feel absolutely destroyed right now. I was already sore from the weighted sit-ups and box jumps this week, and this class was exactly what I needed to target my obliques and lower abdominal muscles. And my booty muscles are already sore. I hope that equals perky.

demonstrating my new moves for my mom

I'm pretty much the least sexy person ever, but Christyn and my classmates made me feel welcomed and didn't judge me by my lack of smooth coordination. I know my appeal has something to do with the fact that I look rather sweet and childlike but I'm extremely aggressive and I have a gravelly voice. These attributes don't help one bit when you're attempting to rotate your hips, so I just avoided the mirror and went to town.

Thank you Christyn for having me! I loved it! And if you live in the Dallas area, I highly recommend that you make it to a BUTI class.

Running in December

The alarm went off for a run this morning, but I decided spending another 2.5 hours in my bed sounded like a much better idea. I'm addicted to my baby blankets and don't like to leave them. In lieu of a run today, I give you a collection of photos I've taken on runs this month.

The beginning of December was unseasonably warm - just the way I like it. I had to interview folks during the amazing day we called Monday, December 3, but I was able to get a run in on Tuesday, December 4. Then it became freezing and unhappy.

Don't taunt me because I am fat and slow.

By the end of that week it was cold out. I bailed on the gym multiple times and decided I needed a run to get over my residual fat kid and actual alcohol hangover. My Matty M leggings kept on sliding down my ass and I forgot my headphones on my desk at work. fml. I also couldn't figure out if the running path was completely closed after the 80s or if there was another way to access it so I found myself running back and forth from 79th to the hill after the dog park.

I went for a run the last night I was in Houston last week after gorging myself on buffalo chicken rolls, spinach and artichoke dip, Cosmopolitans (it's damn near impossible to get drunk if your stomach is that filled with food), salmon with asparagus, shrimp parmigiana, and enough bread to feed those folks at the Sermon on the Mount. I'm lucky I didn't throw up in the street.

 

My Garmin wasn't working so I used MapMyRun instead. It says that I ran 4.24 miles. It's a pretty good app but I don't like that it talks to me. It's also not a Garmin so I'm not going to like it just because.

I have trouble following directions while on the move, so I took off in the general direction I saw on the map and hoped for the best. I always ask the concierge where he or she recommends running. They will frequently have a map on hand or will draw you one if they don't.

I found myself in the community of River Oaks and enjoyed a lovely display of Christmas lights.

 I love Christmas lights because I love everything that lights up, even if it's not concert stage or a robot.

Although I ran to one of the most affluent neighborhoods in America, Houston's lack of zoning laws meant I got to run through an industrial park on the way back to the hotel. I'll admit I was a little scared, especially since I hadn't told my colleagues I had left for a run. Oops.

I survived and made it back safely. I was pretty thrilled to run in perfect weather at 10 o'clock at night. Houston had been having a cold spell, but it was in the 50s on that evening. The hotel also provided delicious citrus water in the lobby. I guzzled about a gallon before heading back to my room.