Roti and The End of Overeating

Here's a fresh roti (with chickpeas and roasted sweet potato)...

...and here's what happens to a roti when you take it out of the freezer and put it in the toaster. (The toaster worked so well for the plain and aloo parathas, but turned the roti into a cracker. I wonder if that has something to do with the roti's "no oil" content.)


This is a better picture of tonight's dinner, although it's harder to see the detail on the food. Of course, when your yogurt is bleeding into both the chickpeas and the steamed spinach, maybe it's better to avoid too much detail.

So today I read the latest crazy hit book, David Kessler's The End of Overeating. The title is a bit misleading; the book should be called something like Chain Restaurant Food Is Full Of Fat And Sugar and Chemicals and They Mix It Up In A Lab and an Underpaid Line Chef Defrosts It For You. That's essentially what the book is about, and for what it's worth, it's interesting--though it's nothing that anyone who has read Fast Food Nation or seen Super Size Me hasn't heard before. Kessler's particular take is that we overeat because the food itself is addictive, which again is not a new idea, but he peppers his book with delicious anecdotes like "the chicken in Chili's Southwestern Eggrolls is ground into a smooth puree so you don't have to chew it, which Chili's food scientists did deliberately because they knew that the faster you ate, the more you would eat."

Kessler's solution to overeating, which he claims is inevitable given the state of American food (high-fat, high-sugar which melts on the tongue and creates an instant craving for more), is nothing more than sheer willpower. He says you have to tell yourself every day, at every moment, that you choose not to eat the HFCS muffins at the office meeting or the 1,000 calorie burger at the fast food joint or the Cinnabon being pumped through the air vents at the mall. And eventually, he says, you'll stop wanting to.

It's a bit of a dismal idea but I understand where he's coming from. The more I step away from packaged food and the dreaded HFCS the more I understand how eating it changes my brain. After every dinner, for example, I eat one square of an 85% cocoa Lindt chocolate bar. (Sadly, the chocolate never makes it into any of my photographs.) Last night, my sister brought over some Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. She took two and gave me two and put the rest of the bag on the sofa; the minute I had the first one in my mouth I was already thinking about how excited I was to eat the second one, and then the entire time we were watching The Golden Girls ('cause of Bea Arthur, natch) I was sitting there thinking "there are more peanut butter cups on the sofa..."

But before I sound too "my diet is more FTW than yours," here's the kicker. You all have seen what I eat. I have Kashi and homemade yogurt for breakfast, dal or soup and homemade bread for lunch, and a sensible dinner followed by a square of chocolate. I take apples for my morning and afternoon snacks. Maybe twice a week I have a cookie at work (because there are always cookies and I can't always resist them). And on the weekend I go to Tryst and have a chai or cappuccino with two inches of steamed milk on top.

On top of that I'm active; I walk four miles a day and I practice Ashtanga six days a week.

And I've put on ten pounds in the past ten months.

*sigh*

Explain that, Dr. Kessler.

More Thoughts On Ashtanga (or "that other thing I do besides cooking")

How long have I been at this Ashtanga thing? One of these days I’ll catalogue the scars Ashtanga has ravaged along my body; mat burn along my thighs from jump backs and jump throughs, a crescent-moon-shaped scab at the edge of my right wrist where my toenail scrapes against my skin (again, jump backs/throughs); the “friction cysts” on my left ankle, right knee, right rib, and left backbone.

And I’m just getting serious.

The “beginners group” who started Mysore at the same time I did in July are all of us now stuck on Marichyasana D in some form or another; our yoga teacher (now returned from her yearly trip to the real Mysore) goes around the room and adjusts us, one at a time.

My practice takes about 75 minutes to complete now that I’ve started doing backbends, which were killing my wrists for a while until I figured out how to do them correctly, and I still do it every morning except rest days and “ladies’ holiday,” going in to Mysore class twice a week for adjustments and spending the rest of time at home on my mat trying to figure it out.

Sometimes I think/wish/plan to go to Mysore more than twice a week, but I think I need the “figuring it out” time too. Despite the fact that I know that it isn’t, Mysore still feels like a piano lesson: a performance for a teacher to prove that you’ve been practicing, and then a series of adjustments.

For a while I felt guilty about not going to Mysore more often, for economic reasons: we’re in a recession, my yoga teacher runs a small business, and every month I buy the 10-class pass instead of the Unlimited Monthly pass. If I bought the Unlimited Monthly, my yoga teacher would get $30 more from me each month, which would only be about $12 after taxes because self-employed people pay both sides of Social Security, but it would still be something.

Then I realized that my only going twice a week opens up mat space for other students to only go twice a week, and that she had the potential to get more money by splitting the same rectangle of space up among several students than she would if one student used it exclusively. So I stopped feeling bad about that.

(Then I was online looking for yoga retreats and I saw that this other Ashtanga school in Virginia requires students to go to Mysore at least 4x/week. So then I started feeling badly again.)

They say that the hamstrings hold the body’s anger. I wonder sometimes if either A. my hamstrings are tight because they’re full of unreleased anger, or B. my hamstrings are tight because I’m not a particularly angry person.

I guess I’m at the start of the place where—if we’re still comparing things to piano lessons—I can play Ode to Joy and people can recognize the tune, and I know how to find middle C and my five-finger positions, and now I have so much work ahead of me.

Thoughts, In Order, From A Weekend Ashtanga Intensive

This instructor has gigantic feet. Like, Sideshow Bob-sized.

I am the least-experienced person here.

I don't care if I am the least-experienced person here, the instructor just asked who here didn't know how to find her bandhas and I am absolutely going to raise my hand.

And I am the only person who raised her hand.

Bandhas are awesome!

And ha! Now other people are raising their hands and asking the instructor to help them find their bandhas!

Oh--that's why Lululemon sells "yoga thongs." (I wonder about my own panty lines for about two seconds and then decide not to care.)

Mula bandha uses the same muscles as holding in a fart. I think that's why I seem to take naturally to it.

(Then we start the Primary Series, and my brain stops churning around so much. Mostly it thinks "I love yoga," if it thinks anything at all.)

(Later, when we are working on jump-backs/jump-throughs:)

All of the best students are in the front rows, and they're all wearing Lululemon. And all of the students having difficulty are in the back rows, and they're all--like me--wearing generic "yoga pants" and t-shirts. It's strange that there's not at least one student up at the front wearing an old t-shirt. Is there a correlation between people who have long, flexible hamstrings and people who have both the means and the desire to spend $150 on a pair of Lululemon yoga pants?

They have better hair than I do, too; the women up at the front in their Lululemon. They have better hair and better clothes and fantastic hamstrings.

I wonder if it's a class thing; they're all my age or younger, but they're more advanced at Ashtanga than I am because they started taking it earlier. And they started taking it earlier because they had the opportunity to take it earlier; and that means they came from a position of social or economic privilege, which means of course they would choose the $150 yoga pants.

But that's being presumptuous (and mean). Maybe it's a value thing; at this point the people in the front rows value their yoga practice so much that to do it in anything other than the best athletic wear would be to do it a disservice. But does that mean that those of us in the back value this class less? Or value ourselves less? That doesn't make any sense; and yet the truth of the matter is that the people in the front have expensive yoga gear and great hamstrings and the people in the back have old t-shirts and difficult hamstrings and there has got to be a reason why.

Why do I have short, inflexible hamstrings? Is it my genetics or my personality? And if I practice for a bazillion years will I ever be able to lift my leg over my head?

I am so grateful whenever the instructor comes to work on my body. He could be spending more time up at the front with the Lululemon crowd, but he seems to like working in the back rows best.

(During the passive stretching exercises:)

Damn it, I didn't feel any pain until the instructor said "don't pay attention to the pain!"

Now it really hurts.

Really, really hurts.

$%$(*%&#!!!!

"If you try to run away from pain, the pain will never go away. You have to face it head-on and confront it and then it will start to go away slowly. This is advice for all aspects of your life." This is uncomfortably true. Now I'm sweating, in pain, trying to cheat by adjusting my weight to get out of the pain, making the pain worse, and remembering the times in my life where I avoided confrontation and everything turned out worse off for the avoidance.

This is the part of yoga intensive where I feel like a complete failure.

(And at the end, during the question-and-answer period:)

So this instructor started Ashtanga in "middle age" and has only been doing it for ten years? That means that when I'm 37 I could be that awesome. And on Third Series. (Never mind that I have been steadily working on Marichyasana D for two months and still haven't progressed past it.)

Wait--most Ashtangis, including teachers, don't actually practice full series every day, six days a week? This is the part of yoga intensive where I feel like... well, for better or worse, I do get up and meet my mat every day. Which puts me ahead of most other students, apparently. (Never mind that I have been steadily working on Marichyasana D for two months and still can't make my fingers touch.)

Is the natural path for a talented yoga student to evolve into a yoga teacher? This instructor never did yoga until he started Ashtanga ten years ago and now he's teaching it; and half of the advanced students are training to be teachers. I love Ashtanga but I don't think I'd ever want to go into the teaching track; my years of teaching piano lessons have de-romanticized the whole concept.

Everyone is going out for a party now. My workplace needs me to come in and work on a project this evening, so I don't go. Very disappointing. But I like my job, and I want to do the best at my job that I can do, so... off to work!

I have got to get myself a yoga thong.

Lululemon, or: The Story Of A Brand

At first I thought I would bake my yoga teacher a loaf of bread.

I baked my boss a loaf of bread, and she liked it; and I baked the rest of the office a loaf of bread, and they liked it. Giving bread is successful and cost-effective and tasty!

But last week everyone else in the yoga studio showed up with baked goods. The place was overflowing with them, to the point where my yoga teacher, after last week's class, invited me to pick and choose a sampler platter of cookies and muffins to take back with me.

So... bringing bread would probably be one baked good too much.

From my (and my mother's) experience as a piano teacher, I knew what it was like to get inundated with trinkets and tchotchkes and peppermint-scented hand lotion at Christmas time. I think my mom received, at some point or another, every possible thing that could be shaped like a piano. So I couldn't possibly insult my yoga teacher by going that route.

Then I thought "well, what would my teacher need?" The first thing that came to mind was cash; she is running a small business, after all, and we are living in hard economic times. I thought about giving her a Christmas bonus like one would give a hairdresser or doorman (this from a person who's never had either), but didn't know how to frame it without seeming tacky. Dear Yoga Teacher: Thanks for all your help. Here is a $20. It's intended for you to use on studio expenses but I suppose I can't stop you from blowing it on pizza if that's what you really want. Merry Christmas!

Then, in class, I noticed something. Lots of the stuff in the yoga studio had the same little symbol on it. It looked kind of like the silhouette of a woman with flipped-up hair. Okay, I thought. She must like that store. I need to get her a gift card for that place.

The trouble was that I couldn't exactly google "woman flipped-up hair" and try to find out what this place was. (Note to Gaurav and other marketers: this is an epic brand fail, no?) But, like a true Christmas miracle, I happened to pass a woman on the street this morning who was carrying a shopping bag. A shopping bag with that mysterious flippy-haired lady on it. The bag also had two words: Lululemon Athletica.

A quick googlemaps later, and I set off over my lunch break to visit my first Lululemon.

If the salesladies of Lush are like goth Hello Kitties, the salesgirls at Lululemon are like incredibly athletic Jack Russell Terriers. I stepped into the store, paused by the yoga mat section for the briefest instant, and was suddenly assaulted by an overwhelmingly cheerful "Do you like mats? I like mats! Look at all these mats! This one is my favorite mat, but this one is good too, and I really like this one, and this one is like the best mat ever, but it's super expensive. What kind of mat do you use?"

"I don't know," I told her. "I got mine for free when I bought a pair of shoes." (This is true. I've also had the same mat since high school.)

Now, I probably shouldn't rag on Lululemon too much for having enthusiastic salespeople. But Lululemon and Lush both seem to have the same problem: salespeople who talk and talk so much about the product that they don't take the time to listen -- or even ask -- what you need. At Lush it's all soap, but at Lululemon they have a sports bra aisle. And as enthusiastic as she was, I was not interested in hearing a stranger (even a trained one) give me unsolicited advice on how to handle "my ladies."

They've got good products in there, no doubt; and a staff eager and willing to help you find them (or, if that fails, shove them directly into your hands). But the most telling part of the Lululemon brand came at the end, when I was buying my gift card. You see, all around the store were these signs with these fill-in-the-blank inspirational goals: I will _______ by _______. I will skydive by this summer, I will switch to organic food by January, etc.

The woman who rung me up was wearing a fill-in-the-blank shirt. Hers said I will move out of my parents' house by May 2009.

I wish her the best.

More Yoga News

So I've overextended (that's a fancy way of saying pulled, right?) the muscle underneath my ribcage. Not sure what muscle that is, but I do know that it hurts.

I talked to my yoga teacher about it and she said that it happens to a lot of students if they push themselves too hard trying to do Marychasanas A through D. This makes sense because I am nothing if not a push-too-hard kind of person. She prescribed deep breathing exercises (to bring healing oxygen to the sore muscles) and suggested a few modifications for me to use in my daily practice until it stops hurting and I can go back to pushing-myself-but-not-too-hard.

I can kind of predict how well my day is going to be based on how my yoga practice is in the morning; days where my body is responsive and my breath is focused tend to be really good days, and days where I have physical (or occasionally mental) issues tend to be not-so-good. Which meant that today, where I spent a good portion of Mysore class feeling like a giant waste of space because I was only able to mark through half of the postures, was pretty terrible.

Bleh. On the plus side (sort of), the yoga studio will be closed over the Thanksgiving holiday, which means it will be a good time for me to rest my overextended muscle and maybe start working my way back into things. (I was able to do friggin' jump throughs last week and I am so irritated that I can't do them this week!)

Why do I take Ashtanga so seriously? Because it is that awesome. That's why. ^__^

Yoga Rest Day

At the beginning of my Ashtanga practice, whenever Saturday rolled around I was all "dang, it's yoga rest day! but I want to do my yogas!"

Now I'm all "BRING IT."

I guess I've reached another stage in my Ashtanga practice: the stage where I should probably start going to class 3x per week instead of 2. I'm getting into more difficult postures now, the ones where I have to be "placed into" the posture by my yoga teacher because I'm not yet flexible enough to find the posture on my own. I've been working on Marichyasana D for three weeks and haven't been given another posture (the posture I referred to on my Twitter yesterday was a closing posture), which is completely fine, because I am having enough work getting myself in and out of Marichyasana D and still haven't found a way to unlock it.

I'm also a bit perturbed because after a lot of work I was able to do successful jump throughs (not jump backs -- still haven't figured out how to get my knees pulled in enough for those), and then after a few days of being able to do jump throughs I suddenly couldn't any more, no matter how tightly I tried to tuck my legs in.

So I need to start going to class more, and I probably need to start getting up a little earlier to do so (gaah! 5:30 a.m.!). But I wouldn't do it if I didn't find Ashtanga completely intriguing, and if I wasn't enjoying myself. (I still think that Ashtanga uses the parts of my brain that used to get excited about playing video games: the parts that are all "ooh, how do I defeat this monster, maybe if I try this way or that way, ooh, now I did it! and I get to move on to the next level, which is 95% exactly like the previous level except for this one harder thing...")

Sometimes I look at the other students in Mysore class and think "wow, if I keep this up someday I will be doing what they're doing -- and that looks really hard!" Sometimes I think "why aren't my hamstrings as flexible as everyone else's? darn my short-legged genetics!" And sometimes I think "I wonder if I'll still be doing Ashtanga in ten years? I wonder if I'll still be doing it when I'm 80 years old? I wonder if it fights osteoporosis?"

But mostly I think "I need to come to Mysore more often."

Which means 5:30 a.m.

These days I (and my muscles) really appreciate yoga rest days. ^__^

Too Many Stories!

I have way too many blog posts to write and not enough time to tell them!

Let's see...

• I tried to make laddoos using a recipe from the internet, and they turned out like laddon'ts.
• I had a party! It was awesome! There are pictures!
• President Bush's email address is nuts and OMG Hillary SoS and Obama is so cool and I loved the article about Michelle Obama's booty and should I be one of those people who rents out her apartment for inauguration weekend????
• I also have all these other pictures I've been taking, like the one of the Epic Fail sign, and I need to post them so you all can see them!
• I bought a pair of gloves which is good because I didn't have gloves before, and they're the kind that go part of the way up my arm so they keep the whole thing warm, and they've got a diamond pattern knitted into the back and they're really pretty.
• I've gotten to the point in Ashtanga where my yoga teacher is assisting me into getting into more complicated postures, and now I'm all "should I be going to class every day so she can assist me more?"
• Also I read this Ashtanga book which was all about focusing my mind and stuff, and I'm like "I can do that, but then I would have to stop doing my daily practice while I play last night's Daily Show/Colbert Report on Hulu, and I don't know if it's worth the trade off, even if following the drishtis promises me inner peace and enlightenment."
• I've made three more loaves of bread! They're still totally weird shapes because I've been baking them in my Dutch oven, but tomorrow I'm going to buy a loaf pan and that should solve the problem.
• I saw Christopher Plummer speak tonight, and it was sad because he looked nothing like Captain Von Trapp but at the same time I wish that when I'm 78 years old I could be just as articulate and witty and intelligent as he is, never mind the face wattles.
• Today's Questionable Content is just like the inside of my head is, most of the time. ^__^

I guess maybe I don't have to write most of these posts anymore. ^__^ Though I do want to share the ones that have the pictures.

Critical Mass

Part One

I've reached a sort of "point of no return" stage in my Ashtanga practice (probably the first of many). My teacher has given me enough positions that my practice now takes close to an hour to complete, and the time commitment is only going to increase as I get further into the training.

In other words, I'm at the point (again, probably the first of many) where I have to decide whether I can work out my life to fit the requirements of my practice or whether Ashtanga "isn't for me."

Luckily, the choice is easy: I can absolutely re-arrange my schedule to sleep earlier and get up earlier so I can have enough time to practice before work, either on my own or at Mysore class. But it's interesting because this is about the same time limit I found myself butting up against when practicing the piano: once I hit the hour mark, I would get up from the piano and leave. My teacher in college always tried to sell me on the virtue of practicing three hours per day, and I never exactly took that advice.

So, fine. I'll get up a bit earlier and spend an hour on Ashtanga. No big deal.

I wonder what will happen at the 90-minute mark.

Part Two

From teh internets, on how yoga practice affects weight:

If you are not overweight, your weight will remain about the same. If you are underweight, you will gain weight. The weight you gain will be healthy firm muscle tissue, not fat. That is, yoga will tend to produce the ideal body structure for you. This is due to yoga's effect of fixing glandular activity.

Now, I have no idea whether or not these particular internets are reliable. (Glandular activity what now?) But the idea of yoga producing the "ideal body structure" for me is intriguing.

Unfortunately, the body structure it seems to be producing is one dress size bigger than the body structure I used to have.

I've been studying Ashtanga now for three months. I've also been walking 3.4 miles five days a week, to and from the office. I've toned up a bit. To put it in plain English, my stomach is firm and my underarms do not wiggle!

But I've also gotten... larger. And this is distressing me to the point where I am spending far too much energy perservating over it.

Before everyone gets all "dude, muscle weighs more than fat, so of course the scale should be going up," let me re-emphasize that I am increasing in mass as well as in weight. When I finally bought the ATL dress that I had followed from the front display to the discount rack, I found out that an ATL size 2 no longer fit and I was (gasp!) a size 4.

What to do?

I started out by doing what any self-respecting young woman would do in this situation: I instantly put myself on a diet. Starting October 1, I told anyone who cared to know that I was on "The Last Days of George W. Bush Detox Diet," which meant that I wasn't going to be ridiculous and restrict actual food, but I was going to swear off the stream of free cookies, donuts, etc. that continually poured into our office, just to see if that was causing the problem.

So between October 1 and October 15 nary a cookie, cake, muffin, or Hershey's Kiss crossed my lips. (That's part of the reason my Obama-Biden Pie was made out of fruit and yogurt.)

Between October 1 and October 15, two things happened:

1. I got extremely constipated

and

2. I put on three pounds.

On October 15 I canceled the "diet" and celebrated by enjoying an organic pumpkin cupcake at Hello Cupcake.

Between October 15 and today I enjoyed several more cupcakes, because they were just that good.

Currently am no longer constipated and remain the exact same weight I was on 10/15.

So. What to do? Y'all have seen my eating habits and my exercise habits, and for all intents and purposes I seem to be living a healthy lifestyle. Is this a metabolism thing? Does it have something to do with the fact that I turn 27 on election day?

Or is the yoga website right and this is in fact "the ideal weight" for me? ^__^

Practicing

My yoga teacher says that I am very good at practicing.

Thanks, Mom and Dad. ^__^

When I was in high school, I probably practiced the piano more than any of my peers; in college, probably less than any of my peers (although the time I devoted to practicing remained the same throughout).

Now this learned diligence is paying off in my Ashtanga class, and I got to start seated postures today.

Another "I was a piano teacher, so I know exactly how you feel" moment: I had to cut out of one of my Mysore classes early last week (you know, the ones that start at 6 a.m.) because I needed to get to work early for a special meeting, and my yoga teacher gave me this look like "You mean there are things that are more important than your yoga lesson?!"

Unfortunately, there are a few things more important than Ashtanga class -- but not many!

The A Is For Awesome

So this apartment situation may be making me miserable, but my Ashtanga class is making me quite blissful.

Here are all of the things I like about it:

1. The instructor is only interested in the yoga itself. The physical activity of doing yoga. Yes, some of the other students have asked her about things like "will yoga bring me inner peace," and she's said that it can have a very calming effect on the body, but she is not the type of instructor who makes yoga all about the mysterious workings of the heart/soul/spirit/chakras/whatever. If a student is having trouble, it's because there's something wrong with their alignment or positioning or breathing, not because they aren't "letting go" or "feeling with their heart" or anything like that.

2. On the above note, she is also scrupulous about alignment/positioning/breathing. Ashtanga is known for letting students "find their way" into poses, which essentially means "even if you can't get your heels down in downward facing dog today, keep trying and maybe you will in a month or so;" but at the same time this instructor doesn't let us "find ourselves" at the expense of executing the poses incorrectly. She is more careful about form than any yoga instructor I've had before. (To be fair, most of my other yoga instructors have been theatre faculty who taught yoga in addition to their other classes.)

3. To continue with the above note: no mood music. I took a yoga class once where the poses were accompanied by a soundtrack of "mystical spiritual wind chimes over the ocean" music. It lasted for four months and I diligently went, but by the end I hated it. The instructor also rang a gong at the beginning and end of each class, which I thought was a bit much.

4. The challenge. Yes, I've done sun salutations and a lot of the introductory poses before, but now I'm learning how to do them in ways that are better for the body and (coincidentally) more challenging to perform. It's fun to have a daily challenge. Part of me feels like it's exciting the part of my brain which formerly got excited beating giant snake bosses in Legend of Zelda. "Can I swing this sword in the right way?" becomes "Can I maintain this pose and my breathing?" (Yes, I am a nerd.)

5. The way my body (and, possibly, my mind and my spirit) feels afterwards: awesome.

Quick Ashtanga Class Recap

The Ashtanga class did not kick my ass... yet.

We learned Sun Salutation A, which I had already been doing on my own for over a year (including the "extra" Ashtanga stuff like the yoga pushups -- for all the "this is unique to Ashtanga," I had definitely learned this sun salutation before). The instructor helped me with a few "modifications" to some bad habits that had slipped in since my last yoga class (January-June 2007).

One thing that amused me: the instructor's matter-of-fact patter through an introductory course that she has been teaching, twice a week, for the past five years. As a (former) piano teacher, I knew exactly where she was coming from. "Let's-find-middle-C-there-it-is-good-job!" etc. It wasn't that she wasn't interested in her students, or dedicated to what she was teaching, it was just... this is a class she has taught, twice a week, for the past five years. ^__^

Quick recap over. Time for bed!

Ashtanga Tomorrow!

I take my first Ashtanga class tomorrow.

Am fully prepared for it to kick my ass. ^__^

Will provide details.