Nikki Meets the Mat

Originally posted on April 9, 2017 at the blog of my website, www.marianblueyoga.com. Sharing here in an attempt to save a story from the cruel fate of discontinued website service.

This is a story that has it's beginnings in decades gone by- thirty seven years and some odd months to be more precise, as it is truly a story that begins the day I was born.  You see, I believe whole-heartedly that every moment from then on has led me directly to my yoga mat.

Ok, maybe not "directly" in the sense of the shortest distance between two points... blah blah blah. No straight lines here, but every bit of this twisted, rocky road has been beautifully necessary.

Of course, I won't give the whole story away in a single blog post, nor will I start as far back as the day of my birth. Instead, I'll share from a single, significant crossroad in my adult life. Already a wife, already a mother, and yet struggling with the box I kept myself in and all its sticky little labels.

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I won't give voice to the ugly things I heard in my head, but I was truly unhappy with myself. 

In May of 2012, I traveled home to Texas. It was a weekend away from my husband and kids to celebrate an important day in my younger sister's life. We couldn't all afford to go, but Sam was graduating from college. It was the perfect excuse for a girls' weekend away, and so in the company of another of my sisters, Amy, I made the trip to Lubbock.

It was on this trip that Amy and I commiserated about the unhealthy reflections we found in the mirror.  The scale was all too honest with me as well with its digital 212 staring back at me- the heaviest of my life, but Amy had some words of encouragement and a secret weapon. It was an app and it was simple- log your food and exercise.  It came with the all important promise of her accountability, too.

Downloaded. Done and done. Now comes the hard part... follow through.

I took one day at a time, mastering small changes before moving onto something new with the help of this little gem- starting with just the calorie restriction, then finding a little extra movement in my day before moving onto exchanging sodas for water, and so on.

These were the little battles I fought. These were the little battles that won my war.  Even with periods of weight gain (as you can see. I told you- no straight lines!) and struggling against moments of old habits rearing their ugly heads, I was still discovering a healthier version of myself.  And I felt good- better everyday. I was able to do things I hadn't ever been able to do before, some as simple as climbing stairs without being winded. And so I continued.

In the summer of 2014, in a moment of discouragement, I was given some advice to kick up my activity level a notch or two... or ten. My daily treadmill hour at the gym was no longer serving me.  It was time to trade it in for a higher intensity combination of cardio and body weight training, but I had no idea how to do that!  Lucky me- under the care and planning of some very good friends a meticulous plan was crafted.  Ashleigh and Justin were a power couple, if you will, who guided this gym-shy but determined woman to a whole new fitness level. My schedule was intense with 4-5 mornings or afternoons in the gym, sometimes both, but my family routine and the less demanding age of my children now allowed me the time to really focus on this health pursuit quest.

It was at this time, in July of 2014 that Justin suggested adding yoga to the regimen, particularly on my "rest days."  Intrigued by this yoga thing, but intimidated by the daunting idea of trying a new fitness class, for which I still shy away from, I sought out classes and information from the first place anyone from my generation would look- the internet. I found some fabulous yoginis willing to share their practices via Youtube and Instagram, and it was there I began, mat unrolled on the bathroom floor and computer calling poses from the counter where it sat. 

Turns out, it wasn't just for those "rest days." I practiced. Every. Day. I made some kind of time for that cheap pink mat, and as I fell in love with this God-given gift, I began to chronicle the discoveries I was making; fun poses, balances, and inversions. Of course, it has become so much more than just asanas now, but it's fun (and funny) to look back at those first photos (my very very first pictured above).  Some days I wish I had had the courage to start with a class with real human beings, as I now know the value of community and guidance by a trained professional, but most days I am so very grateful to have the little Instagram squares I had compiled to reflect on.

We forget so easily the distance we've traveled. We get so caught up in the measurement of the single steps in time and inches, sometimes mere centimeters.  But those are the precise moments to scroll back through and remember- to truly own the trip-ups and triumphs alike as a thing of pure beauty and grace.

I came to my mat because I was led here.  

And now, having completed my RYT 200 hour training with Chesapeake Hot Yoga in March of 2017, I'm ready to lead others, with experience and knowledge, passion and love, to find the unique gift and beautiful purpose yoga has in each individual life. 

My yoga education continues; with the completion of my initial 200 hours, I jumped immediately into 300 hour teacher training. I will proudly earn my RYT 500 status in March of 2018 from my "om away from home," Chesapeake Hot Yoga.

Of Injuries and Scars

I quietly sat on the x-ray table, lead vest heavy across my belly and spotlight aimed at my troublesome right knee. The tech making polite conversation as she gave me directions, "Turn this way, just a bit," and "Hold this up. Now, be very still."

I silently obeyed, holding my breath as she stepped behind the window and snapped the shot.  As still as I was, my mind careened around all the possibilities.  Another injury. 

It hadn't been but a few months since I was sitting in that very room with a similar limb affliction; one right shoulder, overworked and under-rested.  At least this time, there was actually an identifiable incident.  I had been reaching for a kettle bell mid-workout, between the running and the squatting.  I hadn't even touched that darn bell yet.  I merely stepped and reached for it, twisting in just the right way.  Or I suppose I should say, "just the wrong way," as there I sat.  It's silly really, and believe me, I felt the ridiculousness of it all in telling the doctor as he examined my angry knee.

I listened intently as he went over the diagnosis; a simple sprained knee to be cared for with a brace, some rest, and anti-inflammatories.  But there was more.  There were "abnormalities" visible on the x-rays. Well, who doesn't love to hear a doctor say that lovely fear-mongering word- "abnormalities?"  He explained the existence of what appeared to be some sort of calcification on what he felt was a knee far too young to allow such a presence.  I was left with a promised follow-up from the radiologist, and a possible orthopedic referral, dependent upon their closer examination of the x-rays.  Of course, I don't remember the exact details of his medical monologue.  It's funny how I always believe I will remember every word, but as soon as I step out of the office, my brain is wiped clean with the exception of all the questions I wished I had thought to ask.

In the few hours that have passed since the appointment, I've teetered back and forth between a high-spirited optimism and plan for a quick recovery, and a disheartening pessimism of being held back from the activities I love for any length of time.

It's a minor injury.  No surgery required.  What a relief!

Minor though it may be, it will still keep me from my routine.  Workouts are my sanity, my remedy for more than just a calorie burn and muscle toning.

Yes, but five days' rest is nothing.  And then I'll be back at it, rebuilding my strength slowly, smartly, but surely.

Unless this calcification business is more.  Then what?

Then, I'll work with it, and stop trying to fight against it.  I can accept my knees never permitting an inverted lotus pose.

Ugh... I was planning to start my YTT this week.  Lotus pose?  I can't even do child's pose right now.

But, my body needs rest.  I'll rest it, and then start next week.  That's the benefit of choosing a program which allows practice and study in my own time.

And round and round I go.  No, really... I am this insane.

In the end, all I could think was how maybe I've made a mountain of this minuscule thing.  A minor injury.  I've allowed it to make me feel broken.  I don't like feeling broken.  I don't care for exposing any fleck of my fragility, physical or otherwise, though I am quite aware of each flecks existence.

The truth is, my fear isn't about this injury or its subsequent recovery.  It gives life to a much more personal and emotional issue deeply rooted and boldly growing from old scars split wide open by setbacks like this.  Clearly, they are wounds that never really healed.

Many, many years ago, I gave up far too much far too easily, and it haunts me still.

One memory rubbed raw and resurfacing most recently, is that of my rather brief stint in the Air Force; four weeks of boot camp training followed by two months of "Medical Hold," only to be sent home for migraines. This is a story many friends and family know, though I've always told it differently than it actually happened.

The basics are the same. I had been aimlessly floundering after the chaos of life led me down an unplanned path. In an attempt to pull myself out of the muck and find any sort of purpose, I proudly joined the U.S. Air Force.  The day after Christmas in 2000, I traveled to San Antonio's Lackland Air Force Base from Houston.  I missed the initial TI verbal assault on the incoming buses, courtesy of a day long paperwork delay, but I was settled into my flight with all the usual "pleasantries" by the 27th.  I learned quickly and became the perfect little wall-flower, despite having the first bed just outside of the Sergeant's office and an easy target for a last name.  "Homer" had brought me nothing but grief since The Simpsons' debut in the fifth grade.  Fortunately for me, it went unnoticed amongst the 59 other girls in my flight.  By week 4, I thought I was golden, but the changes in diet, exercise, and sleep began to take their toll, and my occasional pre-Air Force migraines struck with a vengeance.  It wasn't ever long after Reveille that a daily monster would take hold of my poor pounding head.  I couldn't think straight, and suddenly "the perfect little wallflower" was missing marching calls and standing out like a cactus in the bare desert.  It wasn't pretty, and no one thanked me for the numerous extra "motivational push-ups" we were having to do in penance for my errors alone.  After several days in a row of brain torture and worry, I finally requested to go to medical call. The clinic doctor granted me a referral to the neurologist and an unwanted ticket to leave my flight for the "Medical Hold" Squadron until a diagnosis could be made and everything sorted out.  With this, I found my boot camp graduation delayed and my reserved spot at Shepherd AFB for my next phase of training given to another recruit, though I wasn't fully aware of it at the time.  Once again, my life's plans were shaken.

My first neurology appointment offered a migraine diagnosis, only pending MRI results to rule out worse possibilities.  And so my waiting began- waiting on appointments, waiting on paperwork.  Just a whole lot of "hurry up and wait."

A few weeks later, while making my way by bus to the base hospital, Wilford Hall, for my MRI and follow-up appointments, I passed the marching grounds where graduation preparations were in order.  My breath hitched.  It was my original flight's graduation day.  My graduation day... but not.  I maintained the military bearing as I was expected to display, but my heart broke right there on that shuttle bus as I watched the graduating flights march to the field in their dress blues- the uniform I was measured for, but never received.

It is here where the difference in the story I allowed people to believe and the actual truth diverge.

Perhaps it was riding on the emotional low of that bus ride when I felt my decision was made.  At my appointment that day, the neurologist made the official diagnosis and explained that migraines were typically a "no-go" for acceptance into the military.  He was, however, willing to make an effort to make a case for me to return to normal training along with a prescription to help ease the headaches. The choice was mine. Of course, I had certain anxieties about Warrior Week and other aspects of returning to training, but I truly couldn't see past those graduating flights marching all over my altered dreams to even consider amending the timeline to still reach my goals.  At that moment, I just wanted to go home.

And so, in the great disappointment of my imagined failure, I chose to truly fail by asking that doctor to send me home.

It took another 8 weeks for the paperwork to be properly gathered, but the decision had already been set into motion.  By the time I was reasonable enough to fully comprehend what I had done, it was too late. I told my family and friends that I wasn't given a choice, a fact most are reading for the first time only now.  The shame of disappointing them yet again with the truth of my ever-wavering resolve was too much to bear.  I couldn't shake my adopted role as a quitter, even if only I knew the truth, and it was my own fault.

I let that role rule me for decades, always letting that girl in the mirror forever harp on how I never finished anything I started.  So many times, I proved her right.  Then, little by little, I learned how to be louder and stronger than she was, taking one goal at a time, however small, and celebrating the hell out of it.

That nagging reflection is gone, but she is sadly not forgotten.  It is her ghost, her shadow I fear in moments of sprained knees and slightly-delayed yoga teacher training, knowing old habits are so easily resurrected.  I might be 36, but apparently 21 year old versions of myself still rattle me.

Still, I won't quit. Broken, sprained, calcified, torn, delayed... whatever.  I'll rest.  I'll get back up.  I'll continue moving forward, ever wiser, ever better.

The Waistline War

I have been engaged in a war with my waistline, the scale, and my overall fitness for as long as I can remember.  When I say this, of course, I realize the war is not so much with these things as it is with the woman in the mirror, but I've worked more diligently in the last 2 years than ever before to correct lifelong bad habits and to find a balance between either extreme where my health is concerned, be it over-eating or obsessing about calorie counting and exercise.  It has been a long journey fraught with chocolate, cheese, and all things sweet and fatty.  In fact, hardly a moment has gone by when I have not thought about food in some way.  It's rather embarrassing to even admit, but true nonetheless.  

Between a minor knee injury, missing a few workouts, indulging in a birthday cake, a few fast food stops, and the dang Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla haunting me in the freezer, I've found myself on a slippery slope this week.  My willpower has been paper thin and that evil, highly-critical voice in my head is raging at my reflection with no mercy in sight.  This fault-finding gloom will, of course, get me nowhere… or at least not any place I want to visit again.  It is in an attempt to shut that nasty little voice up that today, I am acknowledging (oh so publicly) the accomplishments I have made by taking you on a tour of my pound-shedding trek rather than waste another second fretting over how far I still have to go.

Please understand how difficult it was to dig up the following pictures.  First of all, I have always made my place behind the camera, so pictures of me were few and far between.  Clearly a result of the second and not so surprising fact that I wasn't (and still am not) terribly fond of the way I looked.  Nevertheless, and again reminding myself that looking back can be quite cathartic, I present to you the "fat pictures."

(Note:  It isn't that nasty little voice calling me fat in these pictures.  I think it is important to be honest with yourself, and the first step for me was owning it.  I was fat!)

I have tried every possible way of weight loss you can imagine, most of the time gaining the weight back within a matter of months, if losing any at all.  Crash diets, pills, and cutting out any one particular food group never worked for me.  It didn't help that I always seemed to have an excuse for my unhealthy ways of eating and (lack of) activity- pregnancies, c-sections, nursing babies, long distance moves- but really it was simply the overwhelming notion of how much I actually needed to lose that kept me from getting off the couch.  Seems silly in retrospect.

My weight crept up slowly over the course of 8 years and 3 babies, but it was in May 2012, tipping the scales at 215 pounds, I decided enough was enough.  I was on a visit to Texas celebrating my (slender) sister's college graduation, and my sister-in-law shared her weapon of choice in the battle of the bulge- an app called "MyFitnessPal."  It was so simple… well, in the way that it worked anyway.  It gave me a daily calorie allotment and provided an easy way to log food and exercise.  Because I was painfully aware of my ineffectual habit of overwhelming myself with too much change too quickly, I chose to focus solely on portion control and not concern myself for the moment with daily exercise routines.  Naturally, when realizing how many calories were in certain foods (because they are listed right on the back of the box!), I made wiser choices in how I "spent" my given calories.

The first several weeks were torture.  My will-power has never been particularly stout, but the "215" staring back at me from the scale below had been forever burned into my memory and gave me the 215 extra reasons I needed to stay strong and move along.  When I felt I had my calorie-consumption under better control, I added regular physical activity by joining the Y and participating in group classes, like Zumba and Boot Camp.  With the gradual habit changes and unyielding persistence the pounds began to fall off week after week, a couple at a time.

Shocking, right? It was just as I had always been taught- the most effective path to achieving a healthy weight is through (proper) diet and exercise!

It's been almost two years now, and I'd like to tell you I never wavered.  I initially lost close to 45 pounds before a move (and various other excuses) broke my MyFitnessPal routine.  I have gained some of those pounds back (and then lost a few again), but I remain determined to get back on the horse each time I falter understanding that my lifestyle is still very different from where I began.

After grueling weeks like this one, I do well to recognize how far I've come and acknowledge the achievements of every pound or inch lost.  That can't be done without sharing these more recent pictures… with the sincere hope you forget you ever saw the others!

Weight Watching Again

I finally joined Weight Watchers online today after several attempts to go it alone. I'm one of those gals that just needs someone to hold me accountable, and now there is a whole cyber-world full of people to watch me succeed.

Food and I got along very well while I was pregnant; I gained only 8 pounds. I know that sounds a bit unhealthy for a woman growing a baby, but I wasn't trying to lose weight. In fact, the ONLY time I don't think, let alone obsess about food is during my pregnancies. I certainly wasn't "dieting." I just listened to my body; ate when I was hungry & stopped eating when I wasn't. For me, it proved to be a very healthy way to live. I left the hospital 15 pounds lighter than I was before my pregnancy and Addie was the healthiest of baby boys. A little disclaimer here; I don't recommend gaining only 8 pounds during a pregnancy, but I was overweight to begin with. I was also under the care of a doctor and had the best of prenatal care.

Anywho, my problem area has always been packing on the pounds while nursing. And I know what they say- "Nursing helps you lose weight," right? Well, clearly, I'm not your typical girl when it comes to the stinkin' scale! I felt my appetite increase the minute my milk came in, and no food was safe.

After 10 weeks of trying on my own and only losing control, I decided Weight Watchers was the only way to go. I had been successful with it after Coco was born, but I had never tried the online service. Attending meetings really made a difference for me. I only hope this works as well. So far, I really like what I've seen; the online tools are incredible. Today was my first day, and though I'm a little hungry, my hunger doesn't compare to the pride I have in taking the first step to living a healthier and skinnier life (preferrably on the beach comfortable and confident in a swimsuit). Only time will tell, but my determination is strong and hopefully my will power is, too.