So - two blogs. Feel free to read both if you like.
I've been fighting my weight for a long time. Like most girls, when I was a teenager I thought I could stand to lose a few pounds, or at least tone up. Then during my junior year I got pregnant. I gained a lot of weight. After I had my son I never completely lost the weight and my real fight with my health began. I discovered over the years that my body loves to gain weight and hates to lose it. It will in fact fight me tooth and nail it seems. I can look at a cookie and gain five pounds - and don't even get me started on "that time of the month" - but when I try to eat better, or diet (evil word!), and exercise nothing seems to happen.
Over the years my weight has gone up and down - dieting before my first wedding, trying to lose weight before trying to get pregnant, then getting pregnant with twins and gaining even more weight, trying to lose weight after twins, etc. etc. The day I delivered my twins I weighed 260 lbs. I'm 5'3" and carry most of my weight from my waist down. I would lose and gain for several years after that and then in 2009 I finally went to what I felt was my last choice. I had LapBand surgery. I was once again 260 lbs.
I had some complications from the surgery (blood clot in the lung is not fun let me tell ya) but after that things went great. I lost 80 lbs and finally thought I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Then I started having issues with the lapband itself. It was either not tight enough - I could eat more than I should - or it was far to tight and I could barely get water down. Eventually it got to where the only foods that would go down through the band were things that were not healthy - greasy foods, ice cream, etc. Things like chicken and fish and veggies would often get stuck. I finally had enough and had them remove all the liquid from my band and, naturally, I started to gain weight again. When I got back up to 200 lbs again - a number I had sworn I would never see again - I knew I had to find something else. I was looking at having the surgery revised from LapBand to a Gastric Sleeve but insurance was making me go through hoops.
I started trying to do small things. Eat better, move more. I signed up with IDLife and started taking some amazing nutritional supplements and replacing breakfast (which I am usually not hungry enough to actually eat) with their meal replacement shake. I lost 4 pounds in one month just doing that. Exercise had always been a problem for me. I never got the 'runner's high' you hear about and with the weight gain my knees and hips were not so great. Plus I had a weak ankle thanks to it being a little twisted up while I was in the womb and to much walking/running/exercise and it would swell up. Exercise = pain to me at the time and though I would try I usually stopped.
Right about that time I saw Arthur Boorman's video about DDPYoga on Facebook.
I'd seen it before probably a year ago. I was amazed at what this man had overcome to get his life back and be healthy. I thought "If he can do it, so can I". And yoga was something I was already looking to do. I work in a salon and I'm hunched over clients all day. It's horrible on my neck/shoulders/upper back. My chiropractor had been bugging me to start doing yoga to help. And here was a program that not only would give me the yoga but let me jack my heart rate up and get some cardio in at the same time!
I knew I wanted to buy it but I'm on a tight budget so I made myself do more research first. I Googled DDPYoga and read reviews on various sites, even a few body building message boards where someone happened to mention it. Everything I read was great. So I bit the bullet and ordered the DVDs.
At the time of this writing I've been doing DDPYoga for about 2 weeks. I do it at minimum 3 times a week and I try to get up early on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before work and to the Wake Up stretch routine. I am not a morning person so that I even want to do this is huge for me. Just in the first week I felt a million times better. The pain in my back and shoulders and neck is lessening. My hip is still an issue but getting better. I'm still doing my IDLife supplements and shake, eating more fresh fruits and veggies and generally just trying to cut back on a lot of the crap I was eating before. That's all I'm making myself do at the moment to change my eating lifestyle. I plan to slowly work myself off gluten and dairy but right now, sticking to what goal I've set for myself, is enough.
This isn't a race. While I'd love to be one of those that has a dramatic transformation in a short amount of time I know the odds of that are low. The fact that my back doesn't hurt as bad at the end of a work day and that I'm sleeping better is more than enough right now. DDPYoga is truly amazing and I've already gotten three people excited enough about it that they've gone and ordered the DVDs too.
This blog is going to be my place to put updates on my progress, rant about set backs, generally just talk about what I'm doing without driving my Facebook friends crazy - because I stay motivated when I voice how excited I am about things. Even if no one reads it. But I hope you do. I hope this helps someone find the motivation they need to own their life. And if any of my dear readers have questions, comments, opinions, or whatever please feel free to comment on the blog! Discussions are a great thing. You can also find me over at Team DDPYoga - an amazing site for all those doing DDPYoga to help keep each other going!
I'm on my way to owning my life - hope you join me for the ride!
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