DDP Yoga for Life - Food Planning for Success

I get a lot of questions about food. The majority are about “what about when you go out? What about lunches?” So I decided to do a blog post about my personal planning. While your mileage may vary, I’m hoping that some of what I do will help you in your own weight loss journey.

By day, I work in an Engineering environment. We plan our work and work our plan. (Well, that’s what we are “supposed” to do, right? Anyone who knows Engineers knows that this can be nebulous.) Nonetheless, I apply this to my eating as well. To track our needed groceries, we use an application called Our Groceries. It is on both iPhone and Android. It allows you to have multiple lists, for different kinds of stores, and we use it for everything. We have a list for the “regular” grocery store, as well as a list for Whole Foods, and another local market called New Leaf. The list is kept up to date by all members of the family, all the time. If you use the last of something, you’re responsible for either adding to the list or telling my husband, the List Master about using the last of it.

By Friday afternoon, I try to decide what I want to eat next week, and adding to our weekly grocery list, as we usually shop either on Saturday or Sunday. I know what I need and I know what I have. If I’m unsure, I check. I personally don’t write anything down as far as what I’m going to make, because usually I make a lot of something and just eat it every day, but you could also do that.

 For me, Sunday afternoon is the perfect time for food prep for the week. I’m relaxed, I have some time, and I spend a bit of time cooking some of the things I know I’ll need. Typically, this includes a large batch of quinoa. I’ve been making 1 cup dry, but this week, I realized I need a bit more, so I’m going to up it to 1.5 cups of dry. Once it’s done and cooled, I usually put it into one large container. I may also chop and roast a big batch of mixed veggies. If I want some special veggie burgers, now is the time that those get made. I then wrap each one individually and place them into a large freezer bag and freeze them. I find that they thaw mostly by lunch if taken out at 6 in the morning. At this point, I have a skeleton of food for the week, at least for lunch. I’m pretty much set. For my evening meals, I fix those each day without much issue.

Weekday Breakfasts and Lunches
Each evening, as I’m making my dinner, I make my breakfast for the next day and I make my lunch. My lunch is usually a quinoa bowl. I take a container and put in 1 cup of cooked quinoa, various frozen vegetables, adding to about 2 cups, and a sprinkling of sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. I pop it into the fridge in one particular spot and that saves me 5 minutes in the morning. For breakfast, I have to admit, I have an addiction. Power pudding. I just LOVE it. It gives me energy that lasts from 6 am to 12! SO awesome. I make it by adding 1 T. chia seeds, 1 T. hemp hearts, 1/3 cup raw whole organic oats, 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk, and 1 scoop of a protein powder. In addition, sometimes I’ll add organic butterscotch flavoring (Frontier makes it), or I might add a spoonful of decaf coffee (one of my favorites!). I mix this all together, and put it in the fridge for the next morning.

Eating Out 
I don’t know about you, but it used to be that eating out was really difficult. Since going plant-based, it’s actually quite a bit easier, I’m not sure why, but anyhow, these planning steps help no matter what you eat!

First of all, if I know ahead of time, like when we have lunches at work, that I’m going to a particular restaurant, I look at the menu and I find things that fit in with my food plans, and my food lifestyle. I go in “armed”. I know what I can have, and I stick to it. For me, taking the guessing out of going out saves me from sitting there agonizing and trying to decide if I’m going to stick to my plan or “bend the rules” to fit what will almost fit. Yea, that’s a slippery slope, right?

If I don’t know ahead of time, and can’t look at the menu, I look first to see if they offer gluten free choices. If yes, then I look at those and find one that fits my needs. If they don’t have anything that fits my needs, or if I don’t like the looks of things, then I go back to the salads, and I find a main course salad that works. (I’ve been known to go to our local sandwich shop, Togo’s, and order an Asian Chicken Salad with no chicken! They look at me oddly, but in reality it’s a pretty good salad. I also don’t use their dressing the majority of the time, because while the salad has 180 calories, the dressing has 380!!!) This pretty much works everywhere.

If the menu looks completely off the wall, like a Chinese restaurant, Thai restaurant or some such, because of sauces and stuff, I just take the hit, order something vegetarian, enjoy the meal, and then adjust calories for the remainder of the day to account for it. Oh, one more thing, about bread. Restaurants almost always slap a basket of bread and butter on the table. My husband knows that the minute it’s there, I’m moving it. I move it to an area where it isn’t right in my face. I don’t eat that stuff, so why put it where it is tempting me. I also always order water to drink and ask for lemon in it.

In my opinion, life is all about choices. I am constantly making choices about my health and well being. With regard to food. I do the very best I can to make nutrient dense food choices that fit within my caloric parameters (yes, I'm a rabid food diary fan, myfitnesspal 1RadChick is me).

DDP Yoga Review from the Trenches

After over a year of posts about DDP Yoga, and all of my experiences, I decided it was time to write an honest-to- goodness review of the program, because I realized I haven’t actually put it all together that way before!

If you are new to my blog or haven’t heard about DDP Yoga before, this is for you! DDP Yoga is a program designed by WCW 3 time World Champion wrestler, Diamond Dallas Page. (Yes, DDP is Diamond Dallas Page, not Diet Doctor Pepper as a few of my friends thought at first!) It’s a zero impact series of workouts based on traditional yoga moves that are amped up and shaken up to make them more intense and use more muscles. The program originally started out as a rehabilitation for DDP as he got injured in wrestling but then evolved into a crazy cool workout that can literally be done by anyone. The most famous and poignant example of what you can do with DDP Yoga (as well as being living proof of the fact that the program is phenomenal) is Arthur Boorman. Take a look at this video. Arthur’s Transformation. When I saw Arthur’s video, I had heard about DDP Yoga from a friend who pretty much pushed and dared me to try it. I was sedentary at the time, and had pretty much given up ever getting back in shape. I watched the video and thought “what if”…  Then I went to the website and tried the free workouts (I’ll tell you more later), and the “what if” voice got louder! I could do some of it. Not all of it, but some of it, which made me realize the rest would come. I bought it and have never looked back!

It sounds too good to be true, right? That’s what I thought! Honestly? Like any other program, DDP Yoga is what you make of it. If you put in the work, you will lose weight, gain an incredible amount of strength, flexibility and muscle tone. I’m literally awestruck by how well I’ve done on the program. When I started, I decided to keep a log of my workouts. The first week, I did 52 minutes total. I lost weight. Then, as I learned the moves, my body became more flexible, and I got into a routine, following the beginner schedule in the book, I ramped up. By the end of the first month, I had lost 7 pounds and 7.5 inches. I was stunned. Happily stunned, but stunned nonetheless. My weight loss slowed, as I replaced fat with muscle, but my body continued (and still continues!) to morph and change. My waist has slimmed and overall I am longer and leaner than I have been since my swimming days! That’s all the great stuff, right, now you want the dirt. I know you do. It’s really hard for me to find anything negative about this program. I guess working out alone can be a negative because you don’t get the feedback you would get in a class with a live instructor, but even that, at this point, isn’t really an issue, as DDP has added certification for instructors, so there are numerous instructors offering online classes that you can join. Some are free, for those who are working on their certifications, while others, who are already certified, charge. Another negative is that it’s still delivered on DVD, because it means I have to bring my laptop when I travel. That is also being addressed, because there will be a DDP Yoga app later in the year.

I’m sure your next thought is, can I really do this. You CAN! Honest. Really. ANYONE can do this program. If you listen to DDP, he tells you to modify and adapt the program to what you can do. Remember what I said earlier. In the first week I did 52 minutes. That’s not in one workout, that’s total for the week! I modified like you would not believe! I had to, I couldn’t DO much of what was being done. I wasn’t strong enough. As I’ve progressed, in each workout, there have been moves that I couldn’t do yet, and there are still moves I have to modify, even in some of the easier workouts, but it’s all good. I’m moving, I am activating muscles, and healing my body. After watching Arthur’s video and seeing people who have debilitating injuries, I have to say I’m not sure there isn’t anyone who wouldn’t benefit from DDP Yoga. I will say this, if you are looking for a calm, peaceful, quiet, spiritual workout, with serene music and water rushing gently down a stream in the back ground, this is NOT the workout for you! This is intense, high energy, supercharged hard work with great results if you put in the work!

Are you convinced? What more can I tell you? I bet you want to know more about my loss, right? I’ve been doing this for 13 ½ months, and I’m down 42 pounds and almost 40 inches. Has it been steady loss? Not really, but it has always been moving in the right direction, so it’s all good! You get what you put into this program, like any other program, and I’ve had a couple of injuries that slowed me down.

DDP himself has helped me on my journey. I had a 4 month plateau. He reviewed my food logs, had me on DDPYoga radio, and he and Stacey Morris (an amazingly successful DDP Yoga participant with a loss of over 180 lbs!) guided me in changing my food some and encouraged me to take a hard look at what I was eating and how. Their guidance resulted in a 3.8 pound loss in 3 weeks. I’m forever grateful for their support. It wasn’t the easiest part of my journey, but it was amazing that people who barely know me reached out in such a wonderful show of support.

On top of everything else, there is a HUGE community family of supportive DDP Yoga warriors who are always willing to accept newcomers and help them on their journey! There is a great community on www.teamddpyoga.com and various Facebook groups that also are willing to help folks. If you, like me, are tired of squeezing into airplane and movie theatre seats, huffing and puffing to cross a room, struggling to find clothes that fit, and not having general mobility and quality of life, it’s time to Own Your Life and join the DDP Yoga Revolution!

Make sure you come back often and check on my progress, because I usually do an update around the 22^nd of the month! This month’s should be epic. I can hardly wait!

DDPRadio and Me: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

As I think the whole world knows, I do a program called DDP Yoga. It is a very intense, challenging, and amazing program that combines yoga, rehabilitation moves, and dynamic resistance into a series of workouts that make your body lean, mean, and healthy. I started my journey in June of 2013. I was unhealthy, overweight, unhappy, and miserable. I got out of breath walking across the room to the bathroom. I was killing myself, slowly.

Fast forward!

A couple of months ago, I was forced to admit that I was injured. My Achilles on my left foot was so sore that I was limping. I kept buying different shoes, spending lots of money, thinking I could “fix” it. I went to Physical Therapy and got help. I found out that even though I have been doing DDP Yoga like a crazy woman (5 workouts a week, about 300 minutes a week), my hips were weak, my glutes were lazy (don’t go there, that’s my favorite joke -  I have a lazy butt), and I had injured my Achilles because I pushed through instead of working to strengthen these core muscles. Now, don’t mistake this as me saying I don’t work my core! I do Red Hot Core, which I dare anyone not to sweat through, but, my OTHER muscles were compensating. So I got hurt. I reached out to DDP. He emailed me back some suggestions and it opened a dialog. We got to talking about food, and I ended up agreeing to join an accountability group he had started.

At this point, I had already been logging my food on My Fitness Pal for over a month (username 1RadChick, hit me up with a friend request!). I had dialed in my calories, was watching what I ate, and had just decided to try eating plant based. I joined and started sharing my food each day. Every day, we share our food logs. It’s been eye opening for me, seeing how different everyone eats, and knowing that everyone is succeeding. At this point, my weight loss has been very slow (in my eyes). I’ve lost 39.6 lbs in 13 months. Yup, it’s a great loss, but for me, looking at some of the folks doing this program, I’m losing at the pace of a snail or slower. I was frustrated, but I am not willing to do drastic crazy diet measures to lose. I want to lose in a manner that is sustainable and healthy and fits me for the rest of my life. I have spent a lot of energy repairing my metabolism from yoyo dieting, taking diet pills, eating Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, and just plain starvation. I am done with all that now. As the kids say “This shit just got real!”

Earlier this week, I popped a quick message to the accountability group saying “I’m so frustrated, WHY am I not losing??!” DDP himself replied, asking me for 5 days of food diaries and a few other questions. I sent him what he wanted. When I looked at the diaries, I saw 2 entries that were not my finest choices, but I shrugged because I knew the background and I knew that they were *still within my calories and my vegan lifestyle.* I had managed to keep legal even with challenges, so I just sent them off. A day or so later, he reached out again and asked me to appear on DDP Radio. I said “Yes, as long as you promise not to Diamond Cut me on the air.” He agreed.

Wednesday night I called in. I was on the line as they played that amazing opening music. My accountability partner, Mark Furniss was on Facebook chatting with me, living it with me, and asked me if I had my heart monitor on. We laughed about that for a couple. Now I wish I *had* worn it! LOL

The first thing DDP said, after we went through formalities of my short bio, was “So September, you had Ice cream…. Really? You think ice cream is something you can eat on a diet? And gluten free pancakes?” I don’t really know much of what he said after that, because, those were my only 2 bad choices in 5 days and I literally lost it. In MY head, I was now a food shamed failure. I heard my biggest mentor call me out and thought I had failed completely. Obviously, that was NOT the intent or the reality but that was MY reality. Fortunately, I had a notebook handy, and I managed to jot down ideas that came from him and from Stacey Morris on how to improve things and get the weight loss hopefully moving. Everyone was as baffled as I am (and as my doctor is) as to why I’m not losing more quickly. The call out on the bad foods? It was just meant to jostle me into remembering I’m trying to lose weight… not maintain. (I get that now, then not so much!) I was on for almost 20 minutes! It was crazy amazing. And at the end, they asked me to come back. And I really will!

After the show, I sat and cried. For 3 hours. I remember thinking “Its not worth it. I don’t care. I’m quitting.” Mark Furniss is a totally amazing accountability partner. He is in Ireland, 8 hours away, and had a new baby born to he and Susan last Thursday. He stayed up with me, for almost an hour after the show, (that’s like 3 am his time!), and talked me down. He made me understand what had REALLY happened, versus what I heard. I also talked to John NS, Christina Russell, and Liz Collins. I have the most amazing people surrounding me on this journey, I really do. Mike Mullins also reached out. Just crazy caring! I railed at all of them, lashing out in anger, pissed off at the world, and knowing that I eat more cleanly than most of the people in my life and who I associate with online. Dammit I own my food, it doesn’t own me! I kept reiterating my frustration and man, it’s a good thing DDP wasn’t in the room because I might have Diamond Cut HIM before he could calm me down! :D Yep, really, ask Christina.

Thursday morning I woke up and logged onto my computer. I had several messages waiting for me, congratulating me on being on DDPRadio and telling me how awesome I was. Wait, what? Awesome? What? Becky Curtis-Parker caught me and told me I had done great. Jennifer Singletary commiserated with how I felt but said I did really well. I started to blossom a little tiny bit. But I was still really angry with DDP. I wrote him a long email. I told him I felt ambushed, hurt, frustrated. I hit send, (rewrote that sucker 5 times), talked a bit more to Becky and she said no no no! Send him a “read me first”… and talked me back to reality. So I did. He wrote back, apologizing profusely because of course he never meant to hurt me. He is proud of what I’ve accomplished but wants me to have even more success. He was using me as an example. And he was thrilled to get my Read Me First (although he got it after he started replying!)

By mid day Thursday, I had started to regroup, and open back up and get back to living life at 90%. I was exhausted though. Really exhausted--Mentally and physically.  I left work a bit early, went home and did my workout. It didn’t go well, and I didn’t really finish, but I did it, and it counted. I ate right all day, and felt good about all of it. I also exchanged emails with Stacey Morris and got clarification on some of what was said that was confusing to me. On the show they told me to eat no more than 27 grams of sugar a day. Well, I didn’t hear “added grams”, so I was trying to figure out how the heck you can only eat 27 grams when a freaking banana has 14. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t live on bananas, but after going many many years with them being on a “never eat” list, I’m not cutting them out ever again! So Mark worked with me a bit too, ironing out my food, and providing input on it. It was a good day.

This morning I weighed. And burst out laughing. Honestly. I am down 1.2 pounds this week. Really. I’m .4 away from 40 pounds. And this after whining that I wasn’t losing. My weight hasn’t budged by even a pound for almost 4 weeks, and now today, bam! Down.

So today, I sat down and really looked at My Fitness Pal. I looked at my goals and I decided to re-examine them. I made some adjustments. Are they going to be easy adjustments? I guess it will depend on the day. Are they crazy? No. Are they difficult? Again, it will depend on the day. Can I do it? Hell yes. Do I want to? Hell yes!  I’ve also agreed to a 2 week challenge of not eating complex carbs at dinner. (That’s what I am doing, no complex carbs. The whole challenge is no carbs, just veggies and protein.) Last night I had a protein shake with some tofu added for a bit of extra protein and some amazing roasted veggies.

In short, I got this. And. I am so SO very grateful to DDP for everything he does. He is an amazing human being, and I only hope I can be half the person he is. Thank you for being there, listening, pushing me to be more, and knowing I can be more. It really means a whole lot. More than you could possibly know. I am also grateful to Mark Furniss (http://heroddpyoga.blogspot.com) for being the most supportive (and yet realistic) accountability partner ever. Lastly grateful to the Team DDP Yoga folks who reached out and pulled me back to reality and made me see perspectives other than my own. My apologies to everyone I lashed out at, life happens, thank you for caring enough to stick with me through it. J

If you want to know more about my plant-based eating experience, which started as a 40 day experiment and has taken on a life of its own because I feel amazing, I have a facebook group set up here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/323525631145417/

Costco Gems for PlantStrong DDP Yoga

I was thinking about all the foods I find at Costco that are organic, plant based and healthy and realized it was probably a great idea for a blog post. If you don’t have a Costco, I’m really sorry, but you might check out Sam’s Club—I do not have a Sam’s Club so I’m unable to provide comparisons.

This will be in no particular order, but I’ll try to keep it simple.

Veggies

I hit this area really hard. I try to get as much as I can. I also DO waste a bit, sometimes, but I’m working on getting better at that. It still comes up to a savings, even if I waste a bit.

Baby Romaine Lettuce
Chopped Romaine
Mixed greens (sometimes, not my favorite!)
Spinach
Red Bell Peppers
Baby Peppers
Hearts of Celery
Broccoli
Cauliflower (sometimes)
Corn on the cob
A huge bag of mixed baby Kale, baby chard, and baby spinach (green juice base!)
English cucumbers (don’t buy the babies, they go bad MUCH too fast!)
Baby Portabella mushrooms (a big container, I use some in salads and add a ton to marinara sauce to up the veggies!)
Zucchini – sometimes they have it, sometimes they don’t. hit or miss
fresh fruit – I don’t always buy this, because frankly, the Costco fruit seems to go bad fast for me. If I see a good deal on berries, I might buy them, because I can use those fairly quickly, but I don’t eat tons of fruit so not always a wise buy.

Grocery Items

Costco has recently added a ton of organic things, many of which I really like, so its an adventure to determine what I want. You do have to be careful, because just because something is organic doesn’t mean it’s healthy! (Like the 10 different kinds of snack chips!)

Brown Rice, in bowls (I eat one of these for breakfast!)
Quinoa in a huge bag
Qia cereal (this stuff is awesome sprinkled over anything or by itself!)
Quinoa and Brown Rice with Garlic (I think that’s the name. they are precooked microwavable bags, so handy!)
Orgain Organic Chocolate Protein Powder  (Plant based protein powder, and SO amazingly delicious!
Almond Milk (shelf stable!)
Nuts – raw almonds mostly, but sometimes I’ll get sprouted pumpkin seeds or sprouted sunflower seeds
Rickland Farm Trail Mix – I keep this stuff in my desk and dole out a ¼ cup portion on days when I just need a little snack. I’ve also been known to throw a bit onto my salad!
If you like cereals, there are several that are super good like the Cherries and Berries or Indigo Morning, both are decent choices.
Brown Rice (bags! I think I’ve even seen Brown Basmati)
Beans (Garbanzo, black, kidney-cans or bags, but the bags are humongous!)
Nut Butter – check, because I have seen both almond butter and peanut butter without extra ingredients)
Coconut Oil (I don’t use a lot but it’s nice to have and the price is amazing)

Refrigerated Foods

So, there’s not a lot I get here, and some of these things I don’t always buy, but there are some that are staples.

Silk Almond Milk (we all drink it, no more cow milk in our house)
Hummus (there’s this 3 pack of hummus that is SO good!)

Frozen Foods

Berries (strawberries, mixed berries, blueberries-for smoothies)
Pineapple (I use this in my kale smoothie to make it better)
Veggies (mixed veggies, good to have on hand to toss into brown rice for extra veggies)
Veggie burgers  (I love the Don Lee Farms, and Costco often has those. Sometimes they have meatballs too. As an aside, my favorite way to eat them is slathered with Grey Poupon, I swear it tastes like a corn dog!)

I guess this is a pretty long list! I’m sure there are other items of interest at Costco, but these are my “go to” items at the moment.

 –Enjoy!

Carol's Purple Salad

About 25 years ago, my husband and I worked with a woman named Carol who was extremely forward thinking and ate extremely healthy foods. We had a pot luck and she brought this dish. She called it, simply "Carol's Purple Salad" because purple was her favorite color and a prevalent color in the salad. It is SO SO SO good. Trust me!

Carol's Purple Salad, serves 4-8
1 large heirloom tomato (or a nice large organic tomato)
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
3 carrots
1 head red cabbage
1 oz. sunflower seeds
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup vinegar (I mix Apple Cider Vinegar and Balsamic)
2 cloves garlic, diced finely
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
sea salt and pepper to taste

Coarsely chop the tomato, removing the seeds and gelatinous stuff.
Coarsely chop the red and green bell peppers.
Dice up the carrots.
Coarsely chop the red cabbage and steam VERY briefly

Combine chopped veggies into a large bowl. Add sunflower seeds.

Combine olive oil, vinegar, garlic, cumin, salt and pepper.

Pour over salad and mix to combine.

This makes a huge amount of salad, but it gets better over the next day or so. I eat it as a main course, I just can't get enough of it!

Plant-Based Eating, the First 14 Days and How it Fits with my DDP Yoga Journey

For the past two years, I have been slowly modifying my eating habits to be even more healthy than they had been. Previously, I had still eaten some processed foods, and some artificial sweeteners, but I reached a point where I decided I was going to make some serious changes. I had gone to a new doctor, and to be honest, his approach was very subtle and worked much better than being told “Just go to Weight Watchers.” He sat with me and asked me if I would go home and watch 2 movies. He said he just wanted me to watch, I didn’t need to check back with him or anything but please just watch. I went home with a card, with the movies “Forks Over Knives” and “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” written on it.

 I watched the movies. In fact, I watched both of them twice. While what I saw was thought-provoking, I just couldn’t even imagine eating either way. However, I DID make some good choices that day and decided to make some small changes, a little bit at a time.

Fast forward a year to 2013. In the middle of 2013, I started doing DDP Yoga. I also decided that I was going to start to eat clean again. I had slipped since I met that Doctor in 2012, and my weight had gone up again. As I started working on the DDP Yoga, I realized I was craving fresh foods, lots of veggies have been a part of my life for about 14 years, but now I wanted even more of them. A piece of fruit here and there, and I felt great. As the months went by, I started to want less protein.

In late May, I shared  that I had shaken up my eating plan. I started to eat brown rice and veggies for breakfast, then protein and a huge salad for lunch, followed by protein and a ton of veggies for dinner. This was a comfortable way to eat, but I noticed, again, that I wanted less and less of the animal protein. I was having more and more veggie burgers for dinner-- or a simple green juice drink for dinner. Things were changing.

  Sometime near the end of June, a fellow DDP Yoga person, Slim Gillian, posted on his blog that he was doing a 40 Day Plant based Challenge. This sparked my interest and curiosity. I started to research a bit and realized I was a turkey burger and maybe an ounce of goat cheese a day short of being plant-based.

In the meantime, I had an Achilles tendinitis flareup, and went back to that doctor from 2 years ago. I told him I was about 75% plant based, and he did new bloodwork, mumbling something about a baseline.  I think he knew from talking that I was almost ready.

For the past two years, Mondays have been “Meatless Mondays.” Therefore, when June 30^th rolled around and was a Monday, it was an easy leap. It is now July 13^th, making it 14 days since I started this journey. I’m doing great! I’m finding it fairly easy to eat enough, in fact, I’m having to be careful not to overeat, still. I’m not eating processed foods, unless you count the occasional Kind bar! My breakfast is still a big bowl of brown rice with steamed veggies, most days, other days it might be a plant based protein shake made with almond milk or a big glass of my favorite “green juice”, a copy of Jamba Juice’s Tropical Greens drink, which contains kale, pineapple, and apple juice.  Lunch is a huge salad, as always, with a sweet potato, quinoa, black bean burger or a portabella mushroom cap with some hummus on it. Yum! For dinner, I’ve been having lots of grilled veggies and the occasional veggie burger. On the weekends, if my husband and I have a large-ish lunch, which we do sometimes, I might have a green juice for dinner.

How do I feel? I’m starting to notice little changes. My skin feels softer, I’m sleeping more soundly, and I have SO much energy! It’s crazy. I thought I’d be dragging around, but I’m not! When I do my DDP Yoga workouts, I’m finding that my heart rate is a bit lower than it’s been, which is awesome! I’ll be excited to see what the next set of bloodwork looks like, I expect it will be even better.  Oh yea, and I lost 2 pounds in the past 2 weeks. Bang!

I am still taking the same Raw vitamin (Nature’s Way, Alive! 50+ for Women) I’ve taken for the past 2 years. I haven’t dropped that, because I figure it’s not hurting me. Other than that, I’ve been clean of everything including aspirin, Tylenol, Advil, etc. for so long I don’t know how my body would react if I took them!

So that’s where I am! I’ve started a Facebook group for my fellow DDP Yoga folks who are eating plant based. Feel free to come join us!
Until next time!

DDP Yoga and My New Heart Rate Monitor!

For the past year, doing DDP Yoga, I have been wearing a Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor. It worked flawlessly for the first 5 or 6 months. Then, sporadically at first, and more regularly as time passed, it started to read 0. I replaced the batteries. It did not help.  the fact that no matter how tight I put my monitor, my boobs were in the way, it was sliding around, it was reading 0. It was a no win situation, and I needed a solution. I tried a sport bra that had connectors for the heart rate monitor module and that was great. Until I bent over. Then it popped off and flew across the room. Yes, much laughter and giggling ensued, then I realized it wasn't a win for me, so the hunt was on.
 One day at work, one of the guys showed me his new heart rate monitor. It was an Alpha Mio. I'd been looking at the Alpha Mio since I started having issues with my Polar, but I was hesitant because of the cost. I mean, really, I'm "just" doing DDP Yoga, I'm not training for a marathon or a century bike ride. Did I really need it?  He let me borrow it, and I went in a conference room and did some DDP yoga for about 15 minutes. It worked perfectly. Flawlessly. I mean, it tracked my heart rate, and the heart rate it showed kind of matched what I saw at home when my monitor worked. Hmmmm.
I went back to my desk and thought on it for a bit. I talked to a friend who works at Amazon, asking about buying "used" or "refurb" items from Amazon and learned a lot. I guess they are pretty stringent about what they resell. The odds were that I'd get an almost new item if I picked something that had packaging issues. I read reviews on so many different sites. The more I read, and after having tried it in person, the more I knew it was the right decision. I also quickly realized that there was no "great deal" to be had, and that other models by Mio did not carry the same awesome reviews.
I splurged and bought one! I picked one that was in "Like New" condition and had "missing packaging." That sounded promising. When it came, it was missing the little insert that holds the watch in place. The watch was rolling around loose in the box, but everything was there, the charger, the instructions, the watch. Go me. I paid under $150 for it. And I am SO happy with it! At first, it was a bit of a challenge. I'll talk about that a bit next.
This is a very serious heart rate monitor. It ONLY monitors your heart rate. It does not have a lot of bells and whistles, but it works and it works well. I'll let you read about the technology aspect online, places like Engadget and LiveStrong have great reviews that tell pros and cons, as does Amazon. Just understand, going in, you aren't buying a consumer toy with flashy screens to make you go squee. You are buying a tool that will help you perform a task more efficiently. For the first few days, that was kind of a stumbling block for me. I was used to the world of Polar where I see my average heart rate and my maximum heart rate, as well as some other things. You have to connect to an application to get more information. After trying several, my personal favorite is Map My Fitness. It is primarily meant for walking, but has power yoga, so I use that.
Here are the graphs I get after I finish my workout. They are pretty awesome and tell me everything I need to know! I have installed the app on my ipad, so when I'm ready to work out, I bring my ipad out to my mat and get things set up.

With a Polar (and a nasty chest strap) you put the watch on, click a couple of buttons and off you go. With the Mio, you put the watch on, hold down the button, it "Finds" your heart rate. This takes about 5 seconds, I'd say. Then you press the same button and that starts your workout. While you are working out, there is a light that flashes blue (you are below your optimal zone), green (you are in zone), or red (you are above your zone). You never have to touch the watch, and can always glance at it to see where you are if you need to know what your current heart rate is, but once you get used to the colors, there's really no read to examine, right? And, if you use an ipad, the screen is easy to read and shows what you're burning (live calorie read) alternated with a reading of your current heart rate. I love it. At the end of the workout, I press the button on the watch, and stop the workout in Map My Fitness, and done. In Map My Fitness, I then change the name of the workout from Power Yoga to DDP Yoga, and save it. I'm slowly building a history of my workouts with valuable real time information on the different zones and recovery times.  (See the screen capture below.) 

In summary, I'm in love with the Mio Alpha and I am glad I bought it. I have had a few misfires, days where I messed up and started Map My Fitness before starting the Mio, which means I didn't gather data and had to rely on what the Mio stored (average heart rate and length of workout, I think.) But as long as I use everything correctly, I'm getting great results. The Mio does sync with iphone and also with my Samsung Galaxy S5, but I haven 't used it, the ipad is just so much easier to see during a workout, for me.

P.S. I have NO affiliation with Mio. NONE. :)

DDP Yoga - ONE year!!!

It's hard to believe that it's really been a year since I started this amazing journey. I was looking at photos last night, as I took my one year update photos and realizing how much I have changed. My shape is completely different, and my posture is even better.

The year started with awesome new friends made in the Team DDP Yoga chatroom. People like Marv, Heidi Sue, John NS, Mark Furniss, and George Fenmore (I know there are lots more, please don't get upset if I didn't single you out!). It was crazy at first. I had so much support, and so little confidence in what I could do. I remember at my 30 day mark, I took new photos, shared them, and John started pointing out all the little changes when I said there weren't any. That really kicked it off for me, recognizing those changes and starting to accept that this was really happening!

Fast forward to November. I hurt my shoulder. It wasn't earth shattering, but it slowed me down. A lot. Then, I let myself be convinced I was still doing the same level I had been, through the holidays and into January. By now, Mark Furniss was my accountability partner (still is!), and he realized I was lagging and started to push me to get it in gear. And I did!! I had gained about 5 pounds but maintained most of my inch loss. It was time to get serious.

March, April and May are a blur of me moving, doing the work, and eating clean. It paid off, I took off the 5 I had put back on, plus another 2. Having said that, in early June, my feet started to bother me even more than they had previously. It started in May, actually, but I thought I had it under control. Clearly not. I finally went to the doctor last week, and have achilles tendinitis in my left foot.

When I saw the doctor, he looked at me and told me I was thinner. I told him what I was doing and explained how it worked to him. He was so impressed with my loss, muscle tone, and the fact that I kind of went into catcher like it was nothing (I was showing him how my knees were kind of squeaking and complaining, LOL, he wasn't the only one who was surprised because I just dropped a catcher right there!) , that he ended up going to the DDP Yoga site himself, and asked me to write it down for him. He also told me that although I don't think my loss is amazing, he's very happy with it and can't wait to see how I look with all of it gone and that even if it takes 6 years, he's happy. I left feeling great! Strong, supported, and in charge, baby!

My visit to the physical therapist the next day wasn't quite so stellar. He looked at me and saw a chubby girl and decided I needed to cross train -- he wanted me ass on a stationery bike to "get some cardio". Whatever. He wasn't listening to me, but I DID get the exercises I need to strengthen my achilles and get this painful thing gone. (By the way, my average heart rate during a DDP Yoga session is about 128 and I can sustain that for about 35 minutes now before it starts going too high!)

So, let's get serious for a second. Let's talk about this year. First, here are the official stats:

(If you can't read it, that's 36.5 inches and 29.2 pounds, gone forever!)

Was it easy? No.

Would I do it again? Hell yes, and I'd do it better!

Have I learned anything? I have learned that I can do really hard things, and I have learned that if today's workout isn't the best, that's okay, because tomorrow's will be better. Every work out seems to bring a nugget of happy ability that wasn't at the last one, even the not great ones! This progression kind of tells the whole story I think!

How do I eat now compared to a year ago? Well, this is one of the most interesting parts of my whole story. Two years ago, my doctor had me watch Forks Over Knives and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dying. He told me he thought I would really benefit from what these movies had to offer. Now, understand, this was a new doctor who did not know me at all. I watched the movies, I dabbled with what I saw in both movies, even bought a juicer. They were very compelling. Over this past two years since that appointment, I had dropped much of what I started, but in mid May, Mark and I talked about my food, and he gave me some new ideas (that seemed a little whacky at the time), mostly for breakfast. Then I convinced my husband that we needed to tighten things down a bit and we have. I have eaten clean for about 3 years, but here's the thing, you can eat clean and gain weight if you don't monitor your portions and if you don't watch things fairly closely. So, in mid May I started tracking my food on myfitnesspal (I'm 1RadChick there if you want to friend me). After a few days, Mark told me I needed to eat more. So I upped my intake, adding more veggies and a protein shake once in a while. It helped. It helped to the point of that's when I lost the most recent 3 lbs! Yes. We are onto something. At this point, I'm about 75% plant based, 25% protein. My protein comes from buffalo (bison) , Grass fed beef, organic chicken, fish, shrimp, and turkey. That's about it, and we get most of it at Costco, which is awesome! I eat between 1500 and 1900 calories a day and I do have a protein shake (plant based, I use Raw Protein from Garden of life, mixed with almond milk), if I need extra protein when it comes time to workout. Funny thing, Mark told me that I needed more protein for muscle recovery because I was always complaining about sore muscles, and he was right. Once I upped the protein, my workouts got stronger and I had less muscle soreness.  This week, I'm upping my water. I drink "enough" but I need to drink more. I know I do, so it's time to make that happen!

Do I take any supplements? I take a Raw multivitamin from Nature's Way called Alive! I also take CLA PM from GNC every night, and I am currently taking Turmeric as a science experiment. Lastly I take something called WobenzymN, which is to support my joints. I will follow up on how that goes.

Do I have any advice for folks just starting out? Take it slow. You didn't get overweight fast, you won't lose fast, and you need to respect your body. Listen to your body. If you are doing a workout and something hurts, don't just keep going, stop, evaluate, modify. DDP stresses this throughout every single workout, listen to him! Also, if something feels sore, ice is your friend. If you are a DDP fan, you've heard that his fellow wrestlers joke that he would fill the bathtub with ice after matches. I doubt it is far off. I'm at a point where I am icing my ankles and my knees to keep things happy. Not because I'm injured but because I don't want to be. Also, don't be in a rush to get to the difficult workouts. Take. your. time! Learn the moves, learn the poses, get familiar with how your body feels in the poses. Don't fret about how fast DDP is going, pause the video or skip the move. There is more than enough cardio in every workout! Oh and find an accountability partner or 5. Mark Furniss is my main accountability partner, but I also have other folks who keep an eye on me and provide feedback and support.

So that's how my year has been! A whirlwind of energy and movement, with lots of veggies and good stuff to eat thrown in! Stick with me, I think this next year is going to be even MORE incredible, because now I know what I'm doing and what I have to do to get where I want to go!

If you are reading this and want to know more about DDP Yoga, please DO click on the link at the right, watch Arthur Boorman's incredible story, and if you decide to buy, use that link because it provides me a tiny bit of money and I'm saving to go to the DDP Yoga retreat next year!

DDP Yoga, Checkin Time! - Fine Tuning

As I think just about everyone knows by now, I'm coming up on my one year anniversary next month (6/22!). Over this past month, I've been doing some fine tuning to my food and exercise, trying to get things dialed in a bit better. My accountability partner has been pushing a bit toward that (thanks, Mark!), and I decided to get with it. 

First, let's talk about food. I eat clean. I have eaten clean for so long that I don't really have to even think much about it. Having said that, my week is often full of "food landmines." Times when I have to make choices. I *usually* make good choices, but not always. We will call that the "human factor." 

A while back, I blogged about food diaries. I mentioned that I use SparkPeople. Well, this week, with some dietary adjustments (I'll come back to those), I decided to move over to www.myfitnesspal.com (I am 1RadChick over there if you want to "friend" me.) I think I'll do a comparison review this week about the 2 sites, they are different in a couple of ways.

This past week, I've recorded everything I ate on myfitnesspal, and it's gone well. Mark suggested some food changes, which I have incorporated, and I'm feeling great. I had eliminated most of the sugar from my diet, but I think there must have still been some lingering, because at the start of the week, I did have some detox going on. I wasn't feeling my best, and my workouts were lackluster, to me. Now, though, I'm back, full on, and feeling much stronger, actually!

So what exactly have I changed about my food? Here's the rundown.

1. Carbs are first thing in the morning, breakfast, a lot of them. I am eating about 1-1.25 cups of cooked brown rice. At Mark's suggestion, I've added a cup of cooked veggies. For me, because mornings are not a relaxing time, I am using frozen mixed veggies from Costco. It's great! I toss a cup of veggies in the microwave for 2 minutes, take it out, heat up my rice, slap the two together, and, then, the weird part. You ready? I add a teaspoon of mayo. Yup, don't blink, mayo. I personally use veganaise, the grapeseed oil version, and love it. I also add a dash of Himalayan pink sea salt, and some freshly ground black pepper. My mouth is watering just thinking about it! Yum! Weird, off the wall breakfast, but yep, it works.

2. Lunch is a really, really big salad. Tons of mixed lettuces, baby kale, and spinach. To that, I add 1 chopped red bell pepper, 1/2 an English cucumber, some chopped green onion, celery, diced carrots, and mushrooms. I add 1 tablespoon of dressing, for me, readymade is easier at work, so I go with Newman's Own Olive Oil and Vinegar, which is pretty clean. Sometimes I make my own but that's my go to. In addition, I have a protein. This week it has been the most delicious Greek Turkey Burgers (Recipe in separate post.) I'm weird, I guess. I made these and I haven't had a single one hot! I have cut the patty into cubes and dumped it into my salad.

3. Dinner is a protein and a metric ton of veggies. I'm so full after all of this that I can't even think about anything else. I guess it's not actually a metric ton but I've upped my veggies. I've eaten 8-10 servings of veggies a day for the past 10 years or so, but now it's probably up to 20.

Let's talk about this week in workouts. I worked out on Monday with Mark on Skype, doing the Level One workout. It was.... not my best, but I did it and it's all good. I have worked out everyday except 1 day, which is what I try to do, most weeks. After talking to Liz Collins about my hamstrings being tight, she told me about a traditional yoga workout for tight hamstrings. I have added this into my routine, one day a week, and honestly, it's helping, AND, it is adding to my confidence. I surprised myself during my first runthrough, being able to do a move that was one of those "wait, what?" moves. It was pretty funny, actually. I followed the instructor, and all of a sudden, I realized I was doing it and burst into a fit of giggles. So yes, still going strong on the DDP Yoga front, and working on making the most of my workouts and accepting my body as it is instead of letting my Type A personality define that I have to be the best. I AM the best. I am the best me. I will always work on being the best me, and, at the end of the day, that's all that matters.

That's all for now. Make it a great day!

Black Bean Brownies.... YUM!!! (Honest!)

This is an amazing recipe! I adapted it from the Minimalist Baker. I thought they needed a bit of oomph, so I added the coffee and cinnamon. They would be incredibly decadent if you also put a few chocolate chips in the batter or even added a few on top of each one when you take them out of the oven!

Black Bean Brownies

INGREDIENTS

1 15 oz. can (~ 1 3/4 cups) black beans, well rinsed and drained

2 eggs 

3 T coconut oil, melted (or sub other oil of choice)

3/4 cup cocoa powder (the higher quality the better, I use WonderCocoa)

1/4 tsp sea salt

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup raw sugar (I used 1/3 cup of Palm sugar)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp instant decaf coffee

1/4 tsp cinnamon

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly grease a muffin pan (12 openings).

Break eggs into blender or food processor.

Add remaining ingredients and puree - about 3 minutes - scraping down sides as needed. You want it pretty smooth.

If the batter appears too thick, add a Tbsp or two of water and pulse again. It should be slightly less thick than chocolate frosting but nowhere close to runny.

Evenly distribute the batter into the muffin tin and smooth the tops with a spoon or your finger.

Bake for 20-26 minutes or until the tops are dry and the edges start to pull away from the sides. (I baked mine for about 22 minutes on convection, at 325 degrees).

Remove from oven and let cool for 30 minutes before removing from pan. 

Store in an airtight container for up to a few days. Refrigerate to keep longer.

Liebster Award Nomination!

My sweet DDP Yoga buddy (and mentor and role model!) Liz, of www.lizddpyoga.com, nominated me for a Liebster award! How cool is that? Thanks so much, Liz, this is truly an honor!

 The Liebster Award is an online award by bloggers for bloggers to help bring attention to new and upcoming bloggers, typically those with 200 followers or less – but any favorite blog you love will do!

Here’s how it works:
1. You must link back to the person who nominated you.
2. You must answer the 10 Liebster questions given to you by the nominee before you.
3. You must pick 10 bloggers to be nominated for the award
4. You must create 10 questions for your nominees.
5. You must go to their blogs and notify the nominees.

Questions from LizDDPYoga:

1. Why did you start blogging? I have been blogging since about 2006! At first, it was just rambling, then later, it evolved to quilting, scrapbooking, and photography. Now it is almost always dedicated to my incredible experience with DDP Yoga. DDP Yoga has changed my life, and given a new focus, which is clearly reflected in my blog!

2. What is your favourite hobby? When I am not on my mat doing DDP Yoga, I am a mixed media artist and photographer. I create inspirational and abstract paintings using found ephemera, vintage papers, book pages, sheet music, and more. I've also been a semi-pro photographer for more than 35 years (ouch). I regularly take field trips out and about to explore new places and take photos. 

3. What is your guilty pleasure? I love this question! When I first started doing DDP Yoga, I was seriously out of shape, and everything hurt. About 4 months in, still sore, I decided to treat myself to a massage. By the end of the hour, I was feeling incredibly better. The massage therapist, who is now my hero, told me, "Girl, I could have worked on you for a good 2 1/2 hours. That DDP Yoga you're doing is clearly hard core, you need to keep doing it and keep coming to see me. You are buff, lady." (I love him. LOL) So, my guilty pleasure is that once a month, I go and get a killer sport massage for 1 1/2 hours, with aromatherapy (aptly called "Aches and Pains") from Troy at Massage Envy. Ahhhhh. Just thinking about it makes me relax!

4. What one thing do you want to accomplish in your lifetime? One thing. Just one? Really? Ok. My big focus right now is to perfect my DDP Yoga enough to get certified as an instructor. I want to focus on helping older folks regain some of their mobility. I have a couple of friends who have lost a lot of their mobility and I truly feel that the rehabilitative aspects of DDP Yoga could be a life changer for them. So, I'm going with getting Certified as a DDP Yoga instructor. (That's for today at least!)

5. What is your proudest accomplishment? My life. I can't just pick one thing. For me, my life is a patchwork of amazing experiences, both good and bad, that have made me into the person I am today and that have enabled me to continue to grow. The sunflower in my banner is extremely meaningful to me, as it represents that growth and is a constant reminder to stay in the light and face the sun.

6. Who inspires you? Oh my goodness, so many people. In the DDP Yoga world, it's Mark Furniss, you, Liz, Christina Russell, DDP himself, of course, Arthur Boorman, Marv White, so many others. In the other aspects of my life, my biggest inspiration is Melody Ross, of Brave Girls Club who is one of the most inspirational people ever to touch my life. I will owe her forever, much like I owe Diamond Dallas Page.

7. What is your biggest regret? My biggest regret is probably kind of silly. When I was 17 I turned down a full scholarship to a college in Oregon. I have always wondered what my life would have been like had I gone there. :) But you know? My life is awesome, so it's all good. Oh, I guess I have 2 regrets. I was a competitive swimmer in high school. I swam distance. I wish I'd never stopped. I was in incredible shape, and I should have continued swimming in college... 

8. What book do you think anyone and everyone should read? The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. One of my all time favorite books, ever. 

9. What’s the very best thing about you? I shine. I am real, authentic, and I think my personality always shows through, whether you meet me in person or read my writing. I'm proud of that!

10. Tell us one thing we never knew about you. I LOVE fast cars. I have actually built a V-8 engine (with guidance and much help), helped replace a clutch, and drag raced at a track. I've also photographed Indy cars at Laguna Seca! Love me some speed!!!

My Nominees:

1. Ms. Lavender
2. Legendce
3. Hero DDPYoga
4. Stix n' String
5. Feed Your Sparkle
6. My Page a Day
7. My Brave Soul
8. Kelly Hitt
9. Just Be Awesome Now
10. Nancy Wood Books
    

My 10 Questions:

1. What inspired you to start blogging?

2. What is your favorite food and why?

3. What is your guilty pleasure?

4. What one thing do you want to accomplish in your lifetime?

5. What is your proudest accomplishment?

6. Who inspires you?

7. If you could talk to one person from the past who would it be?

8. What is the single best book you have ever read?

9. What should everyone know about you?

10. If you could travel to anyplace in the world, where would it be and why?

 Thanks again to Liz at LizDDPYoga.com for the nomination!

April Wrap-up, DDP Yoga and More.

It's been a pretty amazing week for me, DDP Yoga wise. (and otherwise, but that's for later!)
On Monday, after a solid month of hard work and determination, both on my part and on the part of my accountability partner, for hanging in there with me, I finally did solid, no knee pushups. It's been a really long time coming - like almost a year! You can see the video below.

For the month of April, my workout stats are pretty darn impressive. I'm really proud of myself.  I had 3 days where I did not do any kind of workout, and 5 days where I did my pushups and planks, but did not do DDP Yoga. I'm feeling great! I'm stronger and when I do workouts, I can definitely feel a difference. Now to carry that on through the month of May.

April also included a really fun video blog with my accountability partner. You can see it here.

For May, my challenge is going to be to get off my knee ALL the time in lunges. I tend to favor the problematic heel and go down on a knee. I did Below the Belt last night, and managed to do most of it without going to a knee, but it wasn't easy. Hopefully I will continue to improve as the month goes on, while still working on that pushup! I am also working on making the "up" part of my catchers cleaner. Right now, I still struggle to get up, and by the last one, I feel like I'm a hot mess.

As far as my weight and measurements, they have stayed the same for the last month, but my face looks thinner, and other areas of my body look different, so I'm thinking there will be a "story" coming soon, if I stick to my guns and stay on course. Here's a quick selfie I took yesterday so you can see what I mean.

Foodwise, I've been really examining my food to see where I can make improvements. Eating out less with the family for sure, and making plant based choices more often. I've upped my protein, (with Mark's insistence, because I was having so much muscle soreness at the start of the month), and have a protein shake most days as a mid morning snack. If I do a really crazy hard workout, I may have a second one after the workout. I make them with almond milk and my favorite plant based protein power Raw Protein by Garden of Life.

That's my monthly wrap up. Getting close to a year! Thanks for sticking with me on my great journey! I'm enjoying every second!

Is it really willpower?

I get a lot of comments telling me I have great willpower. I am often confused by them. I don’t consider myself to have great willpower. In an effort to resolve my confusion, I looked up willpower, and came up with words like dedication, determination, commitment, tenacity.  

I guess I DO have this. I have committed to doing the work to make my life the best it can be and improve my health and well being. Is it rocket science? Nope.

I am striving to make good choices, especially in regard to food and my DDP Yoga workouts.

First, food. I am not a rockstar with food. Clearly, I’m not. If I were, I wouldn’t have weight to lose, and I’d be one of those people who just goes through life, eating to live. I love food. Really. Food is wonderfully enticing and fun and delicious. But, I have committed to a choice of health and well being, so I have to negotiate food with that thought in mind. Is it easy? Heck no. But it IS rewarding.  It is gratifying to, each and every day, at bedtime, look back on the day and recognize all of the good food choices I’ve made through the day. Do I make bad choices? Of course. I’m human.

But, in the spirit of “living life at 90%” I try to keep the majority of my food in the realm of REAL food. I don’t eat much processed food, I eat a ton of veggies, and I keep my focus on the things I CAN have, rather than the ones I can’t. I don’t find substitutes for my old way of eating. I wouldn’t be where I am right now if I had continued to eat those foods, so it seems like it’s a smarter use of my ability to choose to find new foods and new good eating habits that serve my lifestyle, rather than bending my new lifestyle to fit my old way of eating. A great example of this is bread. I’m gluten free (for the most part, again 90%, still a work in progress.) Let’s be real, gluten free bread? Not tasty. Not worth it to me. Some people like it, find good brands, and continue to eat bread. Me? Not so much. I’m SO much happier having a nice burger with a lettuce wrap or even eating it with a knife and fork. Do I miss the bread? No, I think I actually enjoy the burger better without the bun, because I really taste all of the flavors. I will admit that I miss toast a bit once in a while, but I am thriving on whole grains, like steel cut oatmeal or oat groats, muesli, and homemade lowfat granola. I am loving my food, eating well, and not ingesting all kinds of ick.

Second, about my DDP Yoga workouts. I post and tweet them. I do it because it gives me accountability. It is a choice to do the workouts and put in the work, and I keep myself accountable by posting on Facebook and Twitter.  Sure, I have an accountability partner, and he’s awesome, but face it, he’s 6,000 miles away, what’s he going to do really do if I decide to go off the rails? He can’t control me, I have to do this for me, and I have to make a choice that I want to improve my health and quality of life. It’s all on me. He is merely there to guide me and try to remind me that I made a great choice and need to stick with it.

I get questions about working out alone, asking how I stay motivated. Have you seen my pictures? Yea, that. That’s how I stay motivated. In the shower, in the morning, soaping up my arm, seeing the muscles ripple and realizing that *I* am doing that, I’m shaping my body into something beautiful in about 30 minutes a day. Am I perfect with my workouts? Nope. There are days where I am lazy, days where I start and am too tired or too whatever, and I stop early. But, when I do that, I hold myself accountable and make sure that the next workout, I finish what I started.

The way I see it, I have THIS life, this ONE precious life. I have this limited time to do the best I can for my body and to thank it for all that it does for me, every day. I want to be that 80 year old woman, on the beach, doing yoga. When I was a kid, I spent my summers at the beach. The woman who took care of me disappeared at 5:30 am every day. One morning I snuck out and followed her. She went to the beach and it was the most beautiful thing ever. She did half an hour of yoga… and she did it every single day. At the time, I had no idea what it was.  I just knew that Olga was beautiful and what she was doing was important to her. She lived to be 97! She took care of herself.

So, yes, I guess I do have willpower. But it’s not magic. It’s just good, clean hard work, determination, and commitment. Like anything else, if you commit to do something, you will succeed. I had a friend who used to tell me “do what you say, say what you do”. I’ve never forgotten those words, and find that they are good guidance in almost every part of life.

Own your life!

Day 286, DDP Yoga and more.

In 2008, I met a woman who changed my life. I met her on Facebook, and it was completely silly. I was very much a scrapbooker then, and my friends were all friends with the Founder of Chatterbox, a very successful scrapbook company. A woman named Melody Ross. Early in 2008, I sent a friend request to Melody, thinking I was a peon  and she’d never accept it. She did! I had read Melody’s blog for several years and had SO much respect for this woman. But I didn’t know her, and back then, you didn’t really send friend requests to complete strangers, right? Well, later in the year, Melody had something happen in her life that was really big. She posted about it on Facebook, and I don’t know what compelled me, but I reached out to her in a private message and told her that it was all going to be okay and that I had her in my thoughts and prayers. Melody has been a friend since that day.

When she and Kathy Wilkins (her sister) started Brave Girls Club, I was one of the first people to sign up for the daily messages. I was SO excited. Beyond excited. When they started offering Brave Girls Camp, my heart cried to go. I knew I’d never have the money, but I yearned to go and be there and participate. I had some extremely scary and heavy stuff going on in my own life (maybe someday, not sharing now!), and I was very broken. I knew I needed to go to camp. In January 2010, Brave Girls Club offered Soul Restoration for the first time. It was an online version of Camp. I signed up immediately. It was the true start of the most amazing part of my journey. I loved the class. I learned SO much about myself, my past, what had made me who I am, and what I needed to do to heal and move forward. It was a long, difficult battle, but I learned that I’m worth it. I did the work, and I met a group of amazing women who are still part of my life.

In April of 2011, I got laid off from the worst job ever. I was handed a severance package that gave me enough money to go to Brave Girls Camp, and camp opened up just as I received the money. I signed up right away! Not only that, many of my friends from the online class also signed up! We went in May of 2012. McCall, Idaho. I cried on the plane as I flew into Idaho. I couldn’t believe I was there. It was so so crazy. My dear friend Mel met me at the gate. We flew into each other’s arms and it was the start of yet another chapter in my crazy journey. When we met the other girls, I met women who were sisters. At one point I met dear Melissa, who I love more than anything. SO much more, but not the key here. Camp was again, lifechanging. I came home, I went to work, I did my job. I daydreamed. I eventually changed jobs because I felt it was time and that I could do better. My first change was a job that I really loved, but the company went under. I found a new position that I thought I loved. My close friends told me to get out. They told me it was NOT a good job, NOT a good match, and I was crazy. I didn’t believe them. I thought it was so wonderful. One day, however, I realized how much I hated it. How no one appreciated me. No one respected me. I was in what Melody would call a “carnival job.” I was working for the head carney! I was broken hearted. But. I knew what to do.

So, in the middle of the job at the carnival, in June 2013, I started doing DDP Yoga. In case you don’t know, DDP Yoga was started by Diamond Dallas Page, 3 time WCW Wrestling Champion. I know,  I can’t believe I do it either. Keep reading. So, you can go to youtube and read about why he started it. I’m not going into that here. Fast forward 4 months. September 30^th. I’m at the DMV renewing my license and my phone rings. It was Diamond Dallas Page himself. We chatted for 20 minutes or so and he actually ended up calling me back because it was my turn. When I finished talking to him, I had that feeling I had with Melody. This person is someone who is going to influence my life. I knew it as surely as I knew my name. If I could get Melody Ross and DDP in a room together, I think t would change the world. Truly. They are cut from the same cloth in many ways, and I know they would "see" each other immediately.

Today is Day 286. I have put in 286 days of DDP Yoga. I have sweated my way through 9 sport bras, 6 pairs of yoga pants, 6 bandanas, and 2 yoga mats. I have eliminated 28 pounds and more than 37 inches. I am a new woman. I am strong, healthy, my posture is amazingly better, and I am HAPPY. I get up each day and I look in the mirror and make myself find one feature that I like about myself (that isn’t my face or hair!). Each day it’s getting a tiny bit easier. And I'm JUST starting!!!!

So why did I tell you about Melody? Why did I put Dallas and Melody together this way? Because I really think that had I not met Melody and gone to Brave Girls Camp and done the work, I wouldn’t have stuck with DDP Yoga.   I would have said “oh this is too hard.” “oh I can’t do this.” “I’m not good enough to do this.”

Like so many other things, something valuable would have been put aside and I’d have continued my slow path to killing myself with a sedentary life full of unhealthy choices. When I went to Idaho, I was barely able to do the hike. It was really hard. (It was a 2 block beautiful walk to a lake, it was FLAT!) Now I know I’d be fine and have fun and enjoy it! When I started DDP Yoga, my first workout, I don’t think there was a single move that I didn’t have to modify in some way. In fact, some moves, I just sat and watched. I burned 169 calories in that 20 minutes. Say what?

Today on Day 286 of owning my life, doing it anyway, being enough, I want to reach out to every person out there who is standing at the edge, looking over, afraid to leap. I want to shout to them, come on, do it, it will be worth it. You are enough. You are loved, you need to do this! Trust me. Just. Do. It.

I haven’t had the blazing success that many others have had with DDP Yoga, I haven’t lost my 100 pounds yet. But, I have received a gift. A lifelong gift, that I will treasure the way I treasure the gifts that Melody has given me. I have received self-confidence and self-belief. I KNOW I can do anything I set my mind to now, and I KNOW I am enough. Do I have bad days? Days where I think “no, I can’t.” Yes. But, on those days, I have my accountability partner, Mark Furniss, (you know he thought he was getting left out!) who says, “get up, do it. You’ll be happy you did. TRY. BREATHE.” And he’s usually right, even if I do call him #meanman all the time.

If you are new to DDP Yoga and struggling, or even not struggling, find someone to be your accountability partner. Really. Do it. Team DDP Yoga is a fabulous place for support, and there are many people there who will happily agree to be your accountability partner.

If you are a Brave Girl, and you are just starting your journey, or if you are struggling, trust me. It gets better and better and better. Do the work. It’s worth it. YOU are worth it.