I get anon. questions like this at least a few times a week.

Many of my post-high school friends have never seen this picture. And honestly, do you know how absolutely pointless it is telling anyone “I used to be fat” if they’re just going to say “no, no you haven’t, I can’t imagine.. blah blah blah”. But I’m posting it up here because no, I wasn’t a skinny girl EVER. In fact, from grade 7-12, I was the 2nd largest girl in my class (300 mostly East-Asian students) My face disappeared under layers of fat during middle school and only occasionally re-emerged in adulthood whenever my diet/exercise at the time actually got me to a lower weight.  Lost weight, gained weight, lost weight, gained weight, and slowly inched my way down over time. After the picture on the right was taken? 6 months later I was 30+ pounds heavier. Hence why I came to Tumblr.

We’re all just on different stages of the same journey. I don’t care if you’re 100 lb or 1000 lb. We can (and do) all help each other.. there’s no reason to pass judgment on those that do not share your current weight/fitness goals. The “unfollow” button is ample enough, no? 

Enough babble, here is my routine for the day, which is still somewhat challenging as I cannot move smoothly through every pose transition quite yet, but how awesome is it that I KNOW next week it’s going to be much easier? =D

AM Workout <— Did this in the morning, before I showered/ate

1) Morning Yoga for Flexibility - Beginners (7 min)

2) Yoga for Balance - Beginners (5 min) 

3) Strength Building Yoga - Beginners (7 min)

4) Weight Loss Yoga - Beginners (10 min)

5) 4-Week Strength Building Yoga - Intermediate (7 min)

Total:  36 minutes. Goes from stretching out your limbs to building balance and strength. The latter part of the routine sequence makes me sweat + loosens up my body for the rest of the day.

PM Workout <—— Did this before I ate dinner :) MMM Got my stiffness from furiously writing/thinking for 5+ hours!!

1) Yoga for Flexibility - Beginners (5 min 30 seconds)

2) Yoga for Getting Out of Your Way - Intermediate (11 min)

3) Cardio Yoga Challenge 1 - Beginners (4 min)

4) Get Ripped Abs from Yoga - Beginners (4 min) <— note, you need a yoga block, and this stuff HURTS

5) Yoga for Balance - Beginners (5 min) 

Total: 30 minutes. Stretches you out, works you through poses that require more flexibility, targets your abs and then winds down with some simple stretching/balancing. Did the cardio yoga video for the first time today O_O

I switch up my routines every day, depending on how my body is feeling and what areas I would like to improve on. If a new routine is hard, I will generally keep it in my rotation until it is comfortably doable. I like Tara because I can pick and chose exactly how much I want to do and how hard I want to work :) While this usually would make a lazy girl like me pick the easiest 3 routines and just repeat that every day, I’ve found that I’ve grown to search for a challenge after the easier stuff is done, and I actually LOOK FORWARD to starting new routines that look difficult so I can perfect them!  Bravo!

And that is my first Yoga Routine + Progress Monday!! :) Am I cheesy to say “Namaste” at the end?

My first real post on yoga.

I am no expert. I’d consider myself a little shy of a beginner. I’m using Tara Stiles videos at the moment to get my basic poses and form down before I attempt studio classes again.

I love Tara because she makes yoga accessible. There are a lot of purists out there (a few of my friends included) who have tried introducing me to yoga their way… which was in-depth, meditative stuff with a lot more dialogue than I would have liked. I respect yoga A LOT, and my respect/knowledge grows every day (the amount of googling/research I do every day is exponentially increasing)… but to be honest, what “lured me in” was Tara’s simplicity- how she broke down her workouts into WORKOUTS, just jumping in, rather than just talking for the first 10-20 minutes.

She got me at video 1 by making me WORK (the beginners videos just go over basic poses, but whewwww, I sucked big time my first few run-throughs). After my first 5-minute video, despite my massive inability to do most of the things Tara was doing smoothly, I was hooked. I thought “hmmm.. I can do this… the stretching feels nice and I just broke a mini-sweat”

The next day I did two videos. And another later that the day. The next day I did three… etc

I still suck, I’m not going to lie. But I think I love yoga because your accomplishments are measurable- tangible within your own body and mind. I felt great after yoga every single time. My body felt it the next day, but the lighter, easier stretching routines would loosen it up. I never felt pressured.. I was just loving it, despite the difficulty, and wanted to be able to move with Tara’s fluid grace and strength. And every day, I was getting closer.

My fingertips initially couldn’t reach my toes. Really, they stopped about 4 inches above. I am not a flexible person. Athletic yes, flexible, no. But here is where I’m at after about two weeks

Palms flat on the ground. If I tried this two weeks ago I would have broken something.

And THIS

I discovered this on a whim yesterday. I tried it, and my legs moved easily over my thighs. WHAT?

I have to keep saying this… I RESPECT yoga. I too, will continue to learn more about the practice and the philosophy behind it (what little I know, I love, and think it has already made me a calmer, gentler person), I will be properly taught by a guru in a proper yoga studio in the style of my choice, when I figure out what that style (Stiles? lol) is. But starting this way has made it, for once, accessible for ME. My interest in yoga was never piqued by the 3 yoga classes I took over the years with friends. It was an organic moment; me at home, on my new yoga mat, struggling to breathe properly while stretching my body, when I finally thought “huh… this is… gratifying… and hard… and awesome.” 

The love was born. And now here I am, blogging about yoga with 7 tabs with yoga-related resources open on my browser next to it.

I feel more flexible every day. Stronger. Happier. Calmer. My morning doesn’t start for me, mentally or physically, until I finish at LEAST a few minutes of an easy stretching routine. Then the day is clear. When I tense up/stress out later in the afternoon, it’s back to the mat for another session of mind-clearing yoga with Tara.

What I REALLY like about yoga is that while you are practicing, you cannot think about anything else but EXACTLY what you are physically doing. Concentrating on that + breathing + relaxing into your muscles is incredibly therapeutic. I think the psychological benefits of working out tension through your body AND forcing your mind to also essentially “work out” are the reasons why everybody says that yoga is a great form of stress relief. You can zone it out while running, but you can’t ever lose focus while practicing yoga.

And what it does for your body…. well… it’s a little too early to make decisive statements. I’ll just tell you how I’ve been feeling, body/self-image-wise lately:

Though there is still a layer of fat covering me all around my stomach, face, and especially lower body, I feel like a new body is forming under the fat. A new foundation. It’s slowly reshaping my body into something I don’t believe I’ve ever felt before. A straighter spine, a waist/back that is curving the way it is supposed to. Lines on my stomach beginning to appear in places that I’ve never seen the slightest bit of tone. Arms that don’t require weight-reps to be defined. The fat moves differently on top of my new muscle, but the fat is different too. It’s more fluid, smooth, less “chunky” feeling (do you guys get what I mean?), like yoga is making my FAT more flexible/fluid too. I hope to have physical proof of this later (you guys don’t know how many pics/videos I’m taking for later use if my intuition proves correct), after many more yoga routines and (hopefully) classes. 

I’m not a judgy person. I’ll be the first to admit I tried yoga again for the physical benefits only (I wanted a “yoga” body THAT badly). But although my love for it started superficially, it is what drew me in to WANT to commit fully (though gradually). I don’t feel pressured by anything… I just WANT to get stronger, and hit those crazy poses that are reblogged so often here on Tumblr. 30 minutes every morning and 30 minutes at night is what I am doing now, and I can’t tell you how great it makes me feel during the day and before I go to sleep. <3 

Kind of a scatterbrained post but I just had to say SOMETHING just dedicated to yoga. This is just the beginning :) Many more posts to come as I expand my knowledge, increase my balance/flexibility/strength, and gain experience!!! =D

Namaste <3

Cleverly avoided weighing myself last week (beginnings of shark week) and this past Wednesday (out of town). But of course, I woke up, had coffee, did my morning yoga, ate breakfast and pulled my scale out of its hiding place (I physically put it really out of my way so I don’t obsessively weigh myself), stepped on, and looked down.

118.6 lb. Down .8 lb from two weeks ago :) Despite the small number I am really pleased. I debloated from shark week + traveling and took new progress pictures. Definitely a difference in body fat!!!!

Progress pictures:

Front:

Side: (where there is now a huge difference  to me O_O)

I am super pleased at the way my upper body is coming along (I really think this is all yoga). The lower body is going to take more work and effort… thank goodness for the 5k challenge!! 

^_^ EEP!

Having a convo with my friend right now. Discussing what the media considers “curvy”/”plus-sized”/etc.

Have you guys noticed that the larger women that are glorified for their curves all have GORGEOUS faces? Usually they have faces that still have jaw/cheek definition, faces that, if you cut off their bodies, you would never assume belonged to a larger body. These women are called “beautiful,” (because they ARE) and praised for their curves.

Now think .. what if these women didn’t have the prettiest faces, or had a face that was affected by by weight gain? Would they still be called “beautiful”? Would people still praise their bodies?

(Nope, probably not)

I’m thinking that for the exceptionally beautiful, beauty trumps fat/weight. But for the rest of us…. not so much. How often have you heard “you’d be so beautiful/pretty… if you just lost some weight.” I guess the whole “you are beautiful at any size” thing only applies if your face is GORGEOUS even at a higher weight. Hmph.

I like health calculators that adjust for body frame.

A lot of people (IRL and through anonymous messages) like to criticize my continued quest for slimness. The 120-ish weight that I am now is a pretty recent development, but I am a little miffed when I hear “you can stop losing weight now,” from people who met/knew me when I maintained around 110 lbs for a year. Yeah, I can stop, but I’m not going to, and it’s not like losing weight is making my life so difficult that it would be better for me to stop. I’m not the biggest fan of relying on numbers (but I do it anyway) but there’s something about the way I get backlash for wanting to lose more weight when I’m at that oh-so-coveted 5’4ish” 120lb mark that makes me a little irritated. I feel like I have to keep saying the same things

1) My frame is SMALL. Like in a way that only Asian genetics can make you small.

My wrists and ankles are tiny. Wrist = 13.6 cm around = indicative of a small frame

And on this small frame, I do NOT carry weight well. 

2) Losing weight alone will not make you happy with your body. Losing 50 pounds since my heaviest point didn’t make me look like Mirada Kerr. When you first start losing weight and you have NO IDEA what you would look like thinner, you focus on dropping big numbers and just assume you’re going to tone up/tighten up perfectly as you get closer to your goal weight. This is just so not true. I’d say when you’re 5-15 lbs close to your goal it becomes about the nit-picky stuff. You can have skinny arms and still retain some of your belly flab and thunder-thigh-ness. In my case, I am currently in this phase, but I’m getting flack for not “just being happy where I am.” I find this to be utter bullshit, because in my mind I’m thinking “I got this far, I’m not going to stop toning/working on my body just because a few numbers tell me to be happy, I’m going to stop when my stomach doesn’t hang over my jeans.” An “UGW” or ultimate goal body is an ideal you create for yourself based off what you know about your body. Mine has shifted over time with my various weight loss/exercise attempts, and my expectations are supplemented with my own experience/knowledge of my body.

3) I initially said my UGW was 108lb. The immediate reaction I got was “that’s too low,” well really? The last time I was 108 I wasn’t skin and bones. I didn’t feel, nor did anyone tell me, that I was “too skinny.” I heard “healthy” a lot (even though I was not technically healthy). And even though I weighed the same number as MatchstickMolly does now, my body looked NOTHING like hers.

 And a bit after that I was actually smaller and leaner at 112. THE POINT IS THAT EVERYBODY’S BODY IS DIFFERENT. In fact I’ve only ever found one girl that has had a very similar body frame/shape as mine (nearlymorning.tumblr.com, whose blog I love because she’s lightyears ahead of me in her fitness progress and she lets me see what a realistic, awesome body I can look forward to if I keep pushing myself)

So a big “F U” to the people who are just sooooo willing to throw me into the population of girls who want to be 92 lbs. No, I don’t want to look like this. More like THIS, which is something that requires extra fat to be lost. Thank you, and no, I will not stop losing weight. Yet.

<edit> Honestly would be pretty content around a TONED 110-115. If you are analyzing numbers, I don’t think this is irrational, and if you’re analyzing by photographs… I still think my goals are reasonable. Just lay off and stop reading if not. </edit>

Day Twenty - Favorite diet?

My diet. Which isn’t really a diet. And I hear my views are very consistent with the “Intuitive Eating” approach.. all psychological. 

Day Twenty-One- What are your clothing sizes?

My jeans are all from Rag & Bone (they mold to weird body shapes like mine). I can currently fit comfortably in my 25’s, but the majority of my pants are size 24s. In the last month I’ve shrunk just enough to cram my body into 24s and get the zipper up, but it creates both a muffin top + love handles.

As for tops, I rarely wear anything form-fitting. But top-wise I’m from an xs - s.

Many of my good friends are in Vegas for the long weekend. I was supposed to be there too, for what would have been three long days/nights of birthday festivities. I would have been able to see Lupe Fiasco perform, club-hopped between Afrojack, Above and Beyond and TIESTO, and finished up with a therapeutic Kaskade x Encore Beach Club Sunday pool sesh.

But it wasn’t possible. 

Every time I go somewhere for the weekend, especially Vegas, I get set back for weeks. Vacations always feel out of my realm of control- I never go places alone and the people I’m with usually don’t believe in dieting on vacation. Bellagio’s buffet, Planet Hollywood’s Earl of Sandwich, Treasure Island’s amazing pho at 2 in the morning = all fair game during Vegas vacays- it’s not a surprise I come home 5-8 lbs heavier after only a few days (granted, a lot of it is salt/alcohol/travel bloat).

Sometimes it’s worth it. This time, despite the amazing cusp-of-summer weather and incredible weekend activity lineup, I had to pass. I feel like I never would have gained so much weight back in the last year ( weight I really thought was gone forever) if I just learned to say “no,” and though I’ve been “good” lately, I don’t feel as if I deserve a relaxing vacation. I went to Vegas a few months ago for my birthday, and though I had lost a few pounds before the trip, I was incredibly uncomfortable in my own skin the entire time. I would put on my dresses before going out each night and hate what I saw in the mirror to the point where I thought “why did you even come, you’re not having fun.” But I had to follow through with the weekend, make the best of it, and pretend I was a fabulous young lady celebrating my fabulous birthday in Vegas and not a self-conscious juvenile that would rather be at home wrapped in a snuggie than show her fat rolls in her ill-fitting dresses.

So no this

or this

(I’m in this pic but I bet you can’t find me)

No delicious sushi/king crab/eggs bene Bellagio buffet

No alcohol

No raging music

No exposure to celebrities (last time I was dancing next to Paris Hilton) and other impossibly fit, beautiful people that make me feel like I shouldn’t even be there

Instead, this weekend, I am to stay at home and work on my thick thighs downward-facing dog split, finish a huge packet of logic games, clean the condo and write a recommendation letter.

Gotta go walk the doggies now. :)

#thequietdietlife

Day Seventeen - Do you have an eating disorder?

No. I had a short tango with anorexic behavior when I was 16, but I wouldn’t call it an ED. I specialized in clinical psychology so my definition of various eating disorders tend to be dictated by the intensity/presence of standardized symptoms. And the number of people who claim to have clinically disordered eating patterns is inconsistent with the actual number of sufferers in this society. ED is a strong term. It implies that a lot of psychological and physiological issues/symptoms are taking place and should not be used lightly.