This article on xoJane has restored my faith in what I am doing with my life.

You should read it, even if you don't read the rest of my post here. It's about fat shaming, not judging a book by its cover, all that good stuff.

The basic gist is summed up really well in the following:

"To paraphrase Marilyn Wann: The only thing you can tell for sure by looking at a fat person is the degree of your own bias against fat people."

"A stance against fat-shaming is not a matter of trying to make anyone feel bad for enjoying exercise/being vegan/wanting to lose weight. After all, there are lots of fat people who enjoy exercise immensely. There are lots of fat people who are vegan. There are fat people who do all kinds of things, because fat people exist in a dizzying variety of perspectives, experiences and lifestyles. Just like not-fat people."

"I choose not to diet, not to try to lose weight...my body’s dramatic response to starvation (and really, that’s what a diet is) makes it impossible for me to lose weight and still have a life that is at all worth living. My priorities are different..."

"Even for those few who manage to beat the odds and maintain a significant weight loss long-term, the price is constant vigilance, and I can’t live with that degree of food obsession and also be at all mentally stable...You may not understand this. That’s cool. We don’t have to fully get each other; we just need to mutually respect one another."

I don't think I'm fat. Sometimes I think I LOOK fat, but I don't think I am fat. I have decided to do what Lesley (the author of the above article) is doing - shifting my priorities to what is healthy, regardless of how it will make me look, and enjoying things in life instead of obsessing over things that distract me from the things in life that I should be paying attention to, like time with friends, or a really awesome piece of cheesecake, or even doing yoga (or writing run-on sentences, apparently).

The one thing that I ask myself is, "Will my body let me do things like yoga, take walks, jog, or hike?" If I am sitting around a lot eating fries and hamburgers every day, it's going to be harder to do the physical things I want to. That is one thing that bothers me about having a desk job; it's like I can feel my arteries withering up from too much sitting.

But in reality, I can do those things, and while I'm still trying to get back into things like jogging and hiking, and it's going slowly, I know I will get there again. And I may not lose a ton of weight in the process, and that's fine. As long as I'm feeling well enough to do those things, I don't really care. I can have a huge pudge and a round ass, as long as I can climb a mountainside without feeling like I'm going to die!

I want to feel comfortable in my skin, regardless of what people think. There have been times in my life when my family members have made comments about my weight (fat-shaming, even if they meant well), which was always really hurtful, because I feel like I gained weight very quickly and it just has been a huge struggle to lose it since then. It's like I was a skinny kid one day, then I hit puberty and the next day I gained a bunch of weight. But I'm trying to put those comments behind me and focus on feeling good, whether that means I have curves and or I don't. I also know that my boyfriend would be really sad if I didn't have my curves anymore. But I'm not doing any of this for him or for anyone else, I'm doing it for me. (By "doing it" I mean focusing on my health and what makes me feel good.) I'm not doing it for the media who think I'm not toned enough, I'm not doing it for my mother, I'm not doing it for my sister, I'm not doing it for my father, I'm not doing it for my friends...I'm doing it for me. Trying to find the happy medium where I feel good and balanced, healthy and lively and alive and strong.

Damn girl! That's hot! (Though it makes me sad that the website it was on had an ad for losing weight with Slimband...Totally not the point. By the way, this model is Tara Lynn, and she's like "I don't care what the scale says, yo!" OK, maybe she didn't say "yo," but that was basically what she said.)

OK for once I am actually NOT tired. This has been a good week in terms of fatigue, and that could be due to the fact that I've exercised pretty much every day. Except I may not today. I really need to cook and do laundry. Maybe I can dance around the kitchen while I cook or something.

My life has been good, honestly. But, I warn you, there will probably be some moaning in the paragraphs ahead.

My period is about to start, so I feel like crap. Whenever it's about to start, the day, or two days, before it does, I start feeling reeeeeal bad about myself. I start looking at other girls and comparing myself to them and seeing all my faults. Like today, I feel fat. My stomach is pooching out too much. Woe is me. I also start looking at my own life and finding everything that is wrong with it. "My life isn't going anywhere, my boyfriend doesn't compliment me as much as I wish he would, I don't want to do this job anymore, I wish I could be more flexible in my work, I wish I were a writer, I wish I had more time to write, I don't have enough money to do the things I want to do, I don't have enough time to do what I want to do." Etc. etc. etc. It just spirals down from there.

Then I start thinking about those memes. You know, like this...

...Of course I go on Google trying to find an example and there's, like, nothing. WTF?

OK, like this:

Or this:

OK granted I really like those quotes, and any other day I would be like "yay, I'm going to print that and put it on my bathroom mirror so I see it every day!" (Do I ever do this? No...) But on the day before it's time to surf the crimson wave, I'm like, "FUCK YOU INSPIRATIONAL MEME. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE ME. MY LIFE ISN'T GOING ANYWHERE, MY BOYFRIEND DOESN'T COMPLIMENT ME AS MUCH AS I WISH HE WOULD, I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS JOB ANYMORE" (insert the rest of my aforementioned list here).

What is up with my hormones? I know this happens to, like, everyone else who gets their period. But for me, it's the day or two before it starts, then I get it and I feel bloated and tired and like I want to eat all the junk food on planet Earth, but I don't feel all bad about myself. It's just the day(s) before. So weird.

Does anyone know what happens to our hormones in our bodies when we're about to get our periods? Would be interesting to find out.

Anyway, right now, I feel like I'm stuck. I'm at a dead end job, and I don't take the initiative to change that (like, sitting down and fracking writing something so I can try to get published). Don't get me wrong, when I have things to do at work, I like my job. But lately, I've been sitting there...staring at the screen, bored...Actually, even if I have things to do, I don't want to do them.

Where's my motivation? What killed it? What do I do about it? I have no clue. It's like the fact that nothing is moving in my life is making me also not move. Oh wait. I think it's the other way around. When I don't move, my life doesn't move. So what am I supposed to do?

I sometimes feel like one day, I just won't come into work, I'll quit silently, never go back, and do whatever the hell I want. (Hands up if you've ever felt like doing this.) I actually have done that in the past. I called in one day and said "I'm not coming in anymore." And that was that. I didn't worry about the consequences, I just did it because I was unhappy being at that job and I had to get out of there. Now, I go, "But my bills! My rent! My cats! My this, that, and the other thing!"

So my conclusion is...I need balance. I've had this idea to work part time and work on writing the other part of the time. I don't know if I can do it financially, and I certainly can't yet, and I don't know if I'll be able to save up enough money to be able to do it in the next year. But, it's something I'm seriously considering. Until then? Finding any spare minute I can to work towards something productive, like a novel, or a screenplay, or something. I want to be my own boss. Well, I should probably start working on that now before I end up 50 and sad I didn't try.

Alright memes. You win. This time.

I don't know if I can do this anymore. Life, that is. Not when I'm feeling so tired all the time. It was better for a few days, and now it's back.

I think there are a few possibilities here:

1. My medication. I started taking Celexa in 2006, then stopped in 2011 and started Cymbalta. I took that for a year, but I was tired all the time, so I started Celexa again because I never had major fatigue problems with Celexa. I started it again in February 2011, and in March, suddenly started feeling tired and have felt that way since Maybe in the year I wasn't taking Celexa, my body changed somehow so I now have a different reaction to it.

2. I'm understimulated at work. Well, this is something I know already. There are times when I have things to do and I'm engaged all day. There are more times that I am bored, staring at my computer screen, falling asleep. So maybe sitting here so long is what is making me so tired. My body isn't moving enough, my brain isn't working enough, and I'm turning into a puddle of jelly in business casual clothes.

3. I'm not exercising enough outside of work. Yeah, I was doing yoga every day and feeling better. But one thing happens that takes you out of the routine, and it snowballs and soon you find you haven't done yoga in a month. Ok that's not true. I've gone to some classes. But between money problems and being busy, yoga has taken a backseat. Not good. I need to schedule it somehow, just like I would any other activity in my life. If someone asks if I want to get together on Thursday at 6, I say "no, I can't," because I have a date with my yoga mat. I've been thinking about getting a monthly pass at a yoga studio. They offer tons of classes and it's cheaper to do that than it is to keep dropping in at different places. But, then I realized I could pay around $60 for a YMCA or YWCA membership, where they offer lots of classes, and not just yoga, and I could even go there on my lunch break and use the yoga studio when it's not being used. Booya. So that's the plan now.

Sorry this post isn't very controversial or thought-provoking. It's just me whining and moaning about how hard my life is. I saw a video today that was a white, middle aged, middle class guy talking about how white guys should stop complaining so much. He said something along the lines of, "When women are taking all your job and getting paid more than you are, I'll complain with you, I'll be in the front of the line at the protest. But until then, shut up." And it got me thinking about how I struggle almost every day with this fatigue stuff, and other things, and I wonder if I can really justify complaining. I have it so much better than so many people. I have a roof over my head, an income, a great family, great friends, a hot boyfriend, I'm not dying of cancer (that I know of), I have food in my fridge, clean running water, and I can wear whatever I want every day (within reason). But...when you're not feeling well most of the time, it's really hard to be grateful. You just don't have the energy. It's hard to say "I have it so much better than all those starving kids in [INSERT COUNTRY HERE]," because when you don't feel well, it's hard to enjoy what you have. And you may have a roof over your head, but you don't feel well enough to acknowledge it.

Yeah, yeah, I know everyone admires those cancer survivors who are like, "I survived cancer, I can do anything, I'm thankful for every second I have!" And that's great. Good for them. But the reality is that most of us who are struggling can't summon up that much positivity. I feel like my body is breaking down, people. I'm so sorry if I can't be happy sunny shiny all the time. I'm so sorry if that pisses you off or makes you uncomfortable. I'm so sorry that the way I deal with this doesn't match what you think I should do. I'M SO SORRY THIS IS MY LIFE AND NOT YOURS.

People don't get it. They don't understand what it's like to be in someone else's body. They can give all the suggestions they want, they can say they understand, they can claim they have some answers, but most of the time, they don't.

I know what I have to do. I know I have to get back into my yoga routine and do more exercise. I know I shouldn't let anything stop me. I just have to keep telling myself that. So please, just let me be frustrated about this in my own way. Understand that I have to sometimes back out of plans we've made. Understand that I can't be as social as I want to be right now. Understand that I'm in a unique situation and that it frustrates me just as much as it probably frustrates you.

I'm frustrated. I don't have cable right now because I can't afford it, so watching the Olympics has been almost impossible. I can find live streams, but those are usually happening when I'm at work. There are NO videos of things after the fact, at least, none that I can find. I have really wanted to watch fencing and the equestrian sports, and because it's not that popular, I haven't been able to find videos. I was able to find a video of the women's gymnastics, another sport I like. Sigh. It seems weird to me when corporations are able to determine when and how you get to see things that are supposed to be international, countries coming together to compete in a friendly way and put aside their differences. Apparently NBC is only showing delayed videos and nothing live. That's just weird.

Of course, the only gymnastics video I found was from an American station, so they're really focusing on the Americans and not on the other countries. I really wanted to see Canada compete, it's the first time they've gotten to the finals, apparently.

I do have to say, though, the Americans are so strong.

Anyway. Speaking of athletes, I read an article saying that a lot of people compare themselves to athletes when it comes to body image and weight loss, which is really not healthy. Athletes are special, not everyone on the planet is going to look like an athlete or be an athlete. They have to eat very specific foods, they train like crazy, they aren't just normal people on the street. Why do we put people on such pedestals and try to be like them instead of just being happy with who we are, what we have, and how we look? (This is more of a rhetorical question...I don't have an immediate answer, except - society and culture. Somewhere down the line someone really screwed it up for people, making image and looks one of the most important things in life, especially girls.)

This is a bit of a random post, and I apologize for that. I hope you are all able to catch the Olympics, unlike me!

I had a very interesting experience yesterday. Actually, it was kind of scary. I went to my horseback riding lesson, and found I wasn't in the schedule even though I had confirmed it a few days prior. So they squeezed me in with another instructor who had a private lesson with another student who is more advanced than I am, but she went back and forth between us. We were outside, and it was really hot, there were no clouds in the sky, and I obviously hadn't had enough water to drink that day, because at the end of the lesson, I started seeing major spots. Actually, my vision was pretty much going, and my ears were totally muffled. I put my head down on the horse's neck and just breathed, then finally was able to get off the horse and take him inside and recover. I almost fainted, on a horse. At least he was standing still!

The other girl in the lesson had a worse experience - she actually fell off the horse she was riding while it was cantering. It just kind of kept going faster and faster and wouldn't listen to her when she tried to get him to slow down, and finally she just slid off. She said she was ok, but she asked the instructor about five times what the date was, and said she couldn't remember what happened. Looks like she might have a minor concussion. I hope she is ok and that her parents listened to the instructor and took her to the doctor.

Crazy day yesterday. Note to self: Drink lots of water before riding, eat enough before riding, and get good sleep the night before riding (which I also did not do).

I have been slipping back into my old ways of not putting myself first. I wake up so tired, I haven't been doing yoga every day (going to a class tonight, though), and I haven't been eating great, either. I don't know why I'm doing this to myself. I guess I just forget about myself.

Something I don't think I've shared on here yet: "Tom" and I are dating again, and it has been really great, I feel like I'm coming at it from a different place and that I'm a different person than I was a month ago. But I also think it drains some of the energy out of me. It's hard enough to focus on myself, and bringing someone else into my life to focus on brings my energy level down some, I think. Maybe polyamory isn't right for me right now just because of that.

Actually I have realized that polyamory isn't right for me right now anyway, because I have to really take care of myself these days, and I just don't have the time to date another person. Tom and I haven't really talked about when we would like to approach the polyamory thing again, and I think it's a conversation we should have.

(On a separate note, the name Tom really doesn't fit him at all. Maybe I should come up with another alias.)

I was going to post this picture as a visual of being insecure:

But then I realized they're like "Embrace your shape! Love yourself! But here's a picture of a skinny woman with long legs!" So, you can only embrace your shape if you're THAT shape? Or what?

So I found this instead:

Yeah, that's more like it.

So, the point of this post today is...I am feeling insecure today.

And I know why.

I haven't been doing yoga every day, and I really think that is the reason. When I was doing it every day, my confidence level was HIGH. I also slept like crap last night, and didn't eat the healthiest food yesterday. Insecurity all comes down to how you treat your body, I swear.

The lesson here (for me) is: Even if I'm busy, I have to squeeze yoga in somehow!!! Not to mention good food and good sleep. I have no idea why I slept like crap last night, but the crappy food and the stressful day might have had something to do with it...

I keep waking up in the morning with the intention of doing yoga when I get up. And it just doesn't happen. I wonder what the best way to train yourself to do this is.

Love yourselves, kids. 

(Sorry about the ugly lines...I think it's because I'm using a custom template and Blogger doesn't like it.)

Something strange is going on...

I look in the mirror today and I like what I see.

I don't know if this is because something has changed, or because my views have changed. Possibly a little bit of both. I feel like I'm getting more toned doing yoga so much, and I've really been working to change my perception of myself. So I think they are going hand in hand. I also really like what I'm wearing today and I think it accentuates all the good parts of me. (See, I'm not quite at the point of saying that every part is good...But someday. Someday.)

I somehow started getting these E-mails from some website called "Upworthy," and I have no idea how I started getting them, but I'm glad I do. They had a video today, which is the following:

I love how she points out that you can't just judge someone by looking at them. After I posted this on Facebook, a friend of mine commented: "I weigh over 260 lbs and I: can run over 11 km non-stop, can do one handed push-ups, can fireman carry a full grown man the length of a gym floor... at a run, have thighs dubbed 'Zeus' and 'Thor' on account of the thunderous power of my kicks, and have seen thin people have to lay down gasping for breath trying to keep up with the workouts I do on a regular basis. You wouldn't know any of this just by looking at me (or maybe 
you would; nobody ever calls me 'fat' to my face)."


Exactly. Way to go!


I also love how she mentions that fat is just a descriptor, it's what you attach to the word that is hurtful or destructive. Sometimes, fat is good. It's Halloween, you want to get a pumpkin, you find the perfect one, you say, "This is the biggest, fattest pumpkin I have ever seen!" But then you say it about a person and it's not a good thing anymore. Interesting.


Anyway. I'm looking at some of the comments on YouTube that people left. This is one that kind of made me angry: "in a time/place that is not suffering from shortage in food and most people are well fed, being over-weight will never be the standard for attractiveness and will be generally 
seen as un-attractive as it shows poor physical health."


OK, that is true, there are people who don't take care of themselves and as a result have gained lots of weight. Guess what, there are people who don't take care of themselves who are rail thin. String beans.


It's too complicated of an issue for us to just see it as a black and white subject. There are so many factors involved: Genetics, health issues, metabolism, etc. etc. Just looking at someone who may be fat and saying you know everything about them is just ridonk. RI-DONK!


So, meghantonjes as you are called on YouTube, you keep rocking it! You're fat, you are an inspiration, and awesome, and as you say, none of those things necessarily negate or make the 
others true, amirite?


Oh, and follow it up with this awesome video, which is a lot longer at almost 10 minutes, but totally worth it: 

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I have to remember that I am important, that I am a priority in my life, that I have a responsibility to be good to myself and take care of myself.

This is something that for my whole life, I have forgotten, or ignored. No wonder I have so many health problems now (seriously).

First and foremost, I have to focus on self care that makes me feel good. I have to keep doing yoga, I have to keep writing, I have to keep going to bed early, I have to keep eating well. Some of these things have been slipping lately, and I can see what a difference it makes. I have been tired and sore for the past week and a half. There could be other factors at play here, but it seems that because I haven't been eating that well the past week and a half or so, I've been going to bed later than I should be, etc., my body is now mad at me.

And I think I need to cut coffee out again. I started feeling really good after I quit coffee. And I think that includes decaf, unfortunately. Argh, it's so hard. Not that I have been drinking caffeinated coffee all that much (ok, I've been doing half decaf, half regular quite a bit), but I hope it hasn't been enough to cut it out again with no major problems (read: HEADACHES). I think I'll go back to just decaf for now and see how that goes.

At least we have a long weekend coming up. I am so looking forward to that. I'm going to get some much needed stuff on my to do list done, I'm going to relax and recharge, and it's gonna be great.

Maybe I'll go to a spa this weekend or something...

I've written about my fatigue and health problems before, and I was just walking through my office trying to keep this posture that the physiotherapist I've been seeing wants me to maintain, and I realized I felt totally silly, and it would be fun to write about on here.

Let me back up.

Earlier this year, I guess in March, I started feeling really super fatigued and didn't know why. I had sleep tests done, and they thought I might have sleep apnea, but the home oximetry tests they did didn't really confirm that. My GP was honestly really not helpful, so I switched doctors. My new doctor said "I want you to see a physiotherapist. I think you are hyperventilating and blowing off too much CO2."

This wasn't a totally new concept, because the tech at the sleep clinic said it could be a possibility that I was hyperventilating while I was sleeping, but I didn't think that I was doing it during the day.

So I went to the physiotherapist and he was like "this is classic hyperventilation syndrome." So he was asking me all these questions and looking in my mouth and feeling my neck and my back and looking at my posture and he measured my chest to see how much it expands when I breathe, etc.

Basically, his conclusions are thus:

• My tongue is in the wrong position in my mouth. I know, it sounds crazy. I didn't know there was a "right" position. Apparently my tongue has been resting down by my bottom teeth, and I was getting literally tooth imprints on the edge of my tongue. I had always wondered why that was, and now I know. So, he has been working with me to bring my tongue up so that it actually rests on the palate. My tongue muscles were totally weak, so he is having me do tongue exercises.  Not even joking. I stick the handle of a spoon or something on my tongue, push down with the spoon, and push up with my tongue. Tongue push ups.
• Because my tongue is in the wrong position, I don't swallow correctly, I don't breathe correctly, and my neck and jaw muscles are tense because by letting my tongue drop, I'm actually putting too much strain on the muscles. Doesn't sound logical, but apparently it's true. I was breathing through my mouth too much, and I am still doing that, because my allergies have been pretty bad and my nose has been stuffed. But I've had issues with that my whole life, and now it seems that some of it might be because of my tongue/nose situation.
• About the nose - my nostrils don't dilate when I breathe in quickly through my nose. They are supposed to dilate to let air in. Mine literally collapse so they close up. The muscles around my nose aren't working correctly to stop that from happening, so I have exercises for that, too.
• My posture is horrible. And I knew that already. But the physiotherapist is not even worried so much about being hunched over a computer at work, which is what most chiropractors and massage therapists and even doctors have said I do too much of. He's worried more about my lower back, and how I arch it so that I stick my butt out. I knew I was doing this, but I didn't realize it was a problem. I guess because I do that, my stomach muscles are weaker than they should be because they're not working to keep my tailbone tucked under (and I always wondered why I had a pudge that was kind of...stretched out. Hard to explain, but it makes sense to me now - you can see it in the image below, second from the left). And with my stomach muscles being weak, my diaphragm is weak, so I don't breathe into my diaphragm and stomach, I breathe into my chest too much. Etc. etc.

So this all kind of snowballs into these problems I've been having. I don't know why they suddenly got worse a few months ago, but maybe my body was finally like "wake up! You're not holding me correctly and you're not breathing right!" It just kind of gave out on me, I suppose.

Back to the beginning of my post - my physiotherapist showed me how I should be standing so my posture is correct. Knees bent and out a little, tailbone tucked under, but using stomach muscles, not butt muscles to do that. So I was just doing that in the washroom (no one was around), then trying to keep that as I was walking (which is really hard), and I realized it felt totally strange and foreign. I felt like I probably looked like I was hunched over and walking all funny with my back rounded like Quasimoto or something...But then I saw my reflection in a window and it looked normal. It just *feels* strange, because I'm not used to my back being straight.

There you have it. My misadventures in physiotherapy. 

Apparently I do that second one...

I'm trying to strike a truce with my body. It has been feeling a lot better lately from doing yoga every day. I feel stronger, mentally more "with it," my muscles are getting toned, I'm getting more flexible even in just very small ways, and it's been really good. But today I feel like I've been run over by a truck. My back is sore, my abs are sore, I'm tired, my vision seems all fuzzy, my brain feels like a giant ball of fluff, and I can't concentrate or actually really think at all. I guess everyone has bad days, but this was how I was feeling every day before I started feeling better, and I don't want it to come back!

I get paranoid that my body issues are going to come back all the time. Two summers ago, I started getting extremely bad pain in my knees, my shoulders, fingers, toes, ankles, wrists...But mostly fingers, knees, and shoulders. And it would migrate between those places. I had days where I couldn't walk right and was limping. I had days I couldn't lift my arm over my head. I had days I couldn't lift even moderately heavy things because my fingers or my wrist would hurt too much (or I couldn't turn a doorknob, pull a door open, put weight on my wrist/hand, lift even a glass of water, etc.). I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and I sometimes feel like that was because they couldn't figure out what else it could be.

I get so afraid that is going to come back, and after my first riding lesson here, it did come back for a couple of days. For some reason my knee was in so much pain, and I was limping for a couple of days. It hasn't happen since then. But I get so afraid it will.

Today I don't feel like that kind of pain is happening, but it does remind me that I have this constant struggle with my body. There are days that are better than others, and lately I've been feeling pretty damn good, and I really do attribute it to doing yoga every day. But I feel like this struggle might never end. And it makes me think that it'll just put me on the fast track for being a crippled old lady in a wheelchair. People say "it's all in the mind, you have to will yourself to feel better, erase the negativity and you will feel better." And I think that's true to a certain extent, but a) We can't live without negativity, at least not all the time, that's just not how life works, and b) It's just not that simple. All I can do is just treat my body with "esteem" as my therapist says, and treat it well, and be healthy, and feed it good, healthy food, and on days when I'm really tired at the end of it all, just acknowledge that my body got me through the day and I'm still alive.

So that's what I'm trying to do...Even though I feel like crawling under my desk and taking a nap.

I realized, I haven't written much about yoga.

Yoga is something I love, love, love. (Did I mention that I love it?) It's a moving meditation, it makes us face things we usually ignore, it puts us in touch with our bodies and every aspect of them, it makes us stronger and is a great workout.

I've always had a bit of a problem with the "westernization" of yoga. I took a class about eastern religions in university, and we talked a bit about yoga. Traditional yoga is not soccer moms wearing Lulu Lemon and spouting "namaste" at every chance they get. Traditional yoga has many goals and takes a few different forms, but in general, the yogi is trying to attain spiritual insight while meditating on the concept of divinity. It's also a way to achieve moksha ("release" from this world of suffering and being free of the birth/rebirth cycle). I think there are some yoga classes that touch that in our western culture, but I don't think it's anything like it would be in say, India.

(I don't do this) -

I remember hearing about certain yogis in India who believe the body mirrors the constellations in the sky when doing yoga, so doing certain poses brings you closer to that. I love that imagery, that concept. I also know there are yogis who practice yoga all day long, and they are quite hard on their bodies. But it's all part of the practices I mentioned above.

What I do love about the "westernization" of yoga is that we have made it to be whatever want it to. And I don't see a huge problem with that. I think we should be careful when saying that the yoga we practice is what they practiced in ancient India. We're not practicing that, we're practicing a western version. But, there is so much you can do with it. I have this wonderful teacher who is also a writer, and I adore her class. We do 45 minutes of "yang" yoga (that's "male" energy, getting the heart rate up, flowing through asanas, using our voices to release tension and stress, etc.), then we do half an hour of "yin" yoga ("female" energy) where we hold poses for quite a long time and relax into them to release tension in the body. It's a really great class, and it gets me in touch with my emotions, what's going on inside of me, things I might have been ignoring, and it forces me to face my ego...On Tuesday we did some Qigong with it, and that was really great, and made me feel so powerful.

My dietitian is telling me that I need to exercise more, and I have been trying to go on jogs and walks. But the fatigue I've been feeling is making jogging almost impossible. I feel so tired, so discouraged, and like my body is going to collapse when I do it. It's not normal fatigue from exercising. Even when I do yoga, I feel this fatigue, and it is different from 2 months ago, when my yoga classes were starting to feel too easy. Suddenly, something changed, and now even yoga exhausts me.

But, I think I am going to do a 30 day yoga challenge. Every day, I will do at least 15 minutes on my yoga mat (on the days I'm taking a class anyway, it will of course be longer). No matter if I'm hungover, tired, angry, sad, sleep deprived, whatever. I am going to do it every day. Maybe it will help me with my help esteem, and I'm sure it will help me mentally in other ways. And of course, I'm going to blog about it.

Stay tuned for more on my yoga adventures!

(My yoga looks more like this) -

I know I wrote recently about hating ourselves just a little less, but I gotta be honest...I hate my body tonight.

I hate how it looks in the mirror. I hate how I eat, and I feel hungry again right away. I hate how I have gained weight, how I feel in my body, my rolls and my bulges. Tonight, they are not curves, they are not "womanly," they are not sexy, they are ugly. I hate how I can't see my feet without bending over significantly, as if I were pregnant or something. I hate my double chin, my flabby arms, how my inner thighs touch, and my love handles, and I hate that name for them, because there is nothing to love about them, and I don't want anyone handling them.

I have struggled with feeling hungry all the time for so long, and I am trying to work on it, with a dietitian no less. And it just will not go away. No wonder I have always had weight issues, I'm constantly trying to make the hunger go away by eating more.

Everyone always has ideas, and sympathy, and that's great, but it's just not helping anymore. It's like the doctors and my dietitian telling me to just exercise, because I'll feel better. Well, I don't. I am tired, and hungry, and I want to scream and throw something and run and get that stomach stapling surgery. Or go start taking an appetite suppressant. I feel gross, and this gnawing hunger is going to make me go nuts. I'm starting to think there's something medically wrong with me, but doctors are stumped.

I'm also sick of people telling me it's in my mind. If I could take control of this, I would have already done it. I wouldn't have let myself get to the weight I am today (I was shocked when I was weighed at the doctor's office yesterday).

Another one I really like - "be kind to your body." Well, I would be, if it would stop being so annoying and aggravating!

Can I please just have a body that doesn't need to struggle every day? Can I just have a normal hunger pattern? A good energy level? A body I can be happy living in? Please?

My therapist gave me this "assignment" a while back for body acceptance. She said she read an article where a woman started with a body part and for days would stare at it in the mirror until she had accepted what it looked like, then she would move on to another part. My therapist said the point is not to love your body overnight, but to start hating it a little less.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate my body. I mean, I get frustrated with it when it decides to be too tired for life. Or when it decides to start randomly hurting for seemingly no reason. And there are things I am not so fond of aesthetically. Sometimes it's my arms, sometimes it's my legs, sometimes my stomach (usually my stomach, actually), sometimes my nose. Other days, those things look totally fine to me (except my stomach, usually).

So today, I was just looking at my feet. I have times where I really don't like them. I feel like my big toenails are shaped funny (they also don't look the same), and my big toes have a gap between them and the rest when I stand, which I always thought was weird. I notice that my big toes curve up so the nails point up to the sky, whereas the rest of my toes curve towards the ground. And my second toe is shorter than my big toe, which I've actually never really minded because - no offense people with longer second toes - I always thought it was kind of strange to have a longer second toe. (My dad told me they're actually both Native American traits, that the big toe separating from the rest makes it easier to walk in sand...Who knew? My dad, being a doctor, finds this kind of thing fascinating.)

In any case, I was looking at my feet and realized they're not actually all that bad. Feet take a beating throughout our lifetimes. We walk on them, we stomp on them, we do things like squeeze them into high heels, which are narrow and unnaturally raise our heels; many of us when we were kids stood on them in ballet class while cursing ourselves for wanting to torture ourselves in that way (or cursing our parents for making us), and while I know that most people in North American culture don't move enough, we still have probably walked the equivalent of many, many miles in our lifetimes. At the very least, I should appreciate them for carrying me this long, even if I can't appreciate the way they look. If I didn't have feet, well, I'd probably be in a wheelchair, and I am very grateful that I am not. But, I can still strive to accept their shape, their texture, their colour, their uniqueness.

To sum this up...If we can't accept our bodies fully, if we can't love every inch of our bodies, maybe, just maybe, we can work on accepting them the way they are, and hating them just a little less.