Saturday, April 5, 2014

My First Thought

This afternoon at yoga, my tenth class this month, the instructor came up to me after class and said that another student had asked her to ask me something.

My first thought: What did I do now?

First, a little background.  I'm no yogi.  Before this month I had only taken a handful of classes, and those had been well over a year ago.  I am 31 years old and I am at the balancing point between the worst shape of my life, and the best shape of my life.  At my best, right out of basic training, I weighed 230 lbs, and in my worst post-divorce depression I reached about 330 lbs.  I say about, because at that weight you don't get on a scale very often.

Oh, right, the crazy part.  I live with depression, and I choose not to medicate.  As far back as I can recall I have gone through cycles of depression with brief periods of respite, and sometimes even manic states.  That isn't all the crazy, but that's a good portion of it.

A couple of years back I read the book "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" and, from my heaviest weight, ran off 50 lbs and trained up to be able to run 13.1 miles.  I stopped running when I broke/sprained my toe (I never got it x-rayed), and without the running my weight started to gradually climb again.

Have I mentioned I love food?  I love good food.  Cheeseburgers have always been my kryptonite, and I'm hard pressed at any new restaurant I go to not to try the burger on the menu (and again at every subsequent visit).  I've tried a variety of diets, and issues with regulating my blood sugar have made almost all attempts disastrous failures, and none of the weight ever stayed off.

The other book I want to mention by name is "It Starts with Food" which my sister recommended to me.  More on my older sister later.  The book details the hows and whys of food and the effects that it has on your body in a way I that had never seen.  I had long wanted to try the "Paleo" diet, but that book lit a fire (albeit a slow burning one).  Attempts to eat primitive foods was for me an insurmountable challenge in households where others weren't trying to walk the same path, and so my new eating lifestyle got pushed back until early this year.  What changed?  For a variety of reasons that I wont detail here just yet I moved back home where my parents were already eating (mostly) paleo, having been converted by my older sister.

I managed to lose about 14 pounds in February of this year just eating (mostly) paleo, dropping down to 284 lbs., and averaging about a half a pound of weight loss a day.  In March I wasn't nearly as successful, cheating often I managed to stay at 285.4 lbs.  That number is going to be important.

My older sister is a huge inspiration to me.  I find her to be completely amazing.  To be fair, all three of my sisters are completely inspirational and amazing in their own awesome ways.  My older sister gave up a career as a lawyer to become a yoga instructor, which... Honestly, she should be the one blogging, not me.  It was my parents who first introduced her to yoga, but she took the torch and ran with it (appropriate for a veteran long distance runner), relighting their fires as their motivation waned.

Jobless, overweight, living with my parents, and not in the best mental health of my life, I was starting to get some lower back pain.  When I write it all out like that is sounds pretty bad, and though the decline into depression was gradual, I could feel the edges slipping away.  The best way I can describe slipping into depression is like the end of Flowers for Algernon as he slowly loses his genius until he can no longer recall what having genius was like.  It is like that, though with depression you replace "genius" with "happiness" and you have a bleak picture of one of my greatest challenges in life.

I had a coupon for 30 days of yoga for $35, I had thirty-five dollars, and I had more time than I knew what to do with.  That little manic voice in my head suggested doubles for a month.  Doubles are exactly what they sound like, two classes a day.  Two hour and a half classes a day.  Sixty classes, ninety hours of yoga.

In my brain, being completely exhausted for an entire month sounded a lot better than the looming depression I saw on the horizon, and maybe that's crazy, but that's me.

April 1, 5:30 am.  I'd already been up for two and a half hours and eaten breakfast when I walked in with my coupon and the new student registration form all filled out from their website.  I stripped off my sweatshirt in the shower room, walked in to the 105 degree heated room, rolled out my mat and towel and laid down on the floor.

6 am, class started.  An hour and a half later I walked out, drenched in sweat, and all I posted to Facebook was a check in saying, "This is a thing I'm doing now."

I've checked in to the studio on Facebook after every class.  I don't know your feelings on such a course, but I can tell you I got the most amazing support and encouragement from friends and family back when I trained up to my half marathon, and that was a kind of support that I needed to feel again.

My second check in that night after the 4:30 pm class: "Daily doubles for 30 days is 60 sessions, is 90 hours of yoga this month. That's the goal. Day 1 complete, 87 hours to go."

Then: "Three down, a lifetime to go."

"Yoga 6 out of the last 36 hours. That's also the amount of sleep I've had in the same time."

"5 of 60. Yay, endorphins!"

Then, the end of the third day I posted this: "Apparently sometimes at the end of a day of 3 hrs of yoga you just start crying for no reason. Who knew?"

I'm blessed.  The supportive comments of friends and family, even old army buddies were everything I needed.  Humorous.  Sympathetic.  Loving.  I find it difficult to express how appreciative I am for my family and for the collection of acquaintances I like to call my friends.  I know some truly amazing people.

Kicked off day five posting: "Who's that touching my knee?! Oh wait, that's my forehead!"

Then, Friday night: "Now on to dancing!"

That's right, after 12 hours of yoga this week I went out dancing for a couple of hours and I felt fantastic doing it.  I loved learning zipper dancing at Friday Night Fusion, and I can honestly say that it was some of the most fun dancing I'd ever had.

This morning, day five, I'd stayed up until almost 1 am after going out to hear some great blues in downtown Portland, I slept until just before I had to leave, skipped my "usual" 4 am breakfast, and had this to say with my check in: "Some days it is everything you can do to just stay in the room until that final "namaste.""

It was hard.  The room seemed oppressively hot, and I felt like I might vomit or pass out even as I just lay on the towel through more postures than usual.  I wondered if I'd reached a breaking point, if I really was crazy to be doing doubles for so long.  I felt completely exhausted.  That was my goal, right?  It wasn't the most well conceived goal, but it seemed I had achieved it none the less.

That is the background to this afternoon's class when the instructor walked up to me and said that another student had asked her to ask me something.  The owner of the studio I attend was having a grand opening for their new location in Happy Valley, and the regular 4:30 class at my regular studio had been cancelled for the event leaving me with two options: Do the 7 and 9 am classes back to back, or go out to Happy Valley to the 4 pm class to have sufficient rest.

My check in this afternoon: "Just had the instructor at the studio come up and say that another student had asked her to ask me something. First thought? "What did I do now?" As it turns out the other student was interested in me journaling about my experience so she could read it."

I had thought about doing a blog of my experience.  I love to write, but I had no idea if there would be an audience for long format accounts of my experiences with the thirty day challenge I had given myself.

With each Facebook check in I've done for yoga this month I have included the little "feeling" smiley face.  The feelings have been varied.  According to the string of posts, I've felt elated, accomplished, hot, optimistic, emotional, warm, exhausted, and wonderful.

I felt wonderful after my class this afternoon.  I commented to my own check in that I was able to make an honest attempt at EVERY set of EVERY pose!  I walked away full or energy, feeling great, and looking forward with bright, shining optimism at the prospects of another twenty five days in the challenge.

Namaste.

4 comments:

  1. I think it is fantastic that you're taking steps to find what makes you happy and healthy. It sounds to me like you're using yoga and physical exhaustion to purge a lot of your inner demons and get yourself to your baseline. Your words and your goal are inspirational. Thank you. - Leora

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  2. Leora, I really appreciate your comment. If I shot for honest and hit inspirational instead, I can't be faulted. ;)

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  3. Thank you for being willing to share your experiences throughout the next month. The physical, mental and emotional ups and downs of a month of doubles is quite a journey on which to embark. Sending you lots of love for the ride.

    Also, I'm glad you are the one blogging and not me :)

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  4. Preston...your blog is inspirational. I know your older sister Jill. I have an older brother who, like you, was in the army and has had his ups and downs since then with mental health and his weight. I keep encouraging him to exercise and do yoga since it helped me in so many ways. I am going to share your post with him and see if we can inspire him...thanks

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