A time that was

Almost two decades ago, yours truly could dance in a competiton from 8AM to 6PM and still go for the formal "social events" that went till midnight. 

It was the best of times and that was it. Then life took a different turn and the dance floor was something that was frequented only in dreams or while day dreaming and choreographing moves for some nice song on the radio. 

Recently, after a long time.. switched on the radio and listened to a few songs. One of them happened to be Justin Timberlake's Mirrors. Loved the song and it brought back so many memories of NSYNC and a group of us dancing to some of those songs that were remixed to select dance beats. 

A thought triggered another and an attempt was made to check out the ballroom clothes that have been packed up since 1999! They did not fit. It was a clear image of a square peg in a round hole when I looked in the mirror. 

So I started focussing on select poses in the hot yoga room that were good to get rid of the handles at the waist. Bikram Choudury's book had details on what pose does what and it was a handy guide. After three months I tried the clothes again two weeks ago and voila!

It is still tight around the lower ribs now, but not bad eh?

Feels good to be able to fit into pants that were stitched in 1996! 

San of course is just shaking her head and so are the kids. Now the next step is to put on some weight in the face without putting the weight back on in the hips. Must be a pose for that! 

ps. Mommy, not to worry! There are no plans to get back on the dance floor. Dancer's pose in the yoga room will be it.

What is in a resolution?

Last years resolution was to go do Bikram Yoga once a day! Within a few days the resolution had been given an amendment that said "exclusing travel days" and that meant the goal went down from 365 already.

The plan was to also document how this resoluton was taking shape over time in hopes of seeing trends. It is very hard to kill my inner nerd! 

There was also something else at stake. Made a deal with Sangeetha that if we paid for a "one year unlimited" pass, will get at least 8$ or less a class to justify the pass. That was the lowest cost on any deal with BYSJ in the previous years when you bought class cards based on number of classes (like a 30 class card or 100 class card). If If I did better than $8/class, it would warrant buying the same thing for 2014!

So between 12/26/12 and 12/26/13 here is what happened..

56% attendance, far from the 100 dream. There were 80 travel days. That still makes it 68% attendane.

The green line shows number of classes without a break. It was great going with the 60 day challenge at the beginning of the year and then it was always a break here or there. 

Looks like that funny graph on exercise patterns that criculated in Facebook, doesn't it? Well most of September and early October was a rout because of the misdiagnosed tooth infection and Jaw locking which ended up pretty badly. Made it a point to get back in the hot room in November all weak after taking powerful antibiotics.  

Also started tracking how many complete poses I sat out in each class because of feeling dizzy, nauseous or for losing my breath or not being able to control my heartrate. There are 26 poses in class. So technically, 26 is like missing an entire class. I had missed the equivalent of almost 6 classes out of the 194 just by sitting out. There are trends within this by teacher, by time of class, by number of people in the room, etc. But that is not going up in the blog.

To say I like all my teachers classes the same, would not be fair. Definitely have my favorites, but this list is not represenative of that. It just reflects times of day I happened to take classes at on certain days of the week.

Somehow the teachers who have themselves gone through some adversity and have used Bikram Yoga to change their lifes appeal to me more than the ones that have been lucky enough to discover Yoga in their teens!

Also recorded my weight after coming home from yoga class. There is definitely a trend there between summer and winter and it will be interesting to see how this goes on continued tracking. Weighed myself only on days of Yoga class and that is why it is not a smooth line. The weight is stable no matter how much I eat and that says a lot about Yoga and "weight control"!

Last but not least, the Sangeetha challenge..

This graph is 950$ / number of classes as the number of classes increased. In other words, if I had been hit by a truck after class 1, it would have been one expensive class!  I got it down to $4.90/class which was way better than the goal of $8/class. 

All is well that ends well or has a new beginning. In this case it is a new beginning. Got the next one year annual unlimited pass started as of today! 

Now if you are wondering if Bikram Yoga made a difference for me in 2013, the answer is an emphatic yes. I had less than 5 sick days in the last year (minus the tooth episode, which could have been fixed with a visit to a good dentist in a day) and inspite of all that travel, managed to keep my sanity and was able to get back on my feet fast. 

There is one complaint from San all the time and that is "If you do Yoga why are you getting angry?". As far as I have checked, there is nothing that says people who do yoga cannot get angry. I can go from zero to angry in 4 seconds, but I can also come back from angry to zero in the same 4 seconds. That is the only difference after doing Yoga and that is a big deal! I am able to go on long hikes with ease and in general my ability to handle difficult situations has not become any worse. So all that credit goes to Yoga.

Wish me luck in bettering last year's attempt!

Tides change

We had a very fun filled and happy fortnight in early August with the festivities and as if by some voodoo, things took a nosedive.

My jaw locked up and started making clicking noises. It hurt when I opened my mouth for anything more than a straw and yawning sent electric shocks into my brain. After going back and forth between the doctors who diagnosed the symptoms as TMJ (and they were not wrong), going through jaw movement exercises, taking lots of Ibuprofens vs.  going to a local dentist who did not do due diligence because my dental insurance was maxed out (he did not even take a new x-ray and told me the same thing the doctors told me!) things were going from bad to worse. 

In the last two weeks I ate such wonderful things as Tomato rasam sadam with Vendaikaai curry smoothie, Poondu rasam with beans paruppusili smoothie, etc. (Rice with tomato soup + okra curry blended into a smoothie..). Was mushing up everything! The taste is okay, but the texture of some of these smoothies, if you could call it that made me lose my appetite. 

My two attempts at shaving also end up in aborted missions and I started to look like this..

The little one agreed to that pose as a "pity pose". She hated that beard! 

Finally we decided enough was enough.. well truth be told Sangeetha decided enough was enough of my moping around and found a dentist through a friend who had a reputation for fixing the problem and not worrying about the insurance! So went there Friday. At first they took an x-ray and called me back to say "you sure there is no pain in this area?" and my response was "pain? what pain? I have been in so much pain that my threshold has moved!" 

So they called me back for more x-rays which confirmed that there was a big area of pus in the place where my wisdom tooth used to exist. They "extracted" the pus and said "you don't need ibuprofen, what you need is antibiotics to fight this infection!" and they were right! In two days the pain was almost gone. The clicking came to a minimum and I could eat solid food again!

Today I made a long and slow attempt and shaved. The whole family rejoiced. Never knew that a little stubble could cause so much sadness in a house. 

Krishna ummachi teased me with all the crunchy stuff at the worst possible time but Pilliyaar ummachi was not going to disappoint. There were no Kozhukattais in the house today but San did make some yummy vadai and paayasam! Was able to eat that just fine.. 

Wanted to take a picture with the kids after eating the vadais! Was reminded that we took a picture just after this moment many years ago and dug it out!

and now..

I can still carry the little one for a little while! 

The only downside is that the molar will be removed tomorrow. I plan to hang it on a necklace as a reminder of the last 17 days of stuggling. 

The jaw seems to be one of those things that literally falls in "no mans land". Doctors send you to dentists and vice versa.. it is in the perfect "punt zone". I also learned the hard way that dental insurance works differently from medical insurance. With medical insurance you hit an out of pocket maximum (2000$ or 4000$ for example) and after that you don't pay anything for that year on anything that is covered. The insurance pays. 

With dental insurance, THEY have an out of pocket maximum. Once the dental insurance has paid their part to a total of 1000 or 1500 $ a year, they stop paying for anything more complicated. So god forbid you end up with two root canals in one year, you pay out of pocket for everything else!

I don't know why we cannot have our regualar insurance cover dental procedures also. Last I knew, the gums, teeth, jaw etc. are all part of the body!

It was not like I was asking them to cure me of baldness! 

The little one did think I looked "cute" even with the beard if , IF the sunglasses went with it! Something to contemplate as a "look" when the hairline goes beyond the horizon on the head..

They say all is well that ends well. Sure hope that this saga comes to an end once the tooth is gone!