Posts by grassdress

Hooray! Remember to share it with those who might benefit and may not otherwise find out about it!

Solar, I feel like I should say thank you?

I would wish you luck, but I feel the routine gives you all that you would need where I could offer my wishes.

Have fun!
Do come back and let us know your feelings and progress!

I find myself smiling at the variety of comments. I do tend to attract some strange vibes I guess, which I find quite funny and strange at the same time. A few of you were there to leave negative comments on my last post. I'll just say thank you at this point, because I think the majority of people here are smart and see through them.

There is a difference between reading this post and trying to find loopholes and reading it and applying it to what works for you.

My diet was not and has not ever been junk food, so no, when I said MY diet hardly changed, it wasn't anything special. I do agree that I should have specified.

The people who are trying the routines, GOOD WORK seriously. That workout really does kick your ass. Thank you for coming and sharing your experiences! You can search around the internet if you want, but I've read that power yoga burns around 250-300 calories an hour. Sadie's burns closer to 350-400. For an in-home, free routine, this is EXCEPTIONAL calorie burn.

There is no way I am going to defend myself against the people who are trying to effect me in some way or another. All I will say it please, PLEASE, do not focus on what I look like. That is my job. As far as my words go, they're my words and I know what they mean when they come out of me. Obviously there are people on here that are smart enough to see the meaning, and other people with an attitude more inclined to assume things to always be negative or incorrect. That is not my problem. For things that should have beeen specified, I do apologize, but I believe all of them have been discussed (exceptionally well, might I add).

Haha, alleine's post is to me. I just moved to Germany.

Those are very very clever ways to remember words, might I add. The German language isn't so hard to learn but I don't think I could make up anything as clever as any of those, and they ARE helpful!

Thank you!That's all it was, not even Power Yoga until the last 2 months. Just regular sit on the floor or stand up and stretch yoga. My diet hardly changed at all. I just adjusted portions mostly.

Have fun! Please do post back and let me and everyone else know what you think and how it made you feel!

The following line: This is not to say that people should not pay attention to their diet

You wouldn't have to WORRY about slipping on your diet here and there. But if you're one of those people that eats fine but just can't get away from cookies or candy sometimes, you'll still see tremendous results if you can REALLY work through these videos. When I first started I couldn't get past 2 minutes, but I did those 2 minutes 4 times a day, and worked myself up to more and more.

Remember that after a while of doing the same routine, your body is fully stretched to that routine and you'll hit a plateau and have to try something new if you want to keep losing weight. At that point, your diet will matter a lot more, because if you don't pay attention to it you'll gain weight and the exercises that once helped you lose it, if you're fully stretched and used to them, will no longer help to burn fat as much as before.

My advice would be to begin these routines, be CONSCIOUS of your diet and maybe ween yourself away from the things you KNOW are going to affect you afterwards, that way you're prepared to remain at a low weight when you get there.

This does not offer advice on nutrition, but I believe this is because most yogis are vegan, vegetarian, or raw foodists.

HOWEVER, if one was to do this or the other routines that this lady has on her site, diet would be of little importance. This is not to say that people should not pay attention to their diet, but for those that are willing to do more strenuous exercises but still have trouble eating cookies here and there, I believe this is the kind of routine they would want to try.

http://caloriecount.about.com/full-body-trans formation-anyone-ft142991

Hi again!

There are energy channels that run through the body up each side, left and right.
They often go from your pinky finger down underneath your arm to your armpit, down the side of the body to the lower back, then down the back of the butt to the inner thigh, then to behind the knee and down the back of the calf, to the middle of the foot, and usually out the pinky toe. I would encourage you to follow these points on your body and learn how to pay close attention to stretching or massaging each one and the muscles that lie underneath each of those parts of the body.

What happens when the body gets sick in an area is that there is a lack of energy being sent there, whether it is through circulation problems, sitting in one spot for too long, not sitting up straight, sleeping wrong, or whatever. The smallest thing can create an energy blockage. Once an area remains blocked  or in pain for a certain amount of time, the areas around it become affected.

The spine is an awful place to have a problem, and I am very sorry to hear about that. However, I would REALLY encourage you to understand these energy channels. Your lower back controls many things about your body. This is logic, but let me just say this in case you don't fully understand. I have an Eastern medicine approach 

What kind of an energy blockage can become of a lower back problem? Well first of all, your mobility. Your lower back affects your backside and control of your legs, all the way down to your feet. Your lower back is also near your stomach, affecting your organs. Your organs affect your hormones, which affect your brain directly. Your foods may process differently than they did before. You may develop chemical imbalances that often times have you in moods that you never used to see as a part of yourself. The health of your organs and brain activity in turn affect your heart.

Because something as sudden as an injury often consumes your thoughts, we don't focus on all the things that this injury will create for us. We don't prepare, because we aren't sure what to prepare for. I think the most important thing here is that a lower back injury affects the brain, directly through the way your organs produce the chemicals going there. From experience, I lost motivation to seriously better myself because I felt that I honestly just COULDN'T. The doctors said because of my knees and hips that I shouldn't walk or run. And if I can't do those, how can I lose weight? But I was only 13 and I wasn't ready to be that way for the rest of my life if I could help it.

You are 53, but don't just be prepared for things to continue the way they are. You have still MUCH MUCH life ahead of you. The title of this "Shouldn't I be losing weight by now" means that you are trying. You are trying what you think has worked for other people, and it's not doing what you hoped for. I know this feeling. That is because of our spirit. Our spirit is far developed, healthy and happy, but physically we don't feel we are reflecting the brilliance we feel we hold within, spiritually. This is honestly a blessing. It means our bodies don't take crap for an answer. It means we have to try the most bizarre options in order to achieve success, and that is because we are bizarre people. A doctor can't hand everyone the same medicine and make everyone better, just as the same techniques for weight loss won't work on everyone the same. I spent years of my teens throwing my food up if I ate any food at all, and believe it or not, I got fatter. We are those special people.

Yoga is not mysticism or some secret hocus pocus, yoga is an ancient self healing. It allows you to get to know your body by learning what muscles are where and how to focus on each muscle one at a time, send breath to the area, which in turn detoxifies your body and those muscles. It elongates each muscle to be able to use that muscle and part of your body to it's full potential. Yoga is more well known for elongating the spine, bringing the spine back to alignment to be used again. The ancient yogis knew that the spine is the center, the core of your being. Along the spine are your organs, which control your brain. They knew this! Not only that, but your heart! And at the top is your head. All the value is within the spine.

I recommended yoga because all this information lies behind the single act. Often without realizing, we can become disillusioned by an injury, and I think yoga is the simplest and most effective, all in the same. The easiest thing to do, and by far the most affective-for your body, your bones, your spine, your tendons, heart, and brain.

I asked about your legs because the tendons and muscles behind your legs pinch up all the way from  your feet to your low back if the energy channel is blocked. Someone touched my knee once and I started crying, and that's when they told me I needed to take stretching more seriously. Start by simple touching your body, poking it and feeling the muscles behind your legs. Then hold your arms out straight, making yourself into a T, and put your hands up as if you were holding traffic up from both sides. You will feel all the way from your fingers to your armpits the flow of energy I am talking about. I spend hours sometimes poking myself all over. There is a form of massage where the person giving the massage pokes and presses you all over, and it's called Resistance Therapy or something like that. It was done to me once. It increases circulation to every area touched or pokes. It makes the body thing something is wrong with that area and sends endorphins to the area. So in reality, you haven't acquired a new injury, and now energy is rushing throughout your whole body making you feel better and better and better.

Boy I can talk, hm?

I hope some of this helps. I am a firm believer that our body never shuts down.

BKS Iyengar began doing yoga at a very late age after a car accident, and now you can find pictures of him in his eighties looking like he's 40 years old with bright shiny wrinkle free skin in the most outstandingly flexible poses.

Be inspired! I have faith in all! Your spirit is shining through your eyes in your photo. I know you're special and I know you know it, too.

http://www.yogacolumn.com/wp-content/uploads/ 2008/10/iyengar_bks.jpg

I find it kind of funny that yoga is often a part of people's life for a bit, a happily remembered part, and then disappears only to wait around to reappear!

May I ask, since you say you are sitting on a bed, are you able to extend your legs out fully? And about the disc, is it upper or lower back?

I would gladly recommend some positions to you that I think may be beneficial if you would like?

Hello there!

I feel we relate a bit.
When I was quite young, 12 years old, I was diagnosed with patella tendinitis and patella femoral syndrome. These are joint problems in my knees and then hip/thigh area (femoral). What happened was my knee cap slid off the side and became very painful due to the cartilage scraping off on the bone. Same thing was sort of happening with my hips. All my joints were aching like someone triple my age!

When I was 13 I was showing strange signs of other things, and thanks to genes, was told that I was showing very very early signs of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Shortly after, was told that I had asthma.

I went from 98 pounds at 12 years old to 183 at my 8th grade graduation-a one year span. Why? Because I was told that I couldn't run or walk or do many things thanks to all these new problems.

I held onto all that weight for the past 7 years. Last year, on my 20th birthday, I started doing yoga. Mind you, I was not used to exercising at all. I never wanted to break a sweat. I basically wanted to be lazy. Yoga seemed perfect! I could sit on a floor in my own room and do these stretches. I didn't have to pay to go to a gym, I could do it in my own house and privacy, and it gave me this new way of looking at things because I was spending quiet time with myself. Within three days I saw difference in the definition all over my body. I'm not kidding you!

After 10 months of doing basic sit on the floor and stretch yoga, I was 30 pounds lighter. Just from stretching! Then I decided to step it up a bit to some Power Yoga via YouTube, and I dropped 15 pounds that month!

It might sound ridiculous, but in all honesty it's that easy. I would highly recommend you try yoga. You don't need to take a class or anything. I started with Iyengar Yoga. BKS Iyengar designed books about Yoga that show you pose by pose on each page with a very detailed description. He describes what each muscle in your body should be doing for one pose, which in my opinion is unlike many types of yoga. Each pose is stretching your FULL body in a different way every time. I think that's why the full body transformation came so far from such simple stretches.

I can now go jogging and do all these things I couldn't do before. The simple fact is that you can use your knees more and more the less and less weight is resting on top of them. It's an excellent feeling to have my knees back!

I have no doubt that the same can happen for you. I think it's a matter of finding the secrets and hearing the true stories about other people in similar situations. Whatever you do, you have to start easy and be patient. I am one of those I WANT INSTANT RESULTS! sort of people. I tried everything I thought would work, and yoga was the last thing I tried and the only thing that worked for me. I didn't even change my diet when I first started doing it.  To this day I'm still doing it, and STILL losing weight, though yoga did encourage me to change my diet (strangely). I'm now 137, and some of that is even muscle now! Yoga is a full body transformer. Not only that, it's more beneficial to your brain (believe it or not!) than for your body. It's a win win situation.  I do hope you try it out. If you start you won't need anyone to wish you good luck. It's that kind of a blessing.

Namaste!

Oh um let's see here. I've had dreadlocks since January. Some days I work on them for as long as 6 hours. I just dealt with menstruation almost 2 weeks ago and ate a lot and couldn't get the energy to exercise. The bloating was terrible, and now that it's gone, I weigh 5 pounds more, STILL! The issue of muscle was more in regards originally to my upper legs. From previous comments I think perhaps the muscles are swollen from being worked out right now. My diet, besides for recently on my period :| is raw food. Is it possible to eat too many fruits and vegetables?

Listen, I don't understand why you are choosing to come on here again with more things to say like this.

If you felt upset about weight and wanted advice I don't think you would want these kind of replies.

I just wanted help after feeling quite lost like maybe my efforts weren't paying off.

You are not hurting my feelings, just accumulating bad karma for yourself.

Please don't come back here with negative things to say, or at least re-think the way you respond. If you didn't mean to come off as rude, then I apologize, but the way it was worded was very negative.

I'm very surprised at the level of rudeness on a site that's supposed to be for positive support and help. Instead it seems more like women competing.

First of all, unless you have dreadlocks you would know, dreadlocks take one year to form. Every day you have to do something called palm rolling which means you have to roll the dread between your palms, each one for about two minutes. This means pressing firmly to where you can smell the hair burning, which means you are using a lot of force in a clockwise motion and lifting your hands above your head. I literally sweat when doing this, and I do it for about two hours a day because I have to.

Second, do I need to take pictures of the muscle? Why do you ladies feel the need to come and reply if you are going to tell me about my own body like I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't understand this. I have a LOT of muscle, and it didn't come within the past few months. My body has been quite muscular, just never in my arms as much as now. I'm sorry that you guys don't believe me and think that I'm lying.

I didn't come on this site to be accused of lying about gaining muscle. If I don't want the muscle why would I lie about having it?

Wow. Thank you guys for your true support.
If you need to get out this anger please take it out elsewhere next time.