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  1. new home, upside down yoga, and my stomach is fixed!

    May 10, 2012 by maggie

    I’ve been an absolutely horrible blogger lately. I just, well, haven’t been blogging at all.

    A few wonderful things have happened to me in the last week or so:

    • My hubby and I finally closed on our new home and moved in (5/5/2012).
    • I went to another Ragunath workshop (post about my first flight school here) that same day (5/5) at a beautiful studio on the UES. The studio was called House of Jai. Unfortunately the prices are a bit steep for me but I hope to attend workshops there when I can.
    • Work is going extremely well. I really like my boss, and it is pretty awesome to have a woman as a mentor in my line of work (web development & software engineering).
    • I got a stand-up desk ::happy dance::.
    • The day after the Ragu workshop (5/6), I went to free yoga at Lululemon (10am on Sunday mornings @ lulu on 66th and 3rd) and the teacher was the guy who assisted Ragunath the day before. Funny coincidence.

    I also figured out what has been causing most of my stomach issues. I’m not sure if I have mentioned them here before, but I have lived with bloating and IBS-C for about 6-7 years now, and I couldn’t even remember what it was like to feel normal. Turns out I’m sensitive/allergic to a bunch of random things (I believe my condition is called fructose malabsorption), including some of my favorite foods like apples, onions, and garlic.

    I was eating a diet rich in veggies and fruits, but that diet has been the main cause of the problems I’ve been suffering through. Now that I know it, I have cut down on those foods (wah) and my stomach is practically cured. It’s shocking – I just wish I had known it sooner.  It’s weird to be eating so few veggies but if it’s what my body needs…

    My meals mainly consist now of things like rice, maybe bread, eggs, potatoes (sweet and white), meats, and the few veggies that don’t bother my stomach (small amounts of salad – no onions, raw are the worst!; squash is ok in small amounts; tomatoes; peppers; carrots; etc…). The key is to only eat a little bit of veggies. It seems so wrong to not eat so many… but it is working out very well. Sigh. I am thrilled that my stomach feels better but it is strange mentally to not eat so much salad and veg.

    —

    B and I were cleaning all weekend and this week too, and I think I got too much dust in my nose because I have congestion today and I’m staying home from work (will probably work from home, later) to try to get better. On that note, I am going to go get some stuff done. I’m sitting with a cup of fresh coffee by my south-facing window in my new home and it feels very luxurious. Maybe pictures to come soon of the new place.

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  2. a week of yoga

    April 22, 2012 by maggie

    i have just finished a full week of yoga every day. after a nearly 2-week break (laziness) following a 1-week break before that (sick – i’m better now, thank you for the well wishes!), it was wonderful. here were the classes i did:

    • monday – restorative with laura @ pure west (via urban girl squad)
    • tuesday – 7am class with cat @ yoga vida (love this woman – a new favorite)
    • wednesday – 7am class with tara @ yoga vida (also lovely)
    • thursday – 7am class with hilaria @ yoga vida (hilaria is fun; she has a different style than the other teachers and she does ab work, which i like on occasion)
    • friday – 6:30pm class with jessie @ yoga vida (jessie has been a favorite since i started going to yv)
    • saturday – 2pm class with tanya @ yoga vida (gah, another favorite! this week was so good. bobby took class with me.)
    • sunday (today) – 12pm class with sassi @ yoga vida (i was expecting a pretty chilled out class but it was hard – in a great way)

    ahhh. i am bhaved* out. i’m hoping to do a fair amount this week too.

    *bhav(a) = a sanskrit word that is usually used when you’re describing your relationship with god. in teacher training last fall we would use the term “bhaved out” to describe the serenity and calm we felt after a particularly hard or effective practice.

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  3. where i’ve been & happy easter!

    April 8, 2012 by maggie

    in the style of coco, here are…

    life updates

    • threw out my back at a circuit of change class on 3/22 (no, i am not a fan anymore! i didn’t go back after this – i have never hurt my back before and i did not enjoy it.)
    • started my new (old) job on monday, 3/26. it’s going swimmingly.
    • got sick the week of 3/26… i think it started that night i threw out my back, and then i was working very hard my first week so didn’t have time to rest. i couldn’t do much yoga this week – i went to 1 class tuesday night and had to walk out after 15 minutes because i was getting a splitting headache.  i was even still sick for…
    • an awesome flight school class with ragunath on 4/1. i am working on my handstand, and this class was incredible. everything, from sun salutations to the sequencing, to backbends, to anything really, had inversion options. i got into a handstand that i held for about 5 seconds which was very inspiring. since i was sick (recovering) i took child’s pose quite frequently during the 2-hour class. i did get an assist from ragunath – he is awesome.
    • lots of work last week, and still recovering from this awful cold – i still have congestion even now, nearly 2 weeks after i first got sick.
    • i’m in a choir here in NYC and we have a concert coming up on friday the 13th. i’ve been practicing for that and i can’t wait for the show. we’re performing verdi’s requiem at a church on 5th avenue.
    • i bought 9 weeks of ceramics class at a studio near my apartment. i did ceramics for 2 or 3 years in high school and took a short (5 weeks) class last spring. can’t wait to get back into it. i will have to take pictures of my work sometime. unfortunately i’m moving in ~2 weeks so it won’t be that close anymore. but they had a good price for the classes and i have to have a creative outlet like that.
    so that is where i’ve been. life has been busy in a wonderful way.

    more on flight school

    • class starting with singing/chanting all together. i was there with one of bobby’s coworkers who joins us for yoga every saturday and i was worried he might think the chanting was weird, but he loved the class.
    • ragunath gave a great dharma talk (the little speech yoga teachers give at the beginning of class – you know, setting an intention, letting go of everything during your time on the mat, etc, etc…). i am kicking myself because i can’t remember exactly what he said to us – i remember it touched me though.
    • crazy, sweaty, inversion-heavy flow.
    • savasana!

    more on ragunath here. turns out he was a celibate monk (practicing one of the yamas, bramacharya = celibacy) for 6 years in india! he has kids now.

    a meal or two

    • i’ve been forgoing meat lately in favor of veggies and tofu. not sure why – but i’m going to go with it until i get bored. i like to listen to my body and that’s what it’s craving for now. i’ve had a few amazing meals at souen – i love their macro plate. this is a plate of brown rice, chickpeas (my favorite bean they serve), kale, broccoli, kabocha, carrot, hijiki seaweed, and a tahini-dill dressing.

    times 2! the one below had some kind of white beans instead. nowhere near as good as chickpeas in my opinion.

    have you ever had a macro plate? and why do chickpeas have two names? have you ever been to flight school?

    p.s. Happy Easter! (Or whatever you celebrate.)

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  4. circuit of change – mindbody bootcamp [review]

    March 19, 2012 by maggie

    circuit of change is a workout studio located at 57 west 16th street (16th and 6th, NE corner of the intersection; 4th floor). i bought a groupon (d’oh*) for 10 classes at the studio a few months ago, and of course i let time lapse and now i have to use them all up by april 4th. here is the studio:

    yesterday morning (sunday @ 11am) i went to the “mindbody bootcamp” taught by the founder, brian delmonico. all of their classes are barefoot, which i think is fantastic – our feet are sensitive and should not be confined all the time. this mindbody bootcamp class had the following format:

    mindbody bootcamp sequencing

    • centering exercise at the beginning (less than 5 minutes) – sitting, child’s pose, some hands and knees stuff (i don’t remember it all)
    • yoga-ish flow with extra intensity (10 minutes?) – sun salutation variations with extra workout-y stuff like knee to nose, planks, etc… lots of abs thrown in too.
    • cardio circuits (40 minutes?) – kickboxing, abs, jumping jacks, “hit the deck”s, squat thrusts, plyometric jumps, etc… you change movements about every 15 seconds so if you don’t like what you’re doing, it’s fine because you will switch quickly.
    • centering exercise (<5 minutes) – sitting, breathing, i think i remember there being some light stretching.

    i estimated the times; i know that the class is 60 minutes total but i didn’t see a clock so i wasn’t able to be more precise in my breakdown.

    i had a lot of fun with the class. my favorite part was the yoga-ish flow. if there was a whole class of crazy sun salutation variations i would be there in a second.

    i liked the cardio circuits part as well, but i did feel like a lot of the exercises could hurt your lower back if you’re not careful (bending down to touch the ground for example). i am not a fan of squat thrusts because i don’t think they are good for your joints (unlike chaturanga, you don’t land your feet back with your arms already bent). squat thrusts aside though, the exercises brian did pick for the circuits were probably my favorites out of the standard cardio class moves.

    midway through the yoga flow i started to break a sweat, and i kept on dripping all the way through class.

    Update: I originally said I would go back, however, unfortunately, I hurt my back at a class later on during this week and I think it was because of bad form during far-too-fast squats and other exercises that could be bad for your back. I didn’t end up using up all 10 classes – I only used 5.

    have you ever tried a “mind body” type cardio class? do you buy daily deals?

    *i have vowed to never buy a groupon again. or any of those other silly deals. to be honest, i haven’t bought many of them – certainly less than 10 since they all started up a few years ago – but each time i do i end up stressing because i need to use it by a certain date, or i don’t even want what i bought anymore. daily deals are impulse purchases, and they make life cluttered. i dislike clutter. if i were to make an exception, the only reason i would buy a deal would be if i was planning to purchase that item/experience anyway.

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