Discussion Board

It was a blast!
Yes!! Coming up on two huge milestones... I currently weight 308 so will hit 300 soon, which is huge... and then 14 pounds later I'll have lost 200 pounds, an even bigger milestone! I'll have to do something special!Debi, thank you for the kind words! I wish to be as inspiring to others as others are to me!

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It has been a week since my "retirement" from the Food Bank and I have to say it's been a very busy week indeed. The Mother Earth News Fair kept me pretty busy all weekend. DDP Yoga, yard work, and another group I'm involved with have kept me busy this week.

DDP Yoga I started DDP Yoga Tuesday morning. The first "workout" is really just going through the basic 13 moves you need to know to follow the actual workouts. There is talking and explanation on the video which gives you plenty of time to do the moves but time to rest in between them too. For the beginner they recommend just following along the basic moves for the first week before moving on. I did that twice on the first day. Once yesterday, and will do it once today. Boy do I FEEL it. I am surprised just how quickly doing these exercises get my heart pumping and my body temperature up. I have been COLD for 9 months now and just don't break a sweat easily... last time I rode my trike I went 15 miles before I was hot enough to strip excess layers of clothing. These exercises get my body temp up quickly! I also like how you can adapt the moves to your level of fitness. You can put as much or as little effort into each move as you are comfortable with.
I am excited! Even at 308 pounds I have a lot more flexibility than many of the people who start this program. I lack upper body strength, but that will come. I am in a good starting position.
Because of the DDP Yoga I'm going to scale back my walking. I will still try to walk daily, but will limit it so I don't overdo my hip. I will limit it to 3 miles a day most days, maybe occasionally do 4. That'll make my hip happy while still let me reach my thousand miles this year!

-Norm

Congratulations on the continued weight loss! I'm interested in hearing how your yoga goes. I have done some on the Wii Fit, but that is pretty basic, I'm sure.

Can't wait to see you under 300!

Fulenn

Norm! You've found your core!

Yoga is great to get your core stomach muscles engaged and start generating heat within your body. Just wait till you start doing sun salutations. You might be dripping with sweat. That'll get your motor running.

Yoga is great getting your circulatory system revved up, too. Your heart will definately get a work out. I really should dig up some URLs and share them about what yoga does to our systems.

Once you start doing downward dogs and planks you will definately notice an increase in your upper body strength. I continue with the beginner vinyasna flow classes at the studio I go to since those classes focus on doing countless dogs and planks. I have never had muscle tone and strength built up like this in any other workout I have done. Seriously.

Congratulations!

Is that what I found? It is kinda nice to be warm for once.

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The other day was monthly grocery shopping. I haven't bought meat since last spring and have avoided the meat section of the store since then. But this time I had fun going through the whole meat section... on a mission... to buy my dog a treat! I was keenly aware that I viewed the entire meat section as dog food and not something I'd want to eat for myself. Interesting.

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DDP-Yoga is doing very well. I'm on Day 4 and I did two workouts today. I'm tired! The site suggests you take 'before" pics so I did. Here they are. If nothing else, they're current pictures of me, taken just today!

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Hey Norm,
Just stopping by your journal to say how inspiring you are. Keep up the good work. Your doing awsome. Now off to google this yoga your talking about...

Audrey

I love the pics, Norm! Especially love the first one and the one with you squatting. Hard to tell by the squatting pic angle, but make sure your knees don't extend past your toes so you don't hurt your knees.

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Your pics tell it all! You look so good!

Fulenn

I have worked very hard over the past year to improve my physical stamina and flexibility. And I started off in a better position than you are now. Don't do yourself the disservice of comparing where you're at with where I'm at. What's important is where you're headed, where we're both headed.
I've said this before and I'll say it again now... It's been easy for me to stick to the path I've been on because I've had success and improvement handed to me at every turn, with even the slightest effort. I'm grateful for that, but I honestly don't know if I would have stuck it out if I had to go down the road life has taken you down. I would like to think I would have, but I honestly don't know, and I have my doubts.
The prize is there for both of us to win it. I don't see myself as being ahead of you... I see myself as being behind you, cheering you every step of the way!

-Norm

You inspire me to fight... to keep going... to make it happen... to win! Thank you for being so transparent and sharing your experience. I admire how far you have come and am very excited to see you reach your goals. Amazing yoga pics!

.......through the whole meat section... on a mission... to buy my dog a treat! I was keenly aware that I viewed the entire meat section as dog food and not something I'd want to eat for myself. Interesting.
That cracked me up so funny and true!
You're doing great Norm wonderful pics! Dlee

My old familiar friend Chronic Inflammation is paying a visit! I suspect it's closely tied to the addition of DDP Yoga. So that raises the question: Why?
Historically my inflammation has had a few distinct triggers.

Too much stress.
Too much physical exertion.
Too much alcohol and/or crap food.

In the past year I've also noticed that losing weight too fast is also a trigger.

All of this leaves me generally of the opinion that it is an overload of toxins in my body that is the real cause, as each and every one of those things can cause too many toxins to be released into my body. So is it the stress of physical exertion involved with the yoga that is releasing the toxins? Or am I suddenly kicking my weight loss to a level that releases more toxins than I can handle? Or both? It could be both. The exercise and movements are waking up parts of me that haven't been awake in a long long time. That could cause toxins in those areas to be released. And I'm pretty sure I'm losing weight faster than usual.
Since tomorrow is Weigh-In Day I am going to charge on through the inflammation with the yoga today and see just where my weight loss is tomorrow. That may shed some light on the situation.
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As for Weigh-In Day tomorrow.. this may be the last time I make the "trek" into town to hop on the doctors scale. I am now light enough to be weighed by my wife's digital scale. I will weigh myself on it tomorrow just before going into town to the docs, just so I can get an idea how far apart the two scales are. After that I may rely on the scale here at home.

-Norm

Hi Norm,

I am sorry to hear about the inflammation. I have psoriatic arthritis, which is related to ankylosing splondylitits, (in the same "happy family" of spondylartropathies, as the cheerful pamphlet my rheumatologist gave me upon my diagnosis says.)

I definitely noticed increased flaring with weight loss, detox, and changing hormones levels. Weight loss changes hormone levels, and effects the receptors in the cells regulating hormones, and practicing yoga, or increasing exertion in general, can also effect hormones on top of weight loss and general "exercise-induced" inflammation.

Alcohol and crap food do, too, for sure.



I think you are on the right track. Have you ever tried applying Traumeel? It is topical and nicely effective, as is Tiger Balm - even for joint pain!

It is a good way to "power through" without being a total martyr.

Anyway, very interested to hear how DDP works for you!
And, as always, congratulations on all you have achieved so far.

Rock on!

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

The scale reports I've lost 6.0 pounds since last weigh-in, two weeks ago bringing my total weight loss to 187 pounds. Much has happened and there is much to report! Some of it is good, some of it is bad, and some of it is just plain ugly! Hence the title of this post.

The Good.

I am light enough that I can now use my wife's bathroom scale! Today I weighed myself on it just before going to the doctors office to weigh-in there. I wanted to see how close the two scales were, for accuracy sakes. I stepped on my wife's scale 4 times and got two readings of 302.5, one reading of 303, and one reading of 304. I stepped on the doctors scale twice and it said 302.4 both times. So my wife's scale is just about right on the money! Certainly accurate enough to use on a regular basis instead of having to drive to the doctors office. What's more, I can now weigh myself without shoes and clothing, and when I did so the scale reported I weighed 299 pounds. Since weighing without clothes/shoes is the more accurate weight and will be how I weigh from now on, my new weight is 299 pounds!

299 pounds!!

I have not weighed under 300 pounds in 20 years!! I am now 13 pounds away from having lost 200 pounds, 39 pounds away from what I weighed graduating high school, and 49 pounds away from the lowest I've weighed as an adult.

The difference between last weigh-in and this one, as recorded by the doctors office, puts me 0.13 pound behind my goal of 1% body weight per week. Not bad! Not bad at all. Not when you consider the new exercise regimen I've started, which has already started to add muscle to my frame. Certainly more than 0.13 pound worth! So I am more than confident my fat loss easily exceeded the 1% goal.

How much muscle? Who knows? I can tell you this... I have a recumbent trike I ride along the bike path near here. There is a spot on the path where it goes up a hill and across an old train bridge. That hill has always been tough for me on my trike. I have slowly worked up to being able to get up it more comfortably, but even then I'm in 1st gear of my 3 speed trike, and I'm huffing and puffing and heart pounding by the time I get to the top. Today, just 10 days after starting DDP Yoga, I was determined to see if I could make it up that hill in 2nd speed. I did not! I never got into 2nd speed! I climbed that hill in 3rd speed! My heart was pounding but my breathing was deep, controlled, and comfortable, and my legs delivered the strength needed to get up that hill in high gear! After only 10 days on the program! Incredible!

The Bad.

My chronic inflammation is back, in full force, wreaking havoc. The inflammation almost always comes with some water retention, which reflects on the scale. So even though I'm happy with where the scale was, it's probably a bit higher than it would be otherwise, just because of the inflammation. The cause of the inflammation is, I believe, more toxins being dumped into my system than I can process out, due to an increase in fat burning brought on by the DDP Yoga. If this is the cause then cutting back on the yoga should relieve my symptoms. I am in a lot of discomfort due to the inflammation, so I am inclined to slow up on the yoga for now, even though I REALLY enjoy the workouts. For now I will cut back to doing it every other day and see if that helps any. I have been at this long enough to know it's not a race and that this journey will take some time. So I'll cut back as necessary. Progress will still come, just not as fast as I want it to!

The Ugly.

Losing weight leaves a lot of loose skin! Use your imagination! It's starting to get pretty bad!

That is all!

-Norm

WOW!! Congratulations! That is such exciting news! Sorry for what I am hoping will be just a minor blip in the road.