So, the past two days I’ve realized that my Yoga activity is causing some additional appetite urges. It’s taken a while to creep up on me. And my more nonchalant food planning hasn’t been helping. When I’ve tried increasing my activity level in the past, my appetite surge is shows up quickly, but is was somewhat sneaky this time.

Also, I’ve found so much peace and enjoyment on my mat that I tend to spend longer and longer time practicing Yoga. My practice went from ~20min twice a day in the beginning, to about 45min-1hr once a day. Once I hit the mat, I just don’t want to leave.

Speaking of Yoga, I found a WONDERFUL Yoga instruction book a couple of days ago. It’s full of such awesomeness that I just have to share!!!!

Ashtanga Yoga: The Practice Manual
David Swenson ISBN: 978-1-891252-08-2

This book is wonderful because it is spiral bound and it meant to easily lay open on the floor so you can reference it during your home yoga session. This book is great for people who can’t go to a yoga studio for whatever reason and want to practice Yoga at home. Between this book and my Yoga journal magazines, I am able to cultivate a home Yoga practice. One day I want to be official taught, but until then this is a wonderful alternative!

My new Yoga book! LOVE IT!

Here is me trying to get into one of my favorite poses. Since I started out horribly inflexible, I have a long way to go on a lot of poses. Eventually I will be able to have my head touch my feet *with my back still straight*! Currently, my forehead can rest on my feet, but my back isn't completely straight. When I first tried this pose I didn't even come close to being able to rest my arms on the floor like that! (And look at my two biggest fans looking on...so sweet!)

I’m so very glad I decided to start a home Yoga practice. I feel better physically and mentally because of it. My yoga is a daily source of stress release. And if I  find I am starting to get all wound up, I’ll often hit the mat early to calm down. Yoga is a wonderful medicine!

But now I have to buckle down and be more consistent with food planning. I took a bit of a break, but with my yoga practice adding to my appetite, I need to plan more so I don’t succumb to my food urges. The past two days I’ve averaged about 1800 calories. So I wasn’t massively overeating, but that’s high for me.

Well, now that I have spewed even more Yoga LOVE into my blog, it’s time to get to my gratitude’s for today.

Gratitude’s:

1: I’m grateful for wonderful neighbors. We moved into this old cabin without any roughing it experience. We weren’t total city slickers, but we didn’t have any real country living experience. Our neighbors have let us borrow a log splitter, helped us with chainsawing, gave us some extra wood, plowed our driveway during the crazy snow, and overall have made us feel very very welcomed. We spent Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve at their house. If we had moved into one of the other cabins we were looking at, we would have been on our own, and the cabin would have chewed us up and spit us out. But now we are navigating country life quite well.

2: I’m grateful for my blue eyes. And QB’s blue eyes. I’ve always been partial to my blue eyes, and I think it is just too neat that I have them. Recently I read an article on how blue eyes have been traced to a common ancestor about 6-10k years ago in the Mesopotamia region of the world. So, blue eyes haven’t been around for very long. Blue eyes are becoming more rare now, with only 22.4% of white Americans having them, and only 16.6% of all of Americans have blue eyes. It’s just one of those neat things I love about myself.

3: I’m grateful for guinea honks and rooster crows. Our coop is right by our computer room, and one of our windows in our living room looks into the coop. The coop was an old dog area we turned into a chicken house. Our guineas and roosters talk to us all the time, and I would really miss hearing them if we didn’t have them anymore. One of our guineas is particularity loud. Our female Chipmunk will stand on their hutch and look in the window and honk honk honk like she wants in. She also wakes up the roosters at all hours of the night by honking too. Our other two females are not this noisy. I have no idea why she won’t shut up, but I like it. I would miss all my noisy birds if we ever moved to a place where I couldn’t have them anymore.

4: I’m grateful for music. I can really get lost in good music. When I was still an active cello player, I would become competently adsorbed in the song I was playing. Now, this release has been transferred into listening to music. I consider my music to be a kind of therapy because of the emotional release and endorphins I get from listening to music I really like. I always listen to music when I do my Yoga, and I love allowing myself to dissolve into the music while I do my asanas (Yoga poses).

I’m planning my food better today, and taking back control over my appetite. I see my indulgences as something I can learn from rather than something I feel guilty about. No sense in working my self up over such a little thing.

So far 2011 has been wonderful. I’m taking my stress seriously. I am paying attention to how I react to my surrounding as circumstances I find myself in. I’ve never taken stress management as seriously as I do now, and I think most people need to pay much more attention to their stress. Especially women since they are so vulnerable to the physical consequences.

I’ve been enjoying reading other CRONies blogs about how they are progressing into the New Year, and I am so lucky to be part of such a great group. My food with come later on today…now off to enjoy life!