G - 31st August 2006

Lunch
Coffee w/ splenda and 1/2 & 1/2 (3 carbs)
Eggs - 3 (1 carbs)

Lunch
Cesear Salad (6 carbs)

Snack
Cheese (1 carb)

Dinner
Low carb mint patties, 2 (0 carbs)
Beef (0 carbs)
Alcohol and limes (2 carbs)

Total Carbs - 13
Activity - None

:: Hair Band :: a poem by Teri Jo

I need a hair band - not GnR or White Snake
A band to keep the hair from my face
Gayatri has one

I need a magazine to read
Gayatri gives me one

I need an island in the stream
Gayatri is one

G - 30th August 2006

Lunch
Coffee w/ splenda and 1/2 & 1/2 (3 carbs)
Eggs - 3 (1 carbs)

Lunch
Carne Guisado (1 carbs)
Lettuce, 1 cup (1 carbs)

Snack
Samosas, dal (20 carbs)
Cheese, 1/2 oz (0 carbs)

Dinner
Beef (0 carbs)

Total Carbs - 26
Activity - Running (fartleks, tee hee)

G - 29th August 2006

Breakfast
Coffee w/ splenda and 1/2 & 1/2 (3 carbs)
Eggs - 2 (0.75 carbs)
Sausage (0 carbs)

Lunch
Chipotle salad (14 carbs)

Snack
low carb mint patties (0 carbs)
low carb peanut butter cup (0 carbs)

Dinner
Salmon (0 carbs)
Chicken (0 carbs)
Broccoli and cauliflower salad (4 carbs)

Total Carbs - 21.75
Activity - running

G - 28th August 2006

I waited too long and ended up eating a brunch type meal. Bad. I just got so hungry I didn't want to deal with food. Eventually, I had to force myself to eat.

Breakfast/Lunch
Coffee w/ splenda and 1/2 & 1/2 (3 carbs)
Eggs - 3 (0.75 carbs)
Sausage (0 carbs)
Goat cheese (0 carbs)

Snack
Tea w/ splenda and 1/2 & 1/2 (2 carbs)
Roast beef (0 carbs)
Mayo (0 carbs)
Mustard (0 carbs)

Dinner
Broccoli, cauliflower, sausage stir-fry (8 carbs)
low carb mint patties (0 carbs)

Total Carbs - 14
Activity - Running, I was fast baby!! (for about 16 mins)

G - 27th August 2006

Breakfast
Coffee with splenda and 1/2 & 1/2 (3 carbs)
Eggs - 2 (0.75 carbs)
Sausage (0 carbs)

Lunch
tofu and peas (5.7 carbs)
Black chana (8 carbs)

Snack
sugarfree Jello (0 carbs)
Half and Half (1 carb)

Dinner
Rib (0 carbs)
Bbq sauce (2 carbs)
low carb toffee (0 carbs)
low carb mint patties (0 carbs)


Total Carbs - 20.45
Activity - None

G - 26th August 2006

Snacks
Clif Nectar bar (27 carbs)

Breakfast
Coffee with splenda and 1/2 & 1/2 (3 carbs)
Eggs - 2 (0.75 carbs)

Lunch
Chicken (3 carbs)
Creamed spinach (4 carbs)
Green beans (3 carbs)

Dinner
Mojito w/ no sugar (8 carbs)
Beef stroganoff (10 carbs)
Kale (3 carbs)

Total Carbs - 62 (YIKES!!)
Activity - Long run

But they'll never take our freedoooooooom

Scenario:
Big boobs,
Athletic bra
'Long' (it was for me) run

Apparently, on a long run sometimes the boobies want to escape. From the top. Then you have to push them down while you run in public. Classy.

Complications

Typical scenario:
time 0: Get ACL recontruction
+ 2-4 months: start rehabilitation with PT
+ 4-8 months: Test the knee (comprehensive physical test that involves stressing and loading the
knee to make sure that it can handle all kinds of movement)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had my surgery during winter break so when school started I was almost off my crutches. 2 months into my spring semester, I started to get back pain. One day, a sneeze started shooting pains down the leg that had had surgery. I panicked and saw a chiropracter (who made it worse). Eventually, I found a PT that speciallized in back troubles. Through that I found out that I had scoliosis (not too bad) and a pinched nerve (BAD!).

Therapy helped end that pain and I went back to PT for my knee. At this point it had been almost 7 months when I finally tested. I didn't pass the test! My knee wasn't strong enough to do lunges for three minutes. So I went back two months later and tested again. Finally!! I passed!

What did yoga do now?

Although losing weight did contribute to this, I believe that yoga is the singular reason I am a happy person (generally speaking) today.

Having lost all this weight (at that point, it was a loss of 35 lbs) and that too excruciatingly slowly has been quite a lesson. I have had to be patient but also not focus on other's progress but my own. No jealousy, no competition.
Yoga, as a practice, is inherently self-centered. That is not say that one can't be competitive in it. I know far too many people (ok, one) that have hurt themselves not realizing that headstands have to be learnt. That being said, I am not competitive by nature (I think), so yoga allowed me to focus on my progress and not my relativity to other's abilities. This made me capable of simply being proud of my achievements and not be envious of other's.

G - 24th August 2006

Breakfast
Coffee with splenda and 1/2 & 1/2 (3 carbs)
Eggs - 2 (0.75 carbs)
Bacon - 3 slices (0 carbs)

Lunch
Tuna salad w/ no veggies (0 carbs)

Dinner
Paneer w/ tomato onion sauce (14 carbs)
Tea w/ half and half (1 carb)

Total Carbs - 19
Activity - None but I did get a great massage

Changes

I had been working in Austin for about 9 months when I realized that I was putting on weight. That's when the diet and exercise regiment began (It was the 5th of May, 2002/3/?). My goal was to drop 45 lbs. That would bring me to the most I could weigh and still be healthy for my height. I started with yoga. That first day when I got done and stepped out, I knew I wanted to do this for as long as I could. Since it needed only a change of clothes and no special shoes, I found it convenient and that helped me stick with it. But it wasn't easy. The first day I tried yoga, it was hatha, gentle and loving, it was 'easy'. But after that first day, all the yoga I practiced was the more aerobic variety (called flow or hot or sport and it's more traditional cousin, Ashtanga). This was hard. My body wasn't used to handling my weight and there were days when I just wanted to stop and walk out. I don't know what kept me going but yoga changed the way I think. I'll explain in a bit.

6 months later I added Kickboxing then a year later Vale Tudo. I even ran a 1 or 1.5 miles once in a while. I don't think I had ever felt stronger. One of the best things I ever heard was from Sandeep. He said that he wanted to start fights just so that I would be able to step in.

The combination of kickboxing and yoga were great. I dropped weight even when I was building muscle and getting stronger. However, adding in Vale Tudo might have been, in many ways, a big mistake. I lost track of my goals at that point. It stopped being about losing weight and became about the color (or stripe) of the belt I was wearing. I tried to tell myself that I was still building muscle but if that had been the case I should have noticed size or measurement changes, both of which had also stopped happening. I wasn't eating well anymore because I had convinced myself that I would burn it off. I did burn what I ate off but not what I was carrying, my weight plateaued 10 lbs short of my goal.

Then during VT one night, I got chopped wrong (ironically by a guy at my level or maybe just a level below me). I thought it was a sprain at first but the MRI showed ACL and MCL tears. I didn't have insurance at the time so I decided to see a physical therapist before a doctor. He suggested weight lifting and running while waiting for reconstruction.

3-5 months later Sandeep and I got married. Thanks to the PT I was in amazing shape (sans an ACL). I was also my lightest at 8 lbs short of my goal. Then that December I got ACL reconstruction surgery and things changed a bit. Literally.

G - 23th Aug 2006

Breakfast/Lunch
Coffee with splenda and 1/2 & 1/2 (3 carbs)
Eggs - 3 (2 carbs)
Bacon - 4 slices (0 carbs)

Snacks
Walnuts + Macademias (2.3 carbs)

Dinner
Pepper steak (14 carbs)

Total Carbs - 21.3
Activity - Running