words, words, words

On Saturday I completed day 90 of 90 straight days of yoga. Well, I do have a disclaimer. I missed one day at around day 49 because of a excruciating migraine that knocked me out for the whole day. If you have ever had a migraine, you will understand why going into several downward facing dogs was just not an option. Other than that one day, however, I never missed. I began this program back in late December because I wasn't feeling well enough to tackle tougher workouts. My thyroid condition was in the midst of a fluctuation and any time that happens, I need more rest than usual. Although yoga can be intense, it is also restorative and rejuvenating. I found this program on youtube and it was by an instructor that I had used before and trusted so I knew I was going to get solid routines. I set out a goal to complete 30 days of the 90 day program. 90 seemed really intimidating at the time so I broke it down for myself to make it more manageable. Once I reached day 30, I just kept go...

I was listening to a TED talk yesterday on my way home about Identities. I have to credit a lot of these with the ideas I get for these posts. They bring up such interesting topics! Various speakers were breaking down what identity means and how they identify themselves. I've been pondering this since I listened and I'm not sure what I think. When someone looks at me they see a 40 year old blonde white woman but that is such a fraction of who and what I am. My heritage is purely Lithuanian and my roots can be traced back generations but I have never personally stepped foot in Lithuania. Am I truly Lithuanian any more or less than someone who was born there and lived their whole life there? What about someone who was born in Lithuania but has parents who are French? Are they more Lithuanian than me who has only Lithuanian blood in my veins? I was born in Boston, does that make me a Bostonian even though I no longer call that my home?  It is very difficult to define identity. In ...

My last post about body shaming got me thinking about my own journey with body issues and how I found my way into the fitness industry.I have shared pieces of this story throughout this blog but this is more of a timeline of how this all started and I have to go back to childhood to tell the complete story.From a very early age, I remember sports and athletics being a big part life for the men in my family. My father was a former amateur baseball player and coached my older brothers baseball teams when I was in elementary school. My brother Jimmy was extremely athletic: he played baseball and basketball. In fact, he was the only white guy the guys in the neighborhood would let play pick up ball with them because he was that good. They called him Larry Bird. Some kind of sporting event was always on the TV in my house and as much as I tried avoiding it, I had no say. I was the youngest and no one listened to me. My mother on the other hand was the antithesis of athletic. I don't thi...

Body shaming is a phrase I hear quite a lot lately. Basically it means judging someone based on their size and body shape. As someone who has had a lifelong struggle with weight and body issues, this gets to me on a deep level. It is all over the internet. The most recent celebrity controversy involved a former model body shaming the new plus sized Victoria's secret swimsuit model saying that we shouldn't be showing unhealthy women on the cover of a magazine. There is an assumption that overweight equals unhealthy and skinny equals healthy and as a fitness and health professional, I can tell you that that couldn't be further from the truth in so many cases. First off, many women who lift weights are overweight on the BMI scale because muscle is denser than fat and ends up resulting in a higher body weight but having muscle is much healthier for the body than having excess fat. Some skinny girls have very little muscle and a lot of fat or they are considered underweight on t...