Fitness Regime: April 21, 2014

Ok, so my sister thinks that I should own a weighing machine because it acts like a motivator to see our progress everyday. But I beg to differ. 

On the contrary, the scales may act as a hindrance cos we may start to obsess on how much we are losing everyday rather than focusing on the regime more. We need to work out everyday without fail and eat right and weigh in every weekend. That way the focus is consistent with your goal. And I had also learnt that the scales don’t really reflect the correct progress when checked on a daily basis. Some days you may lose more and some less depending on your workout that day and your food in-take. So I still prefer weekly checks.

I realized a few months ago that I had Coccyx pain (tailbone pain). I drive a bike to and from work and over the weekends too. Maybe during the drive I am guessing this could be the reason behind the tailbone imbalance. After googling for a bit I found that three asanas help to alleviate the pain to a large extent.

The Yoga Asanas (postures) to reduce Coccyx pain:

1. Salabhasana – Locust Pose

2. Artha Salabhasana – Semi Locust Pose

3. Bhujangasana – Cobra Pose

Incidentally these three asanas also help in burning belly fat. So that’s double the advantage for me!

Fitness Regime: April 16

Wow! April 16th has been the most eventful day on WordPress. I have many followers and earned quite a few likes for my latest blog post. I would like to thank each of you for encouraging my efforts. Any help in this regard is always appreciated.

Apart from Surya Namaskar, I have been working on some Pranayama as well. This is supposedly good for the core muscles. It burns the fat and helps flatten our tummy.

It’s a slow start with breathing exercises cos firstly, it gets monotonous.

Secondly, you can’t hold your breath the same way on the 10th cycle as effectively as you did on the 1st. But I am sure as the fat starts burning we will get better at it. It’s an uphill battle and I have been looking forward to it.

A mirage called fitness

I have been dealing with weight issues my whole life. I had been a healthy weight only about thrice in my life. 

I had been to the UK on work and I saw people of all kinds, like back home. People who were morbidly obese, overweight and skinny. But I also saw men and women who were committed to their diet, fitness programs and jogging groups. It was the first time I ever saw people actually jogging in the snow. I mean up-close. And they would wear these clothes that athletes wear on sprints. Maybe their jog would actual work up a sweat after a mile or two but come on, in the snow?

I was amazed at my colleagues at this organisation. They would come cycling to work and they had their biking gear on and everything. They would change into work attire afterwards, and come evening, they would promptly change back to biking gear and head off into the horizon…:D

I was walking more too when I was there. I had to catch the free company shuttle about 1.5 Miles from my boarding. And the house was on a high hill. When I got back I was about 10kg lighter. But it didn’t take long for me to regain that weight.

I jeopardize my own fitness regime for reasons unknown. It’s as if I don’t like being thin…which I do, I want to be able to go to a party not wondering if people are talking about my weight, I want to be able to shop for outfits that fit me, I want to have a flat tummy without having to hide it with my dupatta. Sometimes the way I procrastinate the day’s regime makes me wonder if I am my own worst enemy. I wonder if I found myself a buddy who is going through the same I would find myself back on the wagon. But I don’t know anyone who is. Self-motivation is proving hard to come by.

Nonetheless, I am not giving up. I have been sick for a few days now. I have been using the elliptical and doing the Surya Namaskar and other Yoga Asanas, on and off these past couple of years after getting back from the UK. But now, I have pledged I will get in better shape. Let’s see if I can keep this up.

Keep checking back here to know how I am doing!

Tell it like it is – Advantage men

Pic Courtesy Morten Hammer (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mortenhammer/)

It’s always the same. If the girl is a victim of a public humiliation comments always follow that the girl may have something to do with it. They say she may have dressed, talked or behaved provocatively to force the mob to misbehave with her.

Take the recent Guwahati incident for example. The girl was publicly humiliated by 11 men and the others just stood there and watched the drama. None of them did anything to stop the incident. She was being dragged by her hair, her clothes being pulled away in front of a big crowd. The media cameraman was recording the whole thing at one point even angling the camera according to the perpetrators’ directions. Although it’s also true that if not for that footage the men would not be recognized and put behind bars. But it is also a fact that the girl will have to be a victim every day from now on. Her life is forever tarnished by this incident. Imagine her family’s plight. They have to bear the repercussions. The whole nation watched in disgust. Who are these men who anointed themselves as the moral police? This was not a sole incident. Instances like these have been happening around the upbeat cities in India like Bangalore and Mumbai these past few years too. But Guwahati was hailed as a woman-friendly city.

Men on the streets are always looking for opportunities to eve-tease or grope women. They are either cat-calling or walking strategically close to a woman so as to brush against them. In buses they stand close to women with no space to move away and do unspeakable things. In spite of this most women keep mum and walk on without so much of a protest or retaliation.

The minor girl from the Guwahati incident was man-handled and groped in public for the sole reason that she had the guts to retort to a remark made by a passer-by. The MEN could not stand it so they start to pull at her hair and her clothes to “teach her a lesson” for dressing like she did. If she hadn’t replied back this incident would never have happened. Since she chose to do that the men couldn’t stand it.  They had to show her the consequence of being a girl in a male chauvinistic country where Taliban-like rules are still being imposed on women to this day.

Who made these men moral police?  Why did no one come forward to help the poor girl while she was unashamedly beaten, groped and humiliated in front of other men? Why didn’t they think for a moment if they would have half the mind to behave this way if it were a girl from their family? They say she dressed improperly that’s why she deserved to be treated that way?  Why do we have to wait till the police get there to control the mob?

But I tell you even if the girl were dressed from head to toe the general public would still blame the girl. I can still remember that evening well. I was taking ICWA foundation coaching for a couple of months in Secunderabad. I had to walk through a bus complex and take a shortcut through the railway track to the bus stop where I would catch the bus to where I resided. I would usually see a gang of guys in the bus stop that would follow some girls to the bus stop and also wait to get into the same bus the girls did. Never in my mind would I have imagined them to target me as I always wore clothes from head to toe. I never acted promiscuous and never attracted attention to myself.

One evening I was walking to the bus stop and saw one of the guys following me and calling me from behind “Hey sushmita…wait up”. I increased my pace and tried my best not to show him I was scared to death. I was just looking for an opportunity to approach the bustling road and he would get off my back. But that wasn’t to happen. When I reached the road full of people I was a little relieved. But as I kept walking toward the area where my buses usually stop, out of the sea of people I saw the gang emerge one by one. This seemed too unreal. For a moment I felt like it was a bad dream which would end any moment now. I had a thought that if I stood by a woman they wouldn’t approach me. But there too they all stood closeby and started passing remarks about my dress, the way I looked and they also went to the length to call me arrogant cos I was not responding to them in anyway.

When it got too much, I thought I should not stay mum or they would do the same to another girl another day. So I went to the personnel there and told him what had gone on. The first question he asked me was “Did you say anything?” He then put me on a bus and asked the driver to drop me mid way as the bus would go another route from there. I got in and was thankful I was getting away from that gang. I finally took a bold step against eve-teasers.

What the driver and conductor of the bus were saying bring tears to my eyes to this day. Not out of sadness but out of frustration.  Those words were so judgemental. They were saying the boys would never have bothered with me if I hadn’t provoked them in some way. What do they know? Why make such remarks? Why are women always blamed?

It is, and I think it always will be, advantage Men.

Birthday Card for Ravz

Birthday Card for Nowshad

Green

Now and then it raises its head
No matter how careful I tread
Round and round in the whirlwind
Green and green I bled

The monster is taking me over
Its arrival I had so dread
I wanted to be sober
But it got me drunk instead

High on my new avataar
I soared on thoughts that it fed
Engulfed in its muddy hue
Green, just green I bled!!!

My Music and Me!

When life threw challenges
you stood by me
Stressed or forlorn
my solace you would be

If anguish hits me hard
I turn to you
Never disappointed
To me you remain true

It was always you and I
In pain or pleasure
My source of strength
When I’m shook beyond measure

Whilst busy with
All that life brings forth
You are all I think about
For what it’s worth

Keep me grounded
keepin’ it real
For I get carried away
By life’s appeal

If I were stranded
With nowhere to go
I’d pick you for company
Forever more!!!

Happy Birthday Aunt!

Made this birthday Card for my eldest aunt. She has been my favorite since she joined our family after she got married to my uncle. I used to spend a lot of time at their house. SO have a pretty good bond with her. I liked the final outcome of the card a lot, if I may say so myself.
Oh by the way, the words are not by me. I found them on the net. 😀

Me and Charan

It’s kind of funny and exaggerated for some people what I am about to narrate. But that’s my life….although erratic there is a lot of planning that goes into it too. It’s always the same. I save up all my leaves at my workplace for this. I don’t visit my parents cos I don’t want my in-laws to say “you’ve just been there…so…NO”. So I apply leave for all the days my brother is in town for.
My brother, Charan, visits India once in every 2 or 3 years. Since I save up on offs at work, I inform my parents-in-law about staying at my parents’ for the time he’s visiting. This year I did not get much resistance from my MIL. Off I went with my son to my parents’.

It’s always the same I go to the airport with my Dad. Mom stays at home waiting for her son to come home. Usually his plane lands in the middle of the night. Dad and I along with kids if they tagged along, wait for him to come out of the sliding doors. Our eyes won’t look away till he shows up. You would wonder where all that angst would be when he is in the safety of his home in Texas. We finally see him heading out of the customs check. We are all excited, the kids are jumping in joy cos they can go home and all the restrictions we put on them wouldn’t apply at home. 🙂 cos all this while they would be walking all over the airport with us wondering where they were at or pulling us to the vendor which costs 4 times more than the coke we get out of the airport premises. Anyway we say a few pleasantries, Charan, Dad and me. He would ask the little ones all the questions they can answer and keep them interested.

He has this special knack of talking to any age group with the relevant topics of conversation. With kids its school, friends, favorite sport, cartoons he even improvs a story for them with voices for each character and everything. Kids enjoy it a lot and they keep thinking of the last story their uncle narrated till his next visit. With me it’s mostly silliness cos he can be himself totally with me and I with him.

Anyway, we finally get home and it would be like he had never left. Like I had never gotten married and left the place. I am suddenly transported into my childhood when I’m around him. I remember things which I had stashed away in my brain while I went about my life as a wife, mother and work colleague. Things that had happened, when we were little. Things I did, like how I would complain of a stomach ache always when I would lose in the two-player game of cricket we would play on our terrace. How I had not stopped him walking into the overhead tank’s wall when we were playing the blindfold game, as a result of which he was lucky his eye escaped getting hurt by a fraction, no thanks to me. And the list goes on. I was not such a good girl then I guess. I would always take advantage of his infinite patience with me and my tantrums.
He lets me know some good TV shows I need to watch on the internet (cos they aren’t aired in India). Also on the net he plays me some good songs he wants me to listen. He cooks us some of his favorite dishes. They really taste very good actually. Mom anyway tries to cook him his favorites and I try to cook something for him whenever opportunity arises, what with my sons exams and dropping him off and picking him up from school.

This time around there was the Cricket World Cup going. Charan came just in time for the finals. So Charan, Dad and I had loads of fun enjoying each and every match. Watching India win the world cup was a bonus. He accompanied me when I went shopping for a DigiCam. He ended up paying for it, shushing me with the all powerful brotherly love. Can’t say no to that now, can I???
That’s why I am so protective of the things which he bought me; Inspiron and Cybershot. My two priced possessions apart from my iPod Nano. I wouldn’t share them with anyone, except under unavoidable circumstances.

Finally at the end of the two weeks he is here it is time for him to return to his hometown. Again I accompany Dad to the airport. I would like to think I am the voice of reason when he is overcome by overwhelming emotion over Charan leaving yet again.
When Charan is here, time just flies. No one tries to give up their usual routine to spend time with him while he is here. It’s almost as if the sky would fall if they would skip one of the chores they have normally every day. That’s why they find his visit unfulfilling as they couldn’t spend time with him satisfactorily.

After he leaves, it’s like he was never here. It seems as if it was all a dream. Life goes back to the usual stuff. Waking up, getting Jay ready for school, getting ready for work, busy day at work, coming home. It is as if I hadn’t spent two whole weeks in my brothers company, full of laughter, full of joy, full of good times. The hangover is there sometimes when I call Jay “annayya”..LOL
Why does life have to be this complicated??? Waiting to see someone so dear, for so long. Making do with photographs and reliving the moments past. Can’t imagine what it must be like for our parents.
Well, let’s hope and pray that our loved ones are happy and successful just where they are.