Since I entered my 3.0s I noticed that loosing weight has become a difficult task. I mean, when I was in my teen years or 20s I could easily loose a few pounds/kilos over the weekend. As I grew older that became harder. It is true that because I am a vegetarian since I was 16 years old and eat mostly good, healthy food helped me through the years but still I do enjoy eating some not so healthy food very often now and then. But to be honest, I think my metabolism was and still is still pretty good, but as time went by, with all the hormonal changes (I am at menopause now) and a thyroid not on its optimal self loosing weight is not that easy at all. The good new is gaining weight is not that easy either. At least not for me.
Anyways, last April I was leaving the church holding a service for a dear friend of mine who had passed away and boom, I fell on the ground hurting badly my left knee. The service was very moving and I was crying and distracted and did the stupid thing of walking-messaging someone and missed a step. (Note to self: Don’t ever walking-messaging! Ever!) Because of that I fell on an uneven cement damaging badly my knee’s skin. It was pretty ugly. Plus the knee was all bruised and painful. And it remained like that for months. I lost almost every layer but the one before exposing the bone. The skin healed very slowly. It took about two months to completely close the wound. And it left me an awful scar that is still being treated. I could not walk properly, I could not bend my leg for a long time. Meditation only happened laying down. Crossing my legs was an impossible task. No yoga. No Pilates. No exercise for 4 months. Plus I was scared to not have my knee back to its usual self.
The funny thing is that some months prior to it I was way too lazy to actually work out. I had no motivation to go to my Pilates classes or do some aerobic exercise. But as soon as I got injured I start to want to exercise. I missed it as I have never missed it before. Just because I could not, that is why I wanted. The good thing about it is that as soon as I felt ready to exercise I did start exercising. And so far I can tell you that now I am active every day of the week and I am enjoying it. For the very first time in my life. Not kidding. Exercising was always a burden for me. Now, not really.
But going back a few months ago… My journey back to shapeland restarted in New York City on August. I went to the city to spend 3 months as I usually do every year and since New York is a very demanding city in terms of walking and climbing lots of stairs I felt that I needed a little extra help to be back in shape. So I enrolled in a Pilates class near my apartment and started doing Kundalini yoga. You might think that Kundalini yoga is not that hard but rethink that. Specially because I decided to practice it almost everyday. And the Kriyas (the posture routines) are hard. Some more than others but still, hard. And they can put you back in shape, indeed. Trust me.
Pilates, Kundalini, app dating and walking through New York City did the trick for me: I was back in shape, feeling more energetic, noticing that my body was again flexible and stronger. Wahe Guru! However since one of the things I most enjoy doing in New York when I am there is eating, I was not able to loose the extra pounds/kilos I had gained previously. So I thought. Just when I went back to Rio (de Janeiro) on October that I started to see the scale back to my normal.
But then again, it was not that easy. At all. I needed some extra help this time. I explain: back in Rio I was still doing Pilates, practicing Kundalini yoga, started to walk for at least 40 minutes every single morning and I watched my diet. And still I was not able to loose any weight. I was extremely disappointed and worried cause what the heck was happening here. But since for the past 3 or 4 years I have been doing once a year those aesthetic procedures to address localized fat (abs, hip sides and my back), I decided to get the extra help from those procedures and see if it worked. My favorite non invasive procedure is the iLipo laser. This laser works wonders for my localized fat. You use 4 patches that is placed in the exact area you want to loose fat for some minutes and that will help to melt the fat over a few sessions. This time it took a little longer for me to see the results. But thankfully I did. I combined that procedure with a reshaping massage that also helps to loose localized fat and radiofrequency skin tightening to make sure the weight loss would not compromise the skin appearance of the treated areas. Of course I feel bad for not being able to loose the weight on my own cause I did everything right. It is a bit frustrating. But at the other hand it was a good thing because to be honest I wanted to keep some gained fat in some areas in my body and when you do loose weight you cannot choose where you are gonna loose from. Getting a little help from iLipo I can have a bit of control on that by using the laser in the chosen areas, therefore I lost weight where I wanted to.
So far I have lost almost 3 kilos of localized fat and hope to loose another 2 so I go back to my regular weight. Let’s see how it goes.
And so far as well I am currently in one of my best shapes ever. I feel the energy is here, the enthusiasm to exercise that never had been present is here, I am feeling flexible and strong (there is room for improvement here and here)… My knee is functional, no pain, almost a 100% and I am so thankful for it. In resume, I feel that this part of my life is flowing and this is pretty good.
And how about you, ladies? What do you actually do to be back in shape or keep your shape? I am dying to know.
Fab After 47 