Lisafr

I eat mostly vegetarian and always have trouble to keep my weight. I need a lot of food (I am probably an exception, because I really have to eat something before I start my yoga, otherwise I will be very hungry before even finishing the warming up) and especially when I started, I had to add more proteins to my diet. I noticed my practice was improving a lot when I did that.
Tofu, tempeh, seitan are obvious choices I guess, but it is also worthwile to eat less pasta made out of white (refined flour), white rice, noodles etc. Instead you could look at lentils, beans, chickpeas, wholewheat flour chapatis, quinoa (wonderful as risotto and full of proteins!!), mixing some nuts into your food etc.
I got many great ideas from the book ‘How to cook everything vegetarian’, written by New York Times journalist Mark Bittman.

Hi Gabrielle,
Yeah thanks for your lively image, that really helped me to stop that!! I am always trying to be very conscious of my problem. When I do Ardha Chandrasana, I always lift my toes off the floor (both when going to the sides and also with the backbend). Just to avoid that I have my weight in my toes and to be sure that it is in my heels. The thing is, whenever I try to do awkward pose outside of the yoga room wearing normal shoes, I am able to do it fine, even with my weight in my heels because my heels are probably a couple of millimeters higher than my toes. I can only go down 10 cm now in the yoga room, after that my knees go in an feet fan outside, then my heels want to lift…
According to my mom I was diagnosed with achilles tendons that are too short when I was a child. I also had tendonitis in the achilles tendons several times. On the other hand: my achilles tendons are not too short to keep my feet flat on the floor, so I will keep on trying to stretch them. I also don’t keep my heels together when they ask to keep toes and heels together, because of my fanning feet. I read that in your Masterclass and I am convinced that it is better for me to have a small space between my heels when my toes are together, the alignment of my knees is so much better that way. So I am not 100% sure where the problem comes from: achilles tendons, pronation, both? I will be patient though and keep you up-to-date. I already said it 10 times, but want to thank you again because as a ‘home yogini’ without a studio nearby, you and your book are my teachers!

Hello Gabrielle

I think this may be the right place to ask my own question. Like I mentioned before, I have learnt about everything I know from your Master class, cd and this forum. There are no Bikram/hot yoga studios where I live in South America. I think I am doing very well and I am enjoying the yoga very much. My only problem seems to be that I don’t make any progress in the first part of awkward pose. My feet are also quite flat, my knees tend to come together and I can’t go down very much without lifting my heels. I know I am not supposed to lift my heels, so I don’t go down any further.I also have to mention that I usually like to walk on tiptoes. Yoga really helped me to keep my feet down on the floor.
First I thought that I will have to be patient, gradually my legs would be coming down with my heels on the floor. But..it seems that I am still at exactly the same point where I was when I started about 8 months ago! I did the exercises you mentioned (lengthening the muscles of my inner thighs) and I can do them well, but still it doesn’t seem to help me to come down more.
The only way I can come down a bit more -outside the yoga room- is by having my hands on a table and then bend my knees. In that way I can keep my feet flat on the floor when coming down. Then I finally also feel my muscles there! In the yoga room, I never feel my muscles doing anything in this first part of the pose, because I can’t come down enough without lifting my heels from the floor.

Sorry for the long introduction, just hope I am clear enough. My questions:
-Should I just continue like this and be patient?
-Could I not lift my heels from the floor a little bit? It gives me the feeling that at least I am using the muscles that I am supposed to use, or am I wrong?
-Do you have any other recommendations?

I want to mention that I can easily go deeper for example in eagle pose (when there is some pressure, I can go down. Same when using the table or wearing shoes with a small heel, then I don’t have any problem.)

And for the rest: thanks so much again for your wonderful books and information!

Lisa

I have also been trying to wash my hair less frequently, about every 5-6 days.
Gabrielle, I was wondering…when you are mentioning that you are washing your hair every 5 days, do you still rinse it with water after yoga practice? Or do you not wash/rinse it at all during these 5 days?

I would like to try that, but am a bit worried about all the sweat accumulating in my hair. Sounds really a bit unappealing. On the other hand, the idea of washing my hair without shampoo didn’t appeal to me neither and it appeared to be a great decision!

And we have a small heater that has a ‘continuous heating’ setting which will not stop heating at a certain temperature. We have bought it in the Netherlands. The brand name is Bionaire.