For anyone whose confused, that's pronounced Cray-cray-scay-scay-, as in "Crazy" for the "Scale". This is because I have gone a little overboard with weigh ins. I officially weigh in on wednesdays, as does my lovely friend over at Vanity, thy name is flab. Weigh in Wednesdays (!) however, have turned into weigh in every days.
Here is one of the many weight loss dilemmas I think about. When does being conscious of your eating habits and progress become too much? When does it cross the line into something detrimental? Is it about the quantity of time and attention paid to something or is it the quality? Intention behind an action is more important than the time spent performing it.... I think.
I know from experience and all my diligent research, that weighing yourself every day not only leads to emotional upheaval, but also fails to actually give you an accurate picture of your progress. It's foolish. Sometimes it makes me pleased or excited, just as often it leads me to disappointment, confusion, fear, anxiety. A fun and familiar cocktail, no? So why do I do it?
Well...
Now I want to write about the Yoga Sutras. I'm about as qualified as James Spader, but here goes nothing.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are a series of concise lessons that bring yoga to light. It predates yoga poses and explains what yoga is and why/how doing it will change your life. The concepts are simple but they are SO HUGE that I know I will be studying them forever.
The heart, or what I perceive at this moment to be the heart of the Yoga Sutras is the notion that we are all led to suffering by a basic misperception of reality. We don't see things as they are, so we are perpetually 'laboring under a missapprehension' like Colin Firth apologizes for doing in Bridget Jones. This lack of clarity pushes us towards actions that make us suffer, like me weighing myself every stupid day.
There's a lot more to it than that, like what the misperception is exactly, but even this level of critical thinking is making my brain hurt, so forgive my incompleteness. See? I can't even come up with a better word than 'incompleteness'.
So how does one start seeing things more clearly? It seems to be all about stilling the mind. I am currently trying to grasp the concept of Nirodha, which describes both the state of a quiet mind and the process of quieting it. In the text I am currently studying, I found a passage that made me better understand how to handle the weight loss dilemma I mentioned I earlier. I'm not gonna summarize, just type:
"Nirodha is exercised by redirection. The real secret to making progress in Yoga lies in cultivating helpful habits while breaking harmful ones. The way to develop new habits is the purposeful redirection of attention. ... Every time we disconnect our attention from an unwanted temptation or habit and redirect it to something beneficial to our growth, we will have gained a little more mastery over our minds."
--Inside The Yoga Sutras, Reverend Jaganath Carrera
So, here is the litmus test for weight loss strategies. Is what I'm doing right now a purposeful redirection of attention? Or more like a mindless dash towards some kind of instant gratification?
Just cause... Why don't you purposefully redirect your attention to James Spader and Michelle Pfeiffer killing it in Mike Nichols' highly underrated Wolf?
