Yoga! and Sunshine! and Goal Reevaluation!

This morning I got up and did Bob Harper's Yoga for the Warrior. I haven't done yoga in ages and it shows. I don't think I've mentioned this, but I'm not super good about following workout dvds through once the stretching part starts. I get bored and have this idea that I can "shake it out" while I'm doing my other morning activities.

Worse than this, I never stretch after running. I basically run for an hour and then go straight to my desk and sit. Bad! I hope you're all better about stretching than I am.

Back to the dvd. This was my first time through it and I enjoyed it very much. It's a basic power yoga workout. Nothing crazy. Just what I expect from a yoga class and exactly what I was looking for. The whole workout is about an hour long. The music is more "pump you up" than "find your happy place" and Bob is his usual energetic self instead of getting all whackadoo yogi on you. I like that a lot.

I have to mention the sunshine. We've been having crappy weather for about a week so I was so happy to see sunshine out my window this morning. On clear days my commute to work involves a beautiful view of Mt. Rainier almost the whole way. I had to wear my sunglasses. It was glorious.

PS. To Meghan: what kind of activities are you interested in when you come to Seattle? There's a ton of stuff to do here. Music? Parks? Museums? Will you have a car or are you sticking to downtown? Will you have a babysitter at all or do these all need to be kid friendly activities?

Now onto goals. I got my race pictures emailed to me yesterday. The ones the professional race photographers take and then try to sell you. They've gotten good at keeping you from just copying the sample off their site or I'd show you one. Anyway, ladies, I look pretty good. They're race pictures, so I'm making crazy faces and sometimes it looks like my leg is cut off at the knee, but my arms are toned, my hips are slim, and my legs are muscular.

I still feel like my gut is a problem area, but it's coming along as far as muscle tone under the flab. I could also stand to lose a bit of fat on my arms. Overall, though, I'm feeling good.

On any given day I weight between 130 and 133 pounds and my body fat percentage is about 22% according to my scale. This hasn't changed for a few months. It's a healthy weight and a healthy body fat percentage, I realize, but I'd really love to not have my belly folding over my jeans when I sit. I want to get my body fat percentage down to 20%.

I also want to not have every minute of my day consumed by exercise and food preparation/obsession. I have other interests that I want to pursue. I also want to get a decent amount of sleep each night. At least 7 hours.

So what to do? I'm rededicated to my one dessert a week goal. I'm looking into the calorie cycling idea that Cheryl mentioned a couple of days ago. Other than that, I don't know. More protein and less carbs? More or less cardio? More or fewer calories? Strength train 5 days a week moderately or harder three times? I'm coming across a lot of conflicting information and I'm not sure what to do.