Day 11: Exercise and Emotion

This morning started at 7am with the Green Mountain Morning Momentum class. I was so tired when my alarm went off at 6:30 and did not want to get up. Knowing my roommate and I had made a decision to get up for the class was motivation enough to get up and get ready.
Our first class of the day was "Stress Management: Limits and Boundaries Assertiveness Skills. We discussed the differences between passive, assertive, aggressive, and passive aggressive. Many women tend to be passive about their needs. They ignore their own needs because they don't want to ignore the needs of others. Passive women are more likely to consider what someone else wants or someone else's feelings before their own. Being aggressive can have it's appropriate time and place. Aggressive women are used to getting their way. Being assertive is a quality that many women need to work on. Being assertive is counting your own needs as you would count someone else's needs. We then learned the foundations of assertive skills. These include thinking about yourself in a positive way, accepting compliments, saying NO, and asking for what you want. If you do not think about yourself in a positive way, or respect yourself, this makes it hard for other people to respect you.
At 10:30, we took a Cardio Circuit Blast class. There were 10 cardio circuits set up around the room. These circuits included throwing an exercise ball at the wall, apple pickers (these work the obliques), steps, bicep curls with the resistance bands, jumping jacks on the fitball, hula hooping, etc. We did the circuits in one minute blasts and went around the complete circuit 3 times. This was a great class. There was no time to get bored because we were moving so fast between the circuits. I have tried since I arrived at Green Mountain to learn to hula hoop but I still haven't gotten the hang of it.

Icing our knees after a great circuit blast :)

Lunch today was grilled chicken, salad, and Waldorf salad. After lunch, we had a class called "Body Neutrality: Celebrate Your Body." The concept of celebrating our bodies is a hard concept for many women. If we can't celebrate our bodies, we should at least attempt to move from body hate to body neutrality. And if the word celebrate is too hard for us to embrace, we should at least attempt to appreciate our bodies. This class was very emotional for a lot of the women, including myself. One very hard concept that the psychologist brought up was the concept of feeling that we are enough. We shared some tears during and after this class. In many ways, the tears are a good thing. These classes bring up some very hard and uncomfortable feelings but by bringing them up and facing them, we can hopefully move on.
After this emotional class, it was time to get in some exercise. I changed into my bathing suit and we headed over to the pool for some water aerobics. I really enjoy the water aerobics. The fitness instructor gave me a list of exercises and I am hoping to be able to do these when the pool opens at my apartment.
Our snack today was another Green Mountain special called the Green Mountain smoothie. This had lots of good fruit like pineapples, bananas, and grapes. They add spinach to it and it is a gross green color. However, it doesn't change the taste of the smoothie and it is very good.
Our final class of the day was called "Fitting Exercise in Your Workday." We reviewed exercises that we can do at work, at our desks. I am planning to implement some of these into my workday. We also talked about how even if we can take 10 minutes out of a really busy day and take a walk outside, perhaps around the hospital, we can still get in some amount of cardio. The Green Mountain motto is "Something is ALWAYS better than nothing!"
Dinner tonight was salmon, asparagus, and wild rice. For dessert, we had strawberries and peaches. After dinner, we had a chance to watch a cooking demonstration that helped us learn how to raise the nutritional quality of our favorite foods. For example, we tasted muffins that had beans in them and quinoa past with vegetables. I am amazed at all the things you can use beans in.

Our dietician Robyn and the amazing Green Mountain cooks

Well, tomorrow is my last full day here at Green Mountain. My affirmation that I keep repeating in order not to be too sad about having to leave this amazing place is "I will make every moment meaningful. I will make this the best day possible."
I will close with a beautiful picture of the sunset over Okemo Mountain tonight. It was also snowing a little bit but I don't think you can see that in the picture.
Goodnight from Vermont!