It's the first full day of enLIGHTen -  a 9 week program that combines yoga and chakras and better lifestyle choices that will make me and the class lose a few pounds and love our incredible bodies a lot more.

To be honest, I could give up my beloved coffee mochas and do nothing else, and I'd lose the 9 pounds in a snap, but for the past few weeks while I've been waiting for enLIGHTen to begin, the very thought of giving up my morning run to Sip! makes me afraid. What would happen if I just didn't show up at the door as soon as it opened, and get my first swallow in before my early morning yoga class? Would I still be able to teach?

Sigh. Being a yogi means I'm going to have to tackle that attachment at some point, but not today. I bought a shiny new 16 ounce Tervis tumbler and put the big 24 ounce one away. I've got plenty of other healthier choices to work on, and if I only lose 5 pounds, well, close enough.

I don't diet anyway. I don't like to suffer. I like pleasure. I like to add things in when I'm working on weight, so I have less space for things that aren't serving. Good things, fresh and beautiful things that I don't give myself enough of, like water, and tea, and a squirt of lemon on everything, and the full 5 servings of fruit every day. And I give up things I don't care about - the space filler. I stop buying it, I buy better things. I downsize my plate, and I take care of my whole life balance things, which means I walk more and write more and connect more, and chill out in front of a movie eating ice cream less.

So that's the strategy for the whole first grounding week - we are supposed to nurture ourselves, take care of our feet and legs. We add in good things, eat lots of protein and red foods, keep our food and self-care log, and select a smaller plate, bowl, and in my case, coffee cup, for the duration. I also cut out good-for-nothing salty snacks right away. That's pretty easy with this bucket of Brad's Raw Leafy Kale "vampire killer" chips beside me.

But I realized how much of my daily rocket fuel is coming from chocolate covered coffee with 2% milk - lots! I'm used to eating just fruit all morning, plus the mocha, and walking around with a belly full of milk and sugar, but today with the smaller cup, I could barely lift my arms, my energy was crashing all day. So if I'm cutting back on the manna, I can't skip meals or skimp on breakfast - I need more, not less, fuel to feel good on.

Tomorrow I'll add a hard boiled egg and a hand full of nuts to the morning fruit, and stop pretending I drink enough water and just drink it.

In my writing group a couple of weeks ago, Tambra asked us to write for 20 minutes about our favorite body part. This is what I wrote....

My favorite body part? I don't know what that is; I might have to sift through piece by piece until I figure it out. But among my earliest memories is this sentence - and I remember it well because I heard it relentlessly throughout my childhood: "Geez kid, you've got a bony bum!"

"Geez kid, you've got a bony bum!"

"Geez kid, you've got a bony bum" was the response most adults gave me as I wiggled and squirmed around with my sit bones digging into their thigh bones whenever I went to seek comfort from a lap. It turns out laps are only as warm, soft, and willing as the bum that sits upon them, as I learned and learned again each time strong hands lifted me up by the armpits and deposited me back on the ground.

I hate this bony, boyish bum! My mother's thin, square hips, flat bottom and short torso are offset by my dad's long legged leanness, and whichever one's gene pool provided the decent breasts - the only real give-away that a girl lives in this body. In the summer before 7th grade, newcomers again in another small town, the first group of kids we met commented on my sister and I as they rode off on their bikes into the setting sun. "Which one do you like?" Billy asked Pat, who replied, "They both seem ok to me, but I can't figure out why that kid has bigger tits then his sister."

Once Pat figured out I was a girl, he was pretty eager to get his hands on them, but my lower half still seems to be better suited to a prepubescent boy. It's impossible to find pants to fit this bum nicely; they are either too tight and ride way up, or too loose and droop down like I've just pooped in my diapers. Stretch pants and skirts fall straight to the floor if I don't literally tie them to me, and "gusset" or not - that crotch is unseemly most of the time.

It's the one body part I just can't get comfortable with. A tomboy anyway, I feel awkward even attempting to wear "girly clothes" and I am always conscious of that flat, non-existent, non-heart-shaped, non-pretty bum. It's my worst part. No question.

Except I'm kind of certain that I owe my career to it. That bony bottom, squirming on laps, also squirmed on hard wooden school chairs, church pews and the seats around the dining room table. Rolling off my sit bones and into the soft, thin, fatless layer of flesh behind them and collapsing into my curving low back was one strategy I took to find comfort, until my back ached with the effort of holding me, and I learned to squeeze my bony bum just hard enough to sit up straight, using my muscles, not my nonexistent fat, to cushion me.

That squeeze, that strength, that connection to the straight spine and pelvis that allowed me to sit without pain, is the foundation of the work that I do in the world. What a lucky bum!

If I sat on your lap today, you'd probably still tell me I have a bony bum, and drop me back to earth by the armpits, but I guess I'm going to have to love this bony little bottom after all.

What's your favorite body part?