I just realized it's been 14 days since I restarted my yoga practice.

For those of you just joining me, I'm a 34-year-old, tall, fat, and (my husband says) beautiful woman who started doing yoga about 20 years ago, but stopped about 3 years ago. Who knows why I stopped - I think I was just overwhelmed (I was planning a wedding, my father was dying, I was starting a PhD program, I was working full time... just a few minor things going on) and needed to kick something out of my life that I had control over. It wasn't the best decision in the world, but it's what I felt gave me a little bit of space at the time.

Now I have taken the plunge back into yoga. I've done yoga almost every day for the last 14 days - and even the two days I missed my full practice, I still did stretches and certain yoga poses throughout the day. Blogging here has helped to keep me honest, both in terms of doing my practice and acknowledging when I slip.

But I want to talk about the fruits of my first two weeks of labor on this project.

1. Flexibility.

I am a pretty flexible person by nature, but a sedentary lifestyle and age have taken some of that away. Well, after just two weeks of daily yoga, I'm already a lot more flexible. I can not only touch my toes, but I can grab them. I can not just touch the floor when I do a standing forward bend, but I can lay my fingers flat on the ground alongside my feet (not the palms, just the fingers, but still!).

2. Body awareness.

My belly is big. It gets in the way. My boobs are big, too. They definitely get in the way. But yoga is giving me more body awareness. I'm learning how to be graceful again, how to work with my body instead of against it. I'm learning again how to contract certain muscles so that other muscles release. For instance, when I contract my lower belly during a forward bend, it allows my back muscles to release more, and I can go more deeply into the bend. Same with downward-facing dog.

3. Body appreciation.

I wanted to call this something like "being centered in my body," but it's really more than that. I'm learning to really appreciate my body more. I am enjoying its fullness and feeding myself more healthfully. Am I losing weight? Not really (well, if you must know, I lost 4.5 pounds), but that's not the goal of all this. I love my body, fat and all, and if I lose weight that's fine, but I'm not focusing on that right now, because right now it's just about the yoga practice. Am I getting healthier? Yes, definitely. Better circulation, more flexibility, more strength, better spatial awareness, better balance. It's all good.

This isn't a new year's resolution, it's something I've been planning on doing for a long time. The new year just provided a good opportunity to start fresh and easily keep track of my progress.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend.