Blissology

Hi Everyone,

I am writing this for the Globe and Mail: coming up with two recommendations for her. Would love to hear your top two, plus what she could expect if she followed them for a month. Journal about it or talk on facebook posts if you want! ALOHA

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Below is the draft of the article. Ms. Calder’s life is about wining and dining and to not drink with dinner means she’s a killjoy. She says she needs a one-month yoga challenge to be camera-ready. From the draft of the article, I’m certain you’ll discover she may need something more or something else, entirely. I’m looking for two recommendations you could offer her. With these suggestions, would you indicate when the effects may be realized if she incorporated your advice, please? Thank you for your participation, Eoin.

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MS Laura Calder, 42, born in St. John, NB, At 39, she started Ashtanga yoga four times a week, but since Christmas production on two TV shows pulled her out of her routine, she’s been a slacker for six months. This week she’s picked her practice.

“My body loves it; it loves falling into a pattern it knows.”

Before Ashtanga, I used to do the Daily Method in Paris, which started in San Fran. It wasn’t aerobic, but repetitive movement, stretches, pumping up and down on toes and leg lifts, but my head never disappeared in that form of exercise.

I like to get absorbed in class and with yoga I get so much into myself. The other thing I like is yoga reminds of when I used to play viola in the orchestra for many years. It suited my personality so well. Everyone was doing some thing, but doing they’re own role, so yoga is perfect. I don’t have to throw a ball to anybody. We’re all in a room together, but my yoga doesn’t depend on the other person’s yoga. If you’re a creative mind and a lone wolf, it’s one of the few exercises you can get into in a group.

I fell out of my routine. I’m 10 pounds heavier than at the weight my body feels right. I don’t feel good. My body’s been abused by wining and dining in France. The yoga was also about trying to reduce stress. I feel like I have no centre or core. I’m base-less. If I’m going to be in Vancouver for two month, then France for two months, a month in New Brunswick and a week in Toronto, I don’t need an apartment so I put my things in storage a year and a half ago. I’m in a temporary place. I have to have more than one base, but I need a base.

My goal

To have a routine I can have for my whole life. At this stage, I’m done with running. My workout I say I’m starting it up, but I’m in Toronto only a week, so far I’ve done it twice. I go to Octopus Garden Yoga or Downward Dog while I’m in Toronto. But I’m trying to figure out how to do it more. I have a mat; I can do it myself, but everything I in my life is by myself; I have to be self-motivated to write a book or come up with a TV project or ideas. So much of what I do requires self-motivation that I want one thing where someone will tell me what to do. I can’t stand practicing to a DVD, I’m always looking up at a screen and it takes away from the peace I seek. It’s difficult to find a teacher who is without the young puppy kinda of way, which has its charm, but I want someone with lots of experience. Not because my yoga is great, it isn’t, but my mind in is a different place and I want something deeper, slower and focused, that’s why I like Diane Bruni.

In my travels, yoga is too aerobic and I don’t’ want rock music. I want to practice three times a week. I want to feel like I’m in a church because I like the feeling of certain studios that as soon as you step in there, you’re better. I never go to a gym, which is cold, aggressive with other-planetary-looking machines and I don’t feel well. I feel gross. But in a yoga studio it’s calm and peaceful. Walking I can do anywhere and cover three kilometres a day.

My lifestyle

I just shot a one-hour a pilot for a new French food travel show series. In December I was a judge on Recipe to Riches. Typically, I get up in the morning and make four cups of two kinds of black tea: King Cole from New Brunswick I never go anywhere without it and Pukka Detox tea, to cleanse and revive! I check emails and do business communication stuff with my manger in London, my editor here, my TV people in Montreal or New York, sometimes I do interviews.

Then I eat. I catch up with colleagues and connecting with people I work with. Next I do something physical because I need to work my mind and body. I do a big walk or go to yoga. I return to work.

I don’t follow a diet. My food is French-English style food. I won’t touch any meat that is not from a butcher I know because whatever the hormones are and the treatment of animals is I’m not going to have anything to do with it. I place my vote with my fork. If I do eat meat, I go to Sanagans in Kensington Market, a tiny place with saw dust on the floor with guys who used to be chefs.

I was just in France and everything I cooked made me look like a genius because of the ingredients. I come back here and I look hopeless. Vegetables here at the average grocery have no taste, which means the nutritional value is faint. Taste is the mirror of the nutritional value in foods.

Often I don’t eat breakfast. I eat lunch, which is pastas or salads made up of leftovers. Dinner I take seriously. I make lots of vegetables and do fish with a lemon sauce. Once a week I make red lentil soup (see recipe); it’s so healthy, cheap, fast, and good. At dinner parties I make a big jug of mint tea and serve it with candied ginger. Desserts I don’t eat unless people are over for dinner. I love poached pear.

My temptation

I don’t have a single food that I eat too much. My original motivation I’ve always had energy to burn off. I’m physical. If I don’t do something every day my mind goes crazy, which is why I ran every day in my 20s. I stopped running when I moved to rural France and started walking. I thought I can do this forever. Then, in Paris, I started the Daily Method and it’s hard work that it becomes addictive. Once I get into a rhythm I have to fight myself not to do it. It can become a full-time job. In Toronto, a few years ago, a friend told me about Octopus Garden and when I walked in, I looked at everyone’s body and I thought, ‘wow, it’d be nice to have legs like that.’ I was socked at how nicely yoga shaped a body; it gives you a naturally-fit healthy look.

My anthem

Silence.

My challenge

The hardest thing to find in my life is routine. Ironically, yoga is the one thing I could do to give myself routine. I can only blame myself. How can I make yoga part of my life, but not my whole life?