Yoga Pose of Death

My post-baby body is reminiscent of a Jell-O commercial, minus Bill Cosby rolling his eyes around and spouting gibberish.  Also, Jell-O is tasty stuff.  Post-baby body?  Not so yummy.

My stomach has been looking one of two ways...elephant skin-ish or taut like an over-blown balloon about to pop.  One taco too many and my belly becomes seven months pregnant all over again, without the fun baby to blame for the extra gut.

On the other hand, if I eat less, my stomach deflates and looks downright ghoulish, like a serial killer came to me with a skin suit he made with his victims and said, "Here, you could totally work this!"  Basically, it's a belly button nestled inside a glob of unbaked bread dough.  Unlike the Pillsbury dough boy, when you poke me there, I burst into sobs.

The thought of exercising my flab away has been not unlike watching a before and after Jenny Craig commercial.  I'm Jennifer Hudson, once chubby and unable to wear the latest runway fashions and then POOF!!  Here I am, skinny Jennifer Hudson!  Size 0!  Look how fabulous I look with so much less of me to look at!  Yes, I dream the dream of becoming a size 0...only because once I get that skinny, I can revel in people shoving sandwiches in my face, begging me to eat something because I look ghastly.

So I began a very unregulated routine of walking with a skinny, young friend who makes me go up and down the steepest hills and goads me into going one more block which ultimately turns into seven and then WHAT THE HELL I AM DYING.  I planned on walking every night until I saw a marked improvement.  I ended up walking one night, after which I was so sore I could barely move the next day.  This was a problem, since I have this big baby at home I have to occasionally lift onto the diaper table.  My back wasn't having none of it, y'all.

So after a few days of sobbing into the couch cushions and waiting for the pain to subside, I felt well enough to sit up and do some stretches.  It seemed harmless enough.  I even tried a few of the yoga poses I had tried ten years ago at a class.

There's this pose called The Cobra that is supposed to be the easiest pose.  If you look in any yoga book on the shelf at a bookstore, this pose will be listed as EASY, BEGINNER, POSE #1.  That's the pose that took out my back in one crack of the vertebrae.

The minute I tried to stand up from The Cobra, I felt something creak out of place.  As it happened, it was my pride dying inside me.  I was in so much pain, I could only move when assisted by my husband, who looked genuinely concerned.  Who was going to take care of his big, heavy baby while he was at work, after all?  Ugh.  Even my ego was too tired and old to feel wounded.

I got a text from my young, skinny friend that night asking if I was ready for a walk.  The conversation on my phone went a little something like this:

SHE: Want to walk?

ME: I threw out my back.

SHE: How did you throw out your back?!

ME: I did a yoga pose.

SHE: HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!