We’re using a unique recipe: local chefs, bakers, and sommeliers with yoga imported from California. Alice, my close friend for over 20 years, is an award-winning chef and will lead our food adventures. In Milan we’ll gather at her acclaimed, farm-to-table restaurant that she operates with her partner, Danillo. The next day we’ll all ride up to the village of Fobello, a corner of Northern Italy rarely visited by Americans. The recently-remodeled, boutique hotel offers hiking trails, a Jacuzzi, a sauna, and memorable meals each day.

Each morning I’ll teach my blend of asanas, movement, and deep relaxation. During a retreat we move beyond everyday aches and pains. Daily yoga excavates stiffness, builds strength, and enlivens our senses. The classes will be suited for all experience levels. I only require curiosity, a sense of humor, and willingness explore awkward positions. That’s what yoga is, right?

In the afternoons we’ll learn to cook risotto, visit a local bakery, or tour a winery. There will be plenty of unscheduled time for hikes, naps, or curling up with a book. Basically, whatever it takes to build an appetite for the next meal.

I couldn’t ask for a better team to lead this trip. Alice and Danillo will be our local hosts, wine aficionados, and cooking experts. Ben Crosky of Sol Yoga Trips brings his expertise as a retreat organizer. Some cool folks have already signed up but we have more openings.

If the trip tempts you, consider it an experiment. How would an exceptionally well-fed week feel? Submerged in everyday busyness, we scrap together our food, try to squeeze in exercise, and attempt to sufficiently rest. We do what we can to stay healthy. What if taking excellent care of yourself was easy, delicious, and felt good? Here is a chance to slow down from the usual demands, refill, and revive.

Here is more information: http://solyogatrips.com/trips/italy

Citing an array from examples from stock markets, health care, and education, he shuns overprotection and excessive intervention. Our first-world bubbles, Taleb warns us, shield us from physical vigor and thwart our adaptability.

Instead of wreaking havoc, he proposes, stress could build resilience. To be fair, Taleb makes an important distinction between acute stressors and chronic stressors. From chirping iPhones to jerks on the freeway we are perpetually bombarded with low-grade anxiety. If we perceive most stimuli as a threat, we become fatigued and convince ourselves of our fragility.

This lack of agency shapes our approach to exercise. Some examples:

• All-or-nothing thinking that results in doing nothing. We set our alarm for the  grueling, 6:00 am boot camp but end up repeatedly hitting the snooze button.
• We limit intensity and planes of movement. Shackled to the cardio machine’s misleading “fat burning zone,” we rehearse monotony. Our adaptations from exercise plateau.
• The ego refuses to risk novelty. Afraid looking like a loser, we opt out of movement variability and aerobic volatility.
• We stay indoors. We confine ourselves to sterile, climate-controlled gyms with flattering lighting.
• We expect to be spoon fed. If it’s not our favorite class, with our favorite teacher at our favorite studio, we won’t make it to yoga this week.
• We don’t practice relaxation. We exercise with maximum intensity and don’t allow time for recovery.
• We sit for hours each day and systematically avoid walking and any physical challenges.

Our comfort zones, both physical and emotional, will eventually kill us. A lack of equipment, time, or energy could turn us into resourceful MacGyvers of fitness. So how do we become more antifragile in both mind and body?

Taleb book brims with unorthodox health advice. To mimic the dietary irregularity of our ancestors, he suggests one day Paleo, next day vegan, and the next day fasting. His exercise recommendations focus on maximum barbell lifting. Instead of scrutinizing his advice, I’d rather broaden the application of his philosophy.

Would an antifragile program include everything from running, weights, and kangaroo wrestling? Not quite. Taleb advises against constant novelty. Being a dilettante doesn’t build fortitude like consistency does. An antifragile fitness routine would remind us that we can overcome obstacles. Especially if our minds created those obstacles. Here are some suggestions:

• Know what you can achieve with very little. Develop the “something is better than nothing” workout. Just show up. Make it feel good.
•  Know what you can achieve with a lot. Random events could be a boost like a workshop from a gifted teacher or the perfect conditions on marathon day.
•  Unpack the bias of your morphology and understand the limitations of preferred forms of exercise. If you are built like a gazelle, you will love running. If you look more like an ox, you will gravitate toward strength training. Yoga chicks should hit the weights while football players should try ballet.
• Let your injuries be your teachers. Aches, pains, and tweaks are inevitable but they don’t have to resign us to the bench. Learn how to realign and redirect to recover stronger and smarter.
• Emphasize mobility training. To shed the adaptations of sitting, master comfort and stability in a broad array movements and positions.
• Learn alignment to increase your load capacity. With a solid foundation you can move faster, longer, more frequently, and with heavier weights.
• Appreciate failure. If each workout is another experiment we learn as much from our “mistakes” as our success.
• Seek spontaneous opportunities for labor, walking, dancing, and playing with children. Perturbate your system.

Consistent yet varied training introduces the random into our routine. Beyond bone density and cardiovascular endurance, working our metabolizes our stressors. Exercising introspection, we change our perception of stress and improve adaptability. I apply the antifragile approach not to be unfeeling or harbor the illusion of being bulletproof. Life will continually test our resilience. With consistent practice, I realize that the body is more antifragile than the ego.

A cadaver is beyond naked. A body is donated under the assumption that it will be systematically exposed. I wondered if I could give my body to scientific study and be that undefended. As we unpacked this gift what I saw was as intriguing as what I didn’t see.

My group named our 96-year old cadaver Clyde and the first moment we revealed him my stomach gripped. When we uncovered him each morning, I struggled to view the entirety of his increasingly disfigured body. Yet the detailed scalpel work felt meditative and thousands of incisions slowly peeled him opened. As we palpated and removed each new tissue texture, I faced my vulnerability.

The leathery skin wore out many scalpel blades. Our porous boundary creates a remarkably permeable yet robust container. The famed fascia demonstrates the body’s inherent cohesion. I followed pathways of connective tissue that both joined and defined our infinite layers.

Although fat tissue is usually vilified, we discussed it’s roles beyond storing energy and self loathing. Adipose (fat tissue) protects, insulates, houses nerves, and acts as a regulating endocrine organ. Three of the four cadavers in our lab survived into their late eights and nineties with ample adipose on their frames.

As a movement enthusiast, I felt most “at home” with the muscles. Finally, structures I could name! When we contact theses tissues we understand ourselves as agents of action and will. But I quickly realized this is only a part of our whole.

Holding the heart and viscera, the serous membrane presented a new concept of the “core.” Our deepest organs function beyond typical conscious control yet reveal so much about our (un)consciousness.

The tidy images in anatomy references oversimplify our insides. Instead of color-coded pictures and chapters for each system, we are a wet web of twine, tubes, bags and bones. The textbooks deny our inherent cohesion and therefore resilience.

Examining an embalmed body is like touring the Coliseum to understand ancient Rome. The brilliant organization invites us to imagine history’s daily details. A dissection unveils pathology and surgeries like an archeological dig.

Upon death, I hope the only part of “me” left will be evidence that I took care of myself while the party lasted. If I send my remains to an anatomy lab, students can learn about the human body but won’t learn much about who I was. They won’t find my sense of humor gland, ligaments to my beloved nieces, or the membranes that held me together when I felt torn open. The most important parts of me aren’t in my tissues.

After enduring proximity to death, I’m still fascinated with our structure but more importantly, what animates us.  I saw how we move but not what moves us. Being dissected after death doesn’t sound as scary as living an unexamined life.

In April I’m attending Gil Hedley’s Hands-On Human Dissection Workshop. The travel will only require a commute into San Francisco but demand an expedition deep into the human body. Gil refers to the participants as “somanuats:” explorers of our inner space. We will unveil each layer: skin, fascia, muscle, bone, and viscera.

I’m eager yet anxious. I’ll face the stench of formaldehyde, learning to use a scalpel, and seeing a dead body for the first time. As I watch his dissection videos, I reassure myself why I signed up.

Over ten years ago my teacher, Glenn Black, sparked my interest in anatomy. He instructed, “Lift your ischial tuberosities” or “Externally rotate your glenohumeral joint.” His precise language amazed me and clarified the subtle actions of opaque poses. Anatomical terminology shines awareness into numb areas of the body. Our vocabulary informs how we imagine what’s submerged inside us.

Yet as a movement teacher and bodyworker I acknowledge the limitations of naming individual parts. Like many fitness professionals, I can fixate on the muscles without appreciation for their context. Studying kinesiology and physiology books is like studying a travel guide- helpful but limited compare to immersion. The graphic of a skeleton collapses us into two dimensions. Chapters on the nervous system, connective tissue, the digestive system segregate an interwoven matrix.

Gil’s approach as an integral anatomist finds continuities between our parts and asks participants to introspect. The slices I cut with my scalpel will create distinct tissues that I can recognize and name as landmarks. Yet the forms and movements that link our parts are most compelling. Opening up a gooey and brilliantly organized cadaver will reveal what is beyond my imagination and current vocabulary.

Iron teaches me so much. I pull, press, squat, and swing to interfere with iron’s strict loyalty to gravity.

Under the load of kettlebells and barbells I organize my bones and gather my breathing. My grip begins with my bare feet grabbing the floor. I marshal each joint along the kinetic chain to either lever power or brace against force. If my internal pressure conquers the external load, the weight moves.  But it’s only a momentary victory.

I monitor the usual, unruly suspects: my sway back and wobbly knees. The breath seems to always wander off. I’ve discovered my latissimus dorsi as the unsung heroes of the core.

It’s inaccurate to say that I do kettlebell or barbell training. When I rerack the weights, those stubborn chunks of mental haven’t learned a thing.

It’s all mental training. I construct games of counting reps, increasing weights,and planning programs. The ego is willing to keep training if the numbers increase. Strength training requires consistent, grounded, & efficient action. It forces me to get out of my ass in gear- literally. But most importantly, metal teaches me humility. Eventually, the iron always wins.

Slouched in spineless lethargy, we stare and poke at screens. Reality-based bodies suggest all our imperfections while commercials entice with mouth-watering yet toxic “food.” Numb and dazed, we forget our basic needs. As if sleep, real sustenance, movement, and fresh air are outdated vestiges.

Jarred by vanity we may demand the body to perform: diet into a bikini or run a marathon. By pummeling ourselves into shape, exercise becomes another form of abuse. With years of neglect or punishment, it’s no surprise when the body revolts in pain. When simple tasks like carrying groceries become unfeasible, aging feels like a betrayal.

Our individual suffering represents a collective health crisis. We face an epidemic of hypokinetic disease: illnesses from a lack of movement. It’s not a recent phenomenon, sports medicine pioneer Han Kraus coined hypokinetic disease in 1961. He lamented how civilized society creates lives of “caged animals.” He emphasized the value of exercise for emotional release as well as cardiovascular health. Instead of heeding his call, we incarcerated ourselves deeper into cubicles and cars. The comfort and supposed safety of our cages is killing us.

Despite our predicament, I see hope. Like the food industry’s recent shifts, the fitness community is changing. Beyond the screaming celebrity trainers and six-minute ab infomercials, we are seeing beyond the quick fix. Fitness is about more than a finish line or parading around on the beach.

Divergent modalities from Crossfit to Zumba are rediscovering conscious movement. Physical trainers, yoga teachers, and bodyworkers address hypokinetic disease with movement awareness, variability, intensity, and pleasure.  We are not just unraveling the neck or strengthening the core but facing the mystery of embodiment and building a sense self.  As we re-educate the body and train the mind, we liberate ourselves.

When talking fitness with my dad he asks, “What about physical labor for exercise?” He relishes the demands of construction, farming, and operating a plant nursery. In the information age a job that supports physical vitality is a rare “privilege.”

Although the human body is designed for rigorous work, we have engineered our way out of it. As a fitness trainer I’m paid to devise artificial labor for the desk-bound. One colleague joked that his clients should carry him around town in a rickshaw. (He acknowledged that wouldn’t be a sound business strategy.)

Desk jockeys often say they “don’t work with their bodies.” I contend that we all work with our bodies.  How could you possibility report for duty without your body?

Regardless of our professional demands, exercise can be an antidote. Whether operating a PC or a hammer, our jobs take a toll on the body and mind. Repetitive tasks limit our movement variability and build habitual postures. Office work especially locks us into a narrow range of motion.

Unfortunately, modern gyms perpetuate many of our work patterns. We stay inside, stare at screens, and sit on equipment that supposedly makes us stronger. Exercise feels like work!

I suggest we reframe fitness by unplugging from the machines and inviting some playful curiosity. With introspection, our movement practice can reveal and reset our work habits. As we unclog chronic stress and address our tweaks we realign our muscles and mentality. We establish patterns to build strength and cardiovascular endurance. Most importantly, we’ll refresh our appetite for movement. When opportunities for manual labor or vigorous play come along, we take them with delight.

Without self-propelled transportation and manual labor we have lost the necessity and efficiency of movement. Eventually, we perceive both physical work and play as too arduous to handle.  If we exercise to clear our minds and clarify our movements we may survive our affluence.

For reals? Do they realize that I quit soccer in middle school? And during my 8^th grade dance recital I leapt into the air and landed with an humiliating thump?

In my Athleta application I outlined my thwarted athletic career:

As a chubby girl on my rural, co-ed soccer team, puberty hit hard. Playing alongside the boys felt increasingly intimidating as my lady parts emerged. After that dance performance, some of my classmates made fun of me so I hid in the bathroom and cried.  During high school gym I wanted to disappear in my frumpy, grey sweats. Draped in sedentary shame, I gave up on organized sports and dance.

As an overweight adult I wandered into a yoga class. Yoga immediately gave me a refreshing new way to live in my skin. Craving ease, grace, and physical competency, I began attending classes several times a week.

I stepped onto the mat 13 years ago and it’s been a magic carpet ride ever since. I lost over 40 lbs., peeled off those layers of shame, and reorganized myself. Ten years ago I started teaching yoga and can’t imagine more gratifying work.

Being chosen by Athleta sparks whispers of old insecurities. How will I look in their lovely designs? Should I try to lose weight before the announcement? Am I really an athlete?

I remind myself that we all face these doubts as we step into the game and the public eye. Trying yoga or a new sport is intimidating. If you are out of shape, joining a gym is daunting. When I teach Yoga Basics, I support newbies moving through the awkward, unfamiliar poses. I marvel at their bravery. I’ve so been there. The judgments of others are never as nasty as our inner critic.

Even with the Ahleta annoucement, I still squirm under the title of “athlete.” As a teenager, I walked off the playing field as a failed competitor. I could still be on the sidelines but as an adult I discovered my own movement practice.

Now, I’m surrounded by athletes as the In-house Yogi at Clif Bar & Co. (Many of which claim yoga is the harder than any sport.) I’m much more at ease with the title of “teacher.” Whether mental or physical,  I’m committed to removing obstacles to movement. Everyone may not be a competitive athlete but we all need to understand our personal movement medicine.

(You may wonder what being a Sponsored Athlete means. This year I’ll write for the Athleta Chi Blog and hold in-store teaching events. Biggest perk: Feeling awesome in the Athleta clothes!)

I wonder about change that lasts beyond the first few weeks of the year. Goals and training programs can be useful- temporarily. When suffering through the reps and begging the scale for progress, exercise is reduced to a means to an ends. What if we don’t achieve our goals? What if we do? Are our goals reasonable? Does the program make sense?

Two possible scenarios:

You set a goal weight and start a weight lifting program. Your weight doesn’t change substantially but your new strength makes you feel hotter than ever.

After a fitness hiatus, you sign up for a punishing, early morning boot camp.  You don’t end up making it out of bed and feel like a loser. A few months later you find an evening hip hop dance class that’s more fun and just as challenging.

Even if the goals go unmet or the program doesn’t work, the important part is learning what keeps you going.

I started yoga 13 years ago on a lark. It changed my body but more importantly, it shifted my perspective. It strengthened my introspection as much as my muscles. I understood the roots of my behaviors so I could figure out what I was able to change and what I needed to accept. All my yoga intensives, dietary experiments, and exercise plans were stepping stones on a longer path.

I wasn’t always chasing a goal or following a prescribed program. Conscious change is often messy, confusing, and never finished. If we practice for change we will eventually surpass each goal and program. We will shed these temporary containers of transformation and keep moving.

Beyond the din of festivities, the superego insists on punishing cardiovascular atonement. Yet as I settle into practice, a calm emerges. I submerge into down dog and crawl through standing poses. Squat. Vinyasa. Lunge. Handstand for an upside down. Backbend for an inside out. Lay down. Breathe.

No heavy weights or buckets of sweat. My baseline is pleasurable, intuitive mobility. I only use my bodyweight and am preferably outside. In half an hour, I polish my insides, uncover tidbits of awareness, and prepare myself for teaching. I could show off for the pedestrian eye but my inner observer sees plenty of needed improvement.

Our physical feats all have an expiration date. Age will reclaim all the trophy poses, personal records, and heroic athletics. The “all or nothing” mentality doesn’t age well. What endures?

Knowledge of self, earned through consistency, remains. I practice without supervision, machines, a dedicated space, or an audience. I take vacations off and get back on track. I own my inertia.

Why does this feel like bragging? Why is this unusual? We often yank ourselves between a sedentary stupor and punishing exercise. Understanding movement medicine is a perplexing health crisis of our time. Everyday I challenge myself to know and take the appropriate dosage. Push or permit? Rest or exert?

Several times a week I do a version of this workout: It’s my reset button. Other days I work harder by running stair intervals, training with kettlebells, attending a class or exercising alongside my highly skilled clients. Even as I preach the principals of sustainable movement pangs of insecurity suggest I push harder. As a movement educator, protecting myself from hypocrisy keeps me motivated and honest with my abilities.

Modern living requires a regular reboot. Beyond temporary physical accomplishments, I know what’s healthy for me, I do it, and it feels good. What rebalances us is not the most intense but the most consistent and pleasurable