I was just not feeling it today. I kind of wanted to stay home and curl up in a ball. Usually I can't wait to get to the gym, but today was more of a "let's just get it over with", potentially because I'm hitting that point where my muscles are starting to feel every workout and my legs are moaning softly each time I go up the stairs. I decided today would be a good day for hot yoga. I hadn't tried it out yet. I feel like I am doing way better than I have in any of my previous attempts to "get fit and lose weight". Potentially my motivation is different, but so is my approach. I feel like something in me just clicked when I went to that first Yoga Tune-Up class and really enjoyed it. I was no longer just trying to lose weight, but I wanted to have that freedom of movement to be able to do these exercises. Even though in the back of my mind I really want to lose 65 pounds, I feel like getting good at Yoga and building my strength have taken the forefront in my drive to get active.
My imagery of hot yoga - even though I could clearly see into the room - was something like trying to do yoga in a steam room and I could t fathom how we could get that much steam into a room that big with that many people in it. And I'm trying to picture - how is mould not an issue in this room? I don't know where this idea came from, because it's not even close to reality. It's closer to a sauna, but even then not really. This is just like they cranked the thermostat up about 5-10 degrees and then we do yoga in there. I feel as though it gets you to sweat a little bit more (which is good) and it also helps to relax the muscles because you are in a warmer setting. I was thinking that since I'm a little sore, stretching out my muscles in a warm environment might be a great idea (and it was). I love the heat, so when we lay on our mats with our eyes closed it was like lying on a beach in the sun, minus the sun burn. It didn't take long to start sweating though, and profusely. I don't think I've ever sweat that much in my life. If you picture sweating as your body discharging all of the negative it doesn't need, then sweating insanely is a good thing. I had to buy a towel, I had meant to bring one and left in such a hurry I forgot. I had sweat pouring off me as I'm trying to do the exercises. Some of them were a little more challenging for what I was used to, and there were a couple that I have no idea if I was doing it right or not (or even what exactly we were trying to do), but the nice thing about these classes is that there is room to modify to fit your body needs. So even if I wasn't doing it quite right, I could still do a similar stretch in a way that made sense to me. The instructors often repeat to drop your shoulders away from your ears, and keep your hips straight, and the one I hear the most is the important of a straight or neutral spine. I know that as long as I am keeping these things in line, my stretch probably has "some" benefit.
This class started with a fair bit of mumbo jumbo. "Find your inner peace." "Take this time to give back to yourself." "Feel the connection between your body and the space around it." Contemplate your navel. Yeah. I got it. Just play relaxing music and tell us to shut up for two minutes.
It wasn't my favourite Yoga class, but I still enjoyed it. This was probably the first class where I checked my watch a few times to see if it was over yet (but also the only one I've done without a clock clearly visible in the room). Not because I wasn't enjoying it, but because I was sweating profusely and hoping I had done the full 75 minutes already. When we lay on the mats at the end of the class, that was pure bliss.
I like how she made connections to Michelangelo and how he would look at a slab of marble and picture the finished sculpture already inside; his work was to chisel away the excess to reveal the inner beauty. I have NO idea how this connected to us or the practice because I was only half listening, but still pretty intellectual - something about finding the inner soul or something. Too much mumbo jumbo for me.
I think that after today, I am really happy with the pattern of doing an intense class, and then a day or two of more low-key classes, like the Yoga stuff. I have my setup for next week all laid out: The training stuff on Tuesday where I get my butt kicked, Yoga Tune-Up with the cute guy on Wednesday, Yoga Balance on Thursday, rinse and repeat. It gave me that "push-yourself" kind of work out to help improve my strength and build muscles, but then rather than "not go" for two days to "recover" (I know if I tried this it would be the end of my workout-a-day saga and potentially me working out anymore period) I can still to that "push yourself" day, and then go back to my Yoga go-tos while I give my muscles a break and a chance to recover. It's fool-proof, right?I'm pretty sure I'm going to the drumming class tomorrow to get in some cardio and work my leg muscles with all of our squats. I really liked her class last week. It was intense, but really good.
I am really worried about what is going to happen when I go back to school in September. I'm not entirely sure I can make these workouts fit in with my schedule, and it's going to mean falling off the wagon hard-core. I am worried that once I start the daily workouts, and possibly even once I start getting weighed down by schoolwork, I will just stop going, and I'll be back to where I was. I'm 17 days into my daily gym saga and I haven't lost any weight. I was down four pounds before my trip to Niagara Falls, and then I put it all back on (a 4 lb swing isn't uncommon with my body). So really, I'm still where I started. I know it's going to be slow-going, but a lot of "come lose weight" articles all talk about how losing 10-15 lbs in your first month isn't unheard of. Then it slows down after that. If I can't even lose the 10-15 in the first month, how am I ever going to lose it after? I won't say I'm modifying my diet drastically, but I am paying a little more attention to what I am eating, and tracking it all with my fitness tracker. Most, if not all days I am under the recommended caloric intake. I found I'm also not super hungry. I used to snack all the time, and snacking while I'm working at my computer is a big bad habit of mine. It may be another form of procrastination, but I typically eat while I'm working at home with marking or school work, and this can involve mostly eating junk food like chips, cookies, crackers, and other stuff that contributes like nothing to a healthy diet. I need to make sure when I go back in September that I have healthy snack food on hand so that I am not eating chips and the like nearly as much. More goals... exercise and healthy food... sounds so awful, right? I'm not 20 anymore, I can't sit on the couch and binge on junk food anymore.
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