Earlier I'd posted about having a belly full of fried shrimp and noodles, and not feeling like going to class. Well, I made it, and it was a good one. I feel much better. Unfortunately it is already time for bed, and only NOW do I feel that good energy running through me.
One trick I've learned for motivating myself, especially if I'm holed up in my bed with my laptop directly in front of me, unable and unwilling to move an inch, except for my fingers tapping away on the keyboard and my eyeballs to the upper right hand corner of the screen to check how much longer until I am ripped from my zone of comfort (forget yoga, this is MY pose!), is a few minutes of cardiovascular exercise. This is also good for when you feel depressed, or sad, or bored, or angry. Just a few minutes - no huge commitment. I recently bought a skipping rope for this purpose; you could also do a few jumping jacks interspersed with push-ups, a couple lunges, jogging on the spot, star jumps, some pilates abs, etc. I tend to stay away from burpees and mountain climbers, as they are made of rotten celery, and should be banned from exercise regimes worldwide. Ugh. But I would mention here that before I had a skipping rope I would sort of skip on the spot as though I had one, ever since one of my crazy will-of-steel students gave me the idea when she told me that she lost a bunch of weight through skipping for something like four hours a day, on the instruction of her professors at the fitness college she attended. Please don't think this is a normal thing to do - this happened in Korea. Actually she permanently injured her feet doing this and developed a severe case of edema - I've seen the black, blue and bloody pictures to prove it and it honestly looks as though she might have had to get her feet amputated (she didn't). Disturbing, yes, (very - especially considering her instructors AND PARENTS encouraged her to continue skipping even after her feet had begun their descent into puffy, bloody bundles of pus, which is one of the reasons they got so bad, the other reason being that, hello, she was skipping for 4 hours a day. She only stopped after she was literally unable to walk and in the freaking hospital) but anyway she remained adamant that jumping rope was the best cardiovascular exercise known to human. So, like I said, I'd been sort of pretending to jump rope without anything in my hands for the better part of a year during my exercise routines, until I broke down and bought a jump rope.
Well holy crap, it's not easy, is it?! Yeah, just slightly harder with the actual rope. Try it. It's not just for kids. (Although if you have a kid, this is also of course a great purchase. Do kids still jump rope? I hope so. The kids at the elementary school I worked at two years ago were reasonably non-adverse to exercise, which was a relief to me.)
Anyway, yes, I began to feel better immediately after I did a bit of cardio, and that also got my stomach rumbling a bit and moving that heavy food through my system.
Now, I should also state that there has been an elephant in the blog, because I have failed to expand upon the fact that the weekend of my cousin's wedding, I missed not one, not two, but THREE classes on my challenge! What is funny is that on the actual day of her wedding, the day I had thought it would be impossible to attend, I made it to class. Friday was insanely busy with the rehearsal and dinner, Sunday was a complete write-off, and then on Monday I didn't realize that because it was a holiday, several of the evening classes were cancelled. (I even made my way to the studio only to be turned around and told to go back home.) So, although this is Day 35 of my 50 Day Challenge, I really have only been to 32 classes, and since the break over that weekend, seven contiguous classes, including today's.
Although having to do three doubles at some point over the next two weeks is going to suck ass (yes, by the way, I am on the home stretch of this challenge with just two measly weeks left!) - I must say that the little break I took there absolutely recharged me. The slate was wiped clean and I like it. Maybe missing only one class would have done the trick, but it happened the way it happened and all I can do now is ensure that I complete the 50 classes by the last day of my Challenge. Heaven forbid - I repeat Heaven. Forbid - I don't complete this challenge after coming this far and spending four years brooding about the fact that I failed to complete my 60 Day Challenge back in 2008. Oh wait, that's practically five years. Yes, well, come hell or high water I will finish this Challenge intact.
I have certainly had my ups and downs over the past month or so, and I do not push to my edge and kill myself every single class, but overall it's been great. I'd say I've had about seven really tough classes in total, where I was pretty useless, red-faced, and limited in what I could do, and the rest have been reasonably strong for the amount that I am going. By no means am I feeling like my body has been overworked or overstretched, or in a weakened condition. I did feel that for a while there when I probably wasn't eating or sleeping enough, but now I am, and I feel like the proverbial Bengal Tiger. My flexibility has improved, my will is strong, I tell my wandering mind what to think and when not to think, and sometimes it even follows my instructions, I have a fair amount of energy, and my overall level of pain in different areas of my body has decreased. I was worried that at this point I'd be in a fragile state. I have still managed to keep off that 5.5 pounds, (which was gained weight - this was not a new loss), but I stress that it is mostly through adjusting my diet and being much more careful about what I'm eating than one might imagine getting 90 minutes plus of exercise daily, but like I've said in the past, my body doesn't seem to consider Bikram Yoga a calorie burning activity. So fucking annoying. And as an addendum to that, with work and my social life, downtime, and of course the two hour commitment to yoga every day, I haven't really done much else in the way of exercise beyond daily commute walking or biking, and little five, ten or twenty minute routines here and there. Not nothing, but not nearly as much as usual. I have this free-weight arms workout that I do every few days because I am concerned about my arms getting more toned. (Same with my abs, but I've been neglecting that as of late.)
I miss other styles of yoga and pilates especially, and the main reason (not the only reason) I'll be happy once this challenge is over is that I'll have the time to start incorporating other forms of exercise into my days, especially at this time of year. I love being outside and moving my body. When I don't feel like doing the typical outdoors activities I will absolutely plop myself down in the middle of a crowded, grassy area and do a full pilates routine, which people find quite weird. (That's actually my favourite, and yes I get lots of looks, and no I don't appear to be any kind of advanced pilates practitioner! I don't give a shit.) I also love to swim and jog at the beach. We really only get two or three months worth of great weather in this city and I will take full advantage of that, alongside a Bikram Yoga practice of about three times a week. I wouldn't want to dip below that after all the progress I've made, but we shall see how it goes.
Namsies. (I have no idea what that means.)
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