MAN ALIVE...IT'S DAY 45!

Celebration! I lost 15 pounds, 7 ½ inches, and my life was transformed

After my triumphant final class was a surprise party by Rhonda and attended by fellow yogis Zach Moses, and Jill Studnicki who is currently halfway through a 30 day hot yoga challenge of her own!  The party gave me tremendous joy and validation and gratitude in so many ways, thank you.  I received special gifts of a purple and yellow honorary Buddha prayer scarf from Rhonda and the book; “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin from Jill, which she says explains her reason to want to do a challenge. I will be reading it on the beach on my well-deserved vacation! 

It took a few days to really let the full achievement sink in my psyche.  This was a new and interesting season in my life. We all experience seasons that come into our lives for period of time and then leave, not always pleasant, but which serve a purpose, or share a lesson, or encompass a relationship. Some seasons are very pleasant and we never want them to end, this is one season’s fruit I want to savor for a long time.

I feel as if I have just climbed a huge mountain and as I descend some sadness comes to me. I am not saying goodbye, just moving into a new season. I still have so much to learn, and my forehead still doesn’t touch my knee, and that darn sit up is so far from perfect! 

I am really looking forward my long vacation and getting back to a normal routine. I am a little afraid I will lose what I have been building and be back at square one when I come home a few weeks from now!  The most seasoned yogis know the practice needs to be consistent to get the benefits.

To extract my personal 45 day Hot Yoga Challenge experience in a few honest words: "It was a personal journey with multi-faceted growth, like a well cut and polished diamond held in the sunlight, the experience radiates beautiful rainbows showing the world its beauty and light, created over time from the natural pressures and progression of the earth’s, or yoga’s forces, compacting and building to create to the final beauty." 

Sparkle and Shine my friend, sparkle and shine and be the unique and precious gem you solely are meant to be!    Namaste

43, 44....

Day 43 – Another double duty day Tuesday, a 9:30 am and a 6:45 pm class. I like the flexibility I have coming into the second session from working earlier in the morning, and I still feel really good at the end of the day, but once a day is really enough unless you are on some kind of mission, as I am to finish what I set out to do way back on July 5^th.

I am so close to the finish line! I have absolutely no regrets. It was a challenge to get to hot yoga daily - to schedule it, to stick to it -  and now I am stronger and healthier and happier; the cumulative benefits absolutely far outweigh any inconveniences to my schedule.

My skin is so much softer that I keep feeling my arms as I drive down  the road, of course I can do this with no one looking at me, as I smooth my hands over my forearms and say ooohh smooth!  40 some days ago, my skin was not such a pleasure to caress.  All this sweating and detoxing is reflected in eyes as well, they were blue before, but they are a brighter blue now.  I feel like a child in a way, happy to be me, smiling on the inside just because I am alive, not really thinking about what the world sees, but how I see the world.

Day 44

Day 44 – 6:45pm class, Hump day always packs the Heat, it’s a fuller class and the energy in the room is high with all different people coming from their own daily busy walks of life to join in this ritual.

I have to give it credit as a ritual because of the holistic approach it has, it’s your body and your mind, working every part, the skin, the blood, the organs, the muscles, and the brain, all in just 90 minutes. It may seem like a long time, but it’s not really.

When I make it through the first series I think it’s such a long way to go, and I already worked so hard, then comes standing balancing series and I think once I get through this the hardest part is over, then we get to lie down for the floor poses and finish working up to the two major mountain poses of the series. There we work the spine, the life blood of our bodies, the whole class is designed to lead to just this point.

The sheer accomplishment of going further in these hot yoga poses and getting the “shimmer” effect is amazing. It’s a bit scary at first, but once you do it for a while the appreciation kicks in and you look forward to each hot yoga class.

Then the cool down poses and final spinal twist cap off the class, wrenching every last bit of toxins out of the body, it’s like wringing out a dirty wet sponge! I feel so much better and one day I will be able to do it with both legs bent.  As the old commercial for Virginia Slims song goes, “I have come a long way baby to get where I am today” and yet I still have a long way to go. 

This journey is far from over for me and I will continue to grow and explore and share my experiences over the next year.  I will check in monthly to share the long run results.

I want to send a big thanks to all those who have come along this far, reading along and letting me pour out my heart and soul and share my personal experiences. Even as far away as Connecticut! Your support has been as rewarding to me as the journey itself, thank you.

We all have a journey in life, each one’s is a little different, as we all are unique and special, sometimes we forget that, but don’t, because you truly are the best and only you, that you can be, no matter where you are in life or how you got here, you did the best you could with what you had at that time.  So don’t be hard on yourself, celebrate “you” with all your goofy quirks and silly ways, truly be happy and the rest is easy. I promise.

My hot yoga friend

Did you ever have one of those days where you tell yourself, “I just don’t have time for Hot Yoga today"?

I foolishly told myself that today and it's been a crazy day all day long. 

Math homework, the CH-10 quiz confusing me to no end, then I needed a break. I still have to do all of CH-12 by midnight Sunday, which should take me 20 hours to read the book, do the homework, and then take the 45 minute quiz online, with no credit for almost-right answers.

Took the dogs for a long walk on the canal, thinking some fresh air and sunshine would get me back on track. And I absolutely needed to go to the car wash, because of the weird orange slime that splashed up on the driver’s side door that I managed to pick up on Thursday’s Funeral procession, or what I like to call Macie’s Wild Ride, which started in Levittown at the Funeral Home, went to the Cheltenham Cemetery, and ended in North East Philly at luncheon with my family before heading home to Point Pleasant.

Back to today...

From the Canal Path I went to New Hope, thinking they must have a car wash;but I could not find it, so I headed to Doylestown’s Do It Yourself bays, and on a Saturday the traffic is so much fun, “not!”  At the car wash I put the money the # 4 slot, while my car was in the #3 bay.  I told the guy in bay 4, “Hey I gave you a bunch of extra time!” and he just looked at me like I was speaking another language. I used my $5 bill and now I had to use my $10 bill and I ended up with a bunch of extra tokens.

Heading home I crossed paths with the 21^st Annual Pilgrimage Walk - hundreds of people walk all the way from the Great Meadows Polish Church in New Jersey to the Czestochowa Shrine in Doylestown…. I waved at all the people as they walked past my idling car, talked to my dogs, and one handsome hunk even leaned in the window and thanked me for my patience. Not all tedious!

I still didn’t get the homework done, and I skipped hot yoga for it, and it's getting later. 

My daughter left for a week at shore today with all her 20 something friends and left groceries in our fridge, which I had to drop off in Doylestown, before I dinner at an old friends house, something that has been planned for weeks...and my homework is still nagging at me. 

A crazy day... and skipping my hot yoga practice did not make it any better; I think it made it worse.

Lesson learned, I am never really too busy for Hot Yoga and it’s not worth the wrecked karma that ensues. I was seriously tossing around just cutting my 45 Day Hot Yoga Challenge at 38 days and getting “other” things done. But no: I will make up my missed classes and do the best I can to get 45 practices in 45 days, so it's double hot yoga classes a few times on this last week.

Hot Yoga is becoming a regular part of me, and a good friend. You don't let go of a good friend so easily.

Same hot yoga, different hot results. That's cool.

Day 36 & 37 – Hot Yoga is the same 26 poses, same heat and humidity, same sequence of the posts every time, yet class is not the same. 

On night 36 I was overwhelmed with the heat of the room, it was a dizzy, kind of hot and I took off half of some poses on the last 2/3rds of the series. this kind of made me mad at myself, that it was just too much for me.

But on night 37, I went further, felt better, did more, even standing bow and T position were kind of fun to conquer! 

I don’t know why these two nights, which in most respects are very much the same, resulted in two totally unique and different practices.  This is one of the reasons Hot Yoga is so “personally” challenging. It is really about what’s directly happening with me and only me, whether I can explain it or blame it on something else, it’s still me.

There is a level of acceptance that comes with this challenge that is really very healthy. It’s good to realize that, I am not super women every day just because I do this one thing. I am a super woman, because every day when I do this one thing, I do it the best I can!

Two hot yoga classes in one day!

Day 34 & 35 – It’s a double bonus day! I did two classes today, because somehow I messed up my schedule, probably residual from Sunday’s issues and maybe partly a subconscious effort to get a day off!  Anyhow, I showed up at studio, but it was the wrong time, so I missed a day. It’s technically “legal” on a challenge to get all the classes done in the time frame no matter when or how you do them. I’m still good!

It was not as bad as I thought it would be I did the morning class at 9:30am and the evening class at 6:45pm. I gave my best efforts in both classes, but with only one set of each back strengthening pose at night, since I was in a bit of recovery for it.  Instructor Arielle says, “If she can teach two in one day, I can do two in one day!”   

I am determined to finish what I started. I do think that 30 days would have been plenty for a challenge, but I tend to think big. I am still looking for long term results and I think being able to practice 3-5 days a week will really benefit me the most, as I can rest a day and then work harder when I am there.

I am looking forward to losing 50 pounds, that’s my real goal. It may take several months of practice but at least I have proven to myself it’s doable. I re-thought about having to work and do a hot yoga challenge and I realized, that I am actually working, since my math class takes about 6 hours a day, so I feel good about that, because when I get back to work I will still need to do yoga, especially depending on what kind of job finds me.

A desk job is what got me into this shape in the first place; I will need Hot Yoga more than ever if I ever have to sit all day at a desk again!